I feel like I can push back on your premise here, or at least offer a dissenting point of view.
Your idea, if I may submit a paraphrase, is that the issues at contention in the "culture war" are political in their essence, not "cultural" in some sense of opposition to "politics". Laws and speeches centered on behavioral restrictions or freedoms, national symbolism, identity, etc. are a necessary and appropriate part of politicking, and it is imperative that we engage with these matters in political terms. Having an "open society", like with democracy, just means that you have to be willing to compromise or to lose. Feel to correct me if I've mischaracterized you.
I have a different perspective on this. First, I would claim that we've gone through a remarkable cultural shift since the Industrial Revolution (partly presaged by the global mercantilism that preceded it) which is not just a difference in economics and technology. All of the many aspects of our social systems -- culture, politics, law, art, economics, religion, etc. -- have *differentiated* themselves from one another in an unprecedented way. In agrarian societies, various social practices of different types would form a highly coherent "package" that defined each society within the bounds of some time period and geography. Cultures are never totally monolithic, so the details have always been mutable for a good portion of the population, but the unity of the "package" was critical to a well-functioning society. Industrialization and globalization have blasted these things apart into each their own orbit, although certainly independent spheres can be understood to interact. An "open society" is exactly the society which seeks to keep different aspects society from becoming confused and tangled out of this differentiated state.
I highly recommend Mark Lilla's excellent book, "The Stillborn God" as a point of reference to this argument. His thesis is that, starting from Hobbes, there has been a consistent program in European and American societies to separate political ideology (and by extension, political institutions and processes) from theology (and by extension, religion). He traces this development up to the doorstep of WWII.
I wrote a long paper a few years ago which charts a similar development in our conceptions of laws and rights. My interest was less in the history of American or other legal systems, and more in how our underlying concepts about how laws and rights apply to individuals have shifted from identifying the individual as a member of a political or social class to identifying the individual as an individual. And American Constitutionalism happens to coincide (fortuitously?) with the first phase of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. You can read it on Researchgate:
My second claim is that the "culture war" is borne out of a mis-placed yearning for spiritual or religious expression. Humans have a deep need for participative rituals, and traditional religions, particularly Christianity, just are not adequate to the demands of contemporary society. The politicization of evangelicals in this country is a sign of rot and putrefaction, not a future that most people want to inhabit if they could see the outcome now. In this view, the problem with the "culture war" is that it is NOT, actually, political OR religious, but politics pretending to be religion or vice versa. Because these now-differentiated spheres of social activity can still be mingled in practice, we can produce a hybrid political theology of sorts, but it ends up just being the stupidest version of both those things rolled together. I wrote about this problem, and my proposed solution at length in an article published by Arc this March:
So, my recommendation on the politics of the "culture war" is to message to the masses how the whole imbroglio is unutterably asinine and cynical, in the hopes they will realize that they should take their lives more seriously.
I'm curious to hear how or if you might disagree with these ideas.
I think I’d say that I’m arguing viewing something as being essentially either political or cultural isn’t quite right. Culture is crucially relevant to politics in such a way that we can’t dismiss cultural fights as politically unimportant or irrelevant. An open society is built around pluralism and the free expression and coexistence of worldviews. And that’s actually pretty hard to achieve and sustain because people have a tendency to want to impose their values, truth claims, and views. I don’t so much think it’s a necessary aspect of politicking as I think it’s an unavoidable area of political conflict. I want the separation of church and state, the preservation of freedoms of expression, and the promotion of mutual toleration. But the pluralism that all of that springs from is pretty hard to foster and maintain. Cultural fights like the ones we’re seeing are inherently political because they’re about what kind of view of the world has a dominant position in our society. In a more general way, they’re about whether pluralism is even good. But the other things I discuss, like consumerism and self-branding are ways that the things that make us cultural creatures—the things we buy, how we interact with various goods and services, the way we perform and project ourselves out into the world—naturally dovetail with politics and political messaging. And the moment we’re in has made a lot of that more available, which I think is tied as you said to a decline in other outlets for community and meaning making like church and civic organizations.
So in terms of your argument, I agree with plenty of it. The last few centuries have absolutely witnessed significant changes in all these areas, as well as professionalization. I also agree that many basic human needs are currently not being adequately met in contemporary America, particularly many of our social and communal needs.
I do think you’re overstating the divisions that exist between areas of human activity though. Culture, as I’m using it here, includes a broad set of beliefs and understandings about the world. And I don’t think we can talk about politics without talking about how politics is shaped and limited by culture and the popular imagination about what is and what isn’t, what’s possible and what’s impossible, etc.
I do think a lot of the culture war fights as they’re being fought are asinine and cynical, but they still turn on fundamental questions about society and self. And that means they’re also political fights.
Part of my argument is that many "political" issues brought forth in the culture war shouldn't be political at all, even where they are a source of cultural conflict. Much in our ethical lives should be a matter of conscience and character and social norms, not a matter of law. The setting of tax rates absolutely should be a political matter and laws need to be passed to govern the collection of taxes. The regulation of consensual sex shouldn't be a political matter but it definitely needs to be regulated by some moral percepts, and it is entirely fair for people to argue about this and impose social penalties on those who broach their preferred percepts. But arguments should play out in books, articles, personal interactions, etc. If, for instance, evangelicals believe that homosexuality is evil, they can make they case "from the pulpit", so to speak. It's a sign of weakness and insecurity when one "side" decides that they can only "win" a moral argument by passing a law and imposing draconian penalties; rudeness and ostracism can be salutary. One critique of the culture war is that it allows politics to swallow things that could be politicized, but shouldn't. The goal, therefore, on some of these matters should be depoliticization, not political triumph.
My claim about history isn't that these domains of social activity are "divided", but that they have *differentiated* themselves from one another in unprecedented ways, and that this change is more profound than we often realize. This doesn't mean that they don't interact, but rather that the internal dynamics of each domain are primary in shaping phenomena in the domain, rather than the feedback/feedforward mechanisms deriving from such interactions. I'll give you an example. Previously, a monarch and his government would be understood to have been chosen or anointed by God (or a God in polytheistic cultures), and the symbolism and ritual practice around this divine relationship would be a prime source of legitimacy. We see this with the English monarch as head of the Church of England even today, but this is an old, old idea in agrarian societies, and not one to be dismissed. By contrast, anybody publicly claiming to be chosen by God in American democracy as a source of legitimacy in his or her elected role is probably a megalomaniacal dipshit who should be kept as far away from public office as possible. This is an epochal change in the way that society organizes itself. It isn't just limited to politics and religion. My essay on laws & rights was about the legal system has differentiated itself from structures of economic and social classes.
In my view, the best argument for an "open society" is a developmental argument, which explains why this type of broad social engagement has evolved, and why it is necessary for this current epoch. But this view has consequences: some disputes are historically appropriate and healthy, while others are about the past attempting to foreclose the future. The latter must be resisted.
Oh I don’t really disagree with much of that. But I think where we diverge is that I see the achievement of protections against the sort of encroachments you describe as a political fight and not really better achieved by trying to depoliticized the issues. Big cultural ideas like divine right or religious mores or the value of diversity are necessarily also political fights, and advancing a society where as many different views and individuals can freely exists and stake a claim on the public sphere requires winning political fights about speech protections, minority rights, and the inherent value of pluralism. And because this involves the way people imagine themselves and the world around them and make and mediate meaning in that world, they’re also inherently cultural.
They're political fights for the moment, but, for me, what's needed is kind of religious or spiritual revival that draws some of the energy out of the political conflict -- because it belongs elsewhere to begin with. Until that happens, we're sort of stuck culturally.
We probably disagree on what such a revival would look like. I don't believe that Christianity is well-suited to this project. In fact, none of the traditional Axial Age religions are. (This isn't to discount their importance historically, or what we can learn from them). Neither is "Science" with-a-capital-S. My view is that there is an imperative to create something new, and people need to wake up to it.
I suspect there's a lot we could discuss on this topic, because we seem to agree mostly on how civil society should be structured.
Alan--
I feel like I can push back on your premise here, or at least offer a dissenting point of view.
Your idea, if I may submit a paraphrase, is that the issues at contention in the "culture war" are political in their essence, not "cultural" in some sense of opposition to "politics". Laws and speeches centered on behavioral restrictions or freedoms, national symbolism, identity, etc. are a necessary and appropriate part of politicking, and it is imperative that we engage with these matters in political terms. Having an "open society", like with democracy, just means that you have to be willing to compromise or to lose. Feel to correct me if I've mischaracterized you.
I have a different perspective on this. First, I would claim that we've gone through a remarkable cultural shift since the Industrial Revolution (partly presaged by the global mercantilism that preceded it) which is not just a difference in economics and technology. All of the many aspects of our social systems -- culture, politics, law, art, economics, religion, etc. -- have *differentiated* themselves from one another in an unprecedented way. In agrarian societies, various social practices of different types would form a highly coherent "package" that defined each society within the bounds of some time period and geography. Cultures are never totally monolithic, so the details have always been mutable for a good portion of the population, but the unity of the "package" was critical to a well-functioning society. Industrialization and globalization have blasted these things apart into each their own orbit, although certainly independent spheres can be understood to interact. An "open society" is exactly the society which seeks to keep different aspects society from becoming confused and tangled out of this differentiated state.
I highly recommend Mark Lilla's excellent book, "The Stillborn God" as a point of reference to this argument. His thesis is that, starting from Hobbes, there has been a consistent program in European and American societies to separate political ideology (and by extension, political institutions and processes) from theology (and by extension, religion). He traces this development up to the doorstep of WWII.
I wrote a long paper a few years ago which charts a similar development in our conceptions of laws and rights. My interest was less in the history of American or other legal systems, and more in how our underlying concepts about how laws and rights apply to individuals have shifted from identifying the individual as a member of a political or social class to identifying the individual as an individual. And American Constitutionalism happens to coincide (fortuitously?) with the first phase of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. You can read it on Researchgate:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351608819_The_Ineluctable_Person
My second claim is that the "culture war" is borne out of a mis-placed yearning for spiritual or religious expression. Humans have a deep need for participative rituals, and traditional religions, particularly Christianity, just are not adequate to the demands of contemporary society. The politicization of evangelicals in this country is a sign of rot and putrefaction, not a future that most people want to inhabit if they could see the outcome now. In this view, the problem with the "culture war" is that it is NOT, actually, political OR religious, but politics pretending to be religion or vice versa. Because these now-differentiated spheres of social activity can still be mingled in practice, we can produce a hybrid political theology of sorts, but it ends up just being the stupidest version of both those things rolled together. I wrote about this problem, and my proposed solution at length in an article published by Arc this March:
https://www.arcdigital.media/p/attack-of-the-emotional-soccerball
So, my recommendation on the politics of the "culture war" is to message to the masses how the whole imbroglio is unutterably asinine and cynical, in the hopes they will realize that they should take their lives more seriously.
I'm curious to hear how or if you might disagree with these ideas.
I think I’d say that I’m arguing viewing something as being essentially either political or cultural isn’t quite right. Culture is crucially relevant to politics in such a way that we can’t dismiss cultural fights as politically unimportant or irrelevant. An open society is built around pluralism and the free expression and coexistence of worldviews. And that’s actually pretty hard to achieve and sustain because people have a tendency to want to impose their values, truth claims, and views. I don’t so much think it’s a necessary aspect of politicking as I think it’s an unavoidable area of political conflict. I want the separation of church and state, the preservation of freedoms of expression, and the promotion of mutual toleration. But the pluralism that all of that springs from is pretty hard to foster and maintain. Cultural fights like the ones we’re seeing are inherently political because they’re about what kind of view of the world has a dominant position in our society. In a more general way, they’re about whether pluralism is even good. But the other things I discuss, like consumerism and self-branding are ways that the things that make us cultural creatures—the things we buy, how we interact with various goods and services, the way we perform and project ourselves out into the world—naturally dovetail with politics and political messaging. And the moment we’re in has made a lot of that more available, which I think is tied as you said to a decline in other outlets for community and meaning making like church and civic organizations.
So in terms of your argument, I agree with plenty of it. The last few centuries have absolutely witnessed significant changes in all these areas, as well as professionalization. I also agree that many basic human needs are currently not being adequately met in contemporary America, particularly many of our social and communal needs.
I do think you’re overstating the divisions that exist between areas of human activity though. Culture, as I’m using it here, includes a broad set of beliefs and understandings about the world. And I don’t think we can talk about politics without talking about how politics is shaped and limited by culture and the popular imagination about what is and what isn’t, what’s possible and what’s impossible, etc.
I do think a lot of the culture war fights as they’re being fought are asinine and cynical, but they still turn on fundamental questions about society and self. And that means they’re also political fights.
A couple of points:
Part of my argument is that many "political" issues brought forth in the culture war shouldn't be political at all, even where they are a source of cultural conflict. Much in our ethical lives should be a matter of conscience and character and social norms, not a matter of law. The setting of tax rates absolutely should be a political matter and laws need to be passed to govern the collection of taxes. The regulation of consensual sex shouldn't be a political matter but it definitely needs to be regulated by some moral percepts, and it is entirely fair for people to argue about this and impose social penalties on those who broach their preferred percepts. But arguments should play out in books, articles, personal interactions, etc. If, for instance, evangelicals believe that homosexuality is evil, they can make they case "from the pulpit", so to speak. It's a sign of weakness and insecurity when one "side" decides that they can only "win" a moral argument by passing a law and imposing draconian penalties; rudeness and ostracism can be salutary. One critique of the culture war is that it allows politics to swallow things that could be politicized, but shouldn't. The goal, therefore, on some of these matters should be depoliticization, not political triumph.
My claim about history isn't that these domains of social activity are "divided", but that they have *differentiated* themselves from one another in unprecedented ways, and that this change is more profound than we often realize. This doesn't mean that they don't interact, but rather that the internal dynamics of each domain are primary in shaping phenomena in the domain, rather than the feedback/feedforward mechanisms deriving from such interactions. I'll give you an example. Previously, a monarch and his government would be understood to have been chosen or anointed by God (or a God in polytheistic cultures), and the symbolism and ritual practice around this divine relationship would be a prime source of legitimacy. We see this with the English monarch as head of the Church of England even today, but this is an old, old idea in agrarian societies, and not one to be dismissed. By contrast, anybody publicly claiming to be chosen by God in American democracy as a source of legitimacy in his or her elected role is probably a megalomaniacal dipshit who should be kept as far away from public office as possible. This is an epochal change in the way that society organizes itself. It isn't just limited to politics and religion. My essay on laws & rights was about the legal system has differentiated itself from structures of economic and social classes.
In my view, the best argument for an "open society" is a developmental argument, which explains why this type of broad social engagement has evolved, and why it is necessary for this current epoch. But this view has consequences: some disputes are historically appropriate and healthy, while others are about the past attempting to foreclose the future. The latter must be resisted.
Oh I don’t really disagree with much of that. But I think where we diverge is that I see the achievement of protections against the sort of encroachments you describe as a political fight and not really better achieved by trying to depoliticized the issues. Big cultural ideas like divine right or religious mores or the value of diversity are necessarily also political fights, and advancing a society where as many different views and individuals can freely exists and stake a claim on the public sphere requires winning political fights about speech protections, minority rights, and the inherent value of pluralism. And because this involves the way people imagine themselves and the world around them and make and mediate meaning in that world, they’re also inherently cultural.
They're political fights for the moment, but, for me, what's needed is kind of religious or spiritual revival that draws some of the energy out of the political conflict -- because it belongs elsewhere to begin with. Until that happens, we're sort of stuck culturally.
We probably disagree on what such a revival would look like. I don't believe that Christianity is well-suited to this project. In fact, none of the traditional Axial Age religions are. (This isn't to discount their importance historically, or what we can learn from them). Neither is "Science" with-a-capital-S. My view is that there is an imperative to create something new, and people need to wake up to it.
I suspect there's a lot we could discuss on this topic, because we seem to agree mostly on how civil society should be structured.