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THERE is much talk in the media these days about culture wars, being woke and the dangers of cancel culture but they are concepts few people really understand.

In a Times Radio poll in February, respondents were asked what they think culture war means. Only 7 per cent came up with a relevant answer, 15 per cent got it wrong, and a whopping 76 per cent said they didnt know. However, just because people dont know what a culture war is doesnt mean theyre not in one.As long as you have a class system there will be culture wars: a conflict between the hegemonic culture of the elite and that of the oppressed classes. These simply reflect the conflict between class economic interests.Today, with the sharpening of the class struggle and an increasing awareness of the bankruptcy of capitalism, the global ideological struggle also becomes more acute.

Faced as we are by existential problems, the struggle for ideological and cultural hegemony becomes increasingly significant but also more acrimonious.

We have seen a highly effective protest by women around the Me Too movement, alongside Black Lives Matter and the global campaign demanding radical action on climate change. Such grass-roots movements are challenging widely held belief systems and traditional hierarchies.At the same time these are being challenged and dismissed by the ruling elite. Instead, minor issues are being blown up out of all proportion in order to sideline real protest. When the Queens photo was removed from the common room at Magdalen College, there was outrage in the media and the uproar over Englands football team taking the knee or the debate over the removal of the Rhodes statue in Oxford, are all only symptoms of a wider and deeper shift in attitudes.

A reportby the Policy Institute at Kings College London, based on a major research project about culture wars, found that while there are many important differences between Britain and the US, there are clear echoes of the US experience, where we could be at the early stages of a trend seen in the US already in the 1980s and 1990s.

The report says that many peoples views on cultural issues have become tied up with the Brexit debate, while peoples party-political identities, although not as strong, show similar alignments. This provides the conditions for more all-encompassing division, as compromise across these divides becomes harder when cultural perspectives become a core part of how we see ourselves.

Old-style political parties are struggling to articulate what needs to be done. This has presented an opportunity for right-wing populist politicians and narratives to fill the void.

The present battles within the Labour Party under Keir Starmer are also symptomatic of these culture wars, with claims of anti-semitism being instrumentalised by the establishment to bash the left. The divisions that have opened up within the Labour Party are to an increasing extent grounded in differences in cultural politics between its middle-class metropolitan supporters and its traditional working-class base.

The politics of culture wars, particularly as being waged by the present government, also have the potential to inspire fundamental bigotries leading to ever greater and more damaging divisions.

The attempts by the Tory government to get Paul Dacre appointed chair of media regulator Ofcom and the similar manipulation of key appointments in the public sphereare all part of a more extreme politicisation of culture by the elite. If the ruling class manages to successfully shift public focus towards more symbolic and emotive issues, its a change that can be more easily exploited and directed by the cynical.

The journalist Matthew dAncona says, Whats interesting now is the speed with which cabinet ministers or indeed No 10 respond. That to me signals were into a different kind of political game. One where a strategy is at work. (Quoted in an Observer report by Andrew Anthony, June 13, 2021.)

The culture wars suit the Johnson way of doing things, he says. Hes good at things that involve short, memorable slogans and showmanship.

Certainly if we look at the US, where the modern incarnation of the culture wars was first identified, the conflicts over abortion rights, gay marriage and the climate catastrophe have been fought, at least by one side, from an explicitly religious perspective.

The US sociologist James Davison Hunter gave popular currency to the term in his seminal 1991 book Culture Wars: the Struggle to Define America. He argues that they were about the orthodox versus the progressive. That division fits the situation in Britain, too, but without the religious element.

The left sees issues of identity those concerning race, gender and sexuality as battlegrounds of progress versus stagnation. They are struggles about liberating oppressed minorities from under the dominance of white male power. But as the battles have become more complex, particularly around transgender issues, there is a danger of identity politics getting in the way of solidarity and joint action. The ruling class is all too ready to exploit such divisions in order to maintain control.

On the left, we need to be constantly aware of how culture is key in the battle of ideas. If we wish to challenge and defeat ruling-class hegemony, we have to expose the inhumanity and banality of its culture industry, particularly in films, social media and television. The left has to challenge ruling class ideology in all its forms, not just in the workplace and on the streets.

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You can't be a pacifist in the culture wars - Morning Star Online

For those of us who have tried (and doubtless failed) to write about the culture wars in a spirit of honest, open-minded good faith, Jon Ronson is something of an icon, said James Marriott in The Times. His 2015 bookSo Youve Been Publicly Shamedremains the definitive account of online cancellation, and its warnings of ever more rancour to come have proved depressingly prescient.

Now he is back withThings Fell Apart, a superb BBC Sounds podcast about the genesis of the culture wars. Ronson starts by looking for their pre-Twitter history, and finds it in the battles the USs religious Right fought against abortion and gay rights in the 1970s and 1980s. He identifies this conflict as the first important intersection of moral fury and new technology, when Evangelical Christians took to the new mass medium of satellite TV to try to ban books and stir moral panic. Its a bleak but riveting listen.

Aimed at adults and older children (it includes bad language and uncensored accounts of gruesome and violent events),Lets Talk About Myths, Baby!is a millennials take on Greek and Roman mythology, said Charlotte Runcie in Prospect. This is first-class educational entertainment: witty and sarcastic commentary from a modern-day perspective is mixed with rigorous scholarly research.

On a completely different subject, Id recommendBad Cops, a BBC World Service series in which Jessica Lussenhop, ofThis American Life, looks at one of the USs most corrupt police units, the Gun Trace Task Force in Baltimore, in an effort to find out why good cops go bad.

The world is awash with cookbooks, but milestone recipes the true keepers are rare indeed, said Dale Berning Sawa in The Guardian.The Genius Recipe Tapes, a weekly pod by Kristen Miglore of the website Food52, explores one such recipe per episode, and talks to its creator. Listening to her descriptions of what she loves about these recipes from the way Rachel Roddy slow-cooks her beans in the oven, to the whole lemon Ruth Rogers puts in a startling strawberry sorbet is a lip-smacking pleasure in itself.

Another great podcast for home cooks isRecipe Club, from the American chef David Chang and the journalist Chris Ying. The fun of this one is that many of the recipes discussed are sourced the way most of us decide what to cook for dinner: by Googling. Its a bit millennial, a bit punk, very entertaining.

Less recipe-focused and more discursive isHoney & Co: The Food Sessions. London restaurateurs and columnists Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer talk to guests drawn from the food scene, mostly in Britain, ranging freely across food-related anecdotes, tips and experiences.

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Podcasts of the week: culture wars, cops and cooking - The Week UK

JAKARTA Indonesias Islamic conservatives are back on their moral high horse, joustingwith youthful Education and Culture Minister Nadiem Makarim over his campaign against a disturbing explosion of sexual harassment on university campuses.

In a baffling twist of logic, the opposition Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS), the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) and the Muslim organization Muhammadiyah claim a regulation issued by the 37-year-old minister, which defines sexual violence as the absence of consent, is promoting sex among students.

A similar logic was applied to a campaign against HIV/AIDS in the 1990s. When the government urged people to use condoms to protect themselves, Islamic right-wingers accused it of encouraging sexual promiscuity.

Commentators like Jakarta Post senior editor Endy Bayuni can only shake their heads in disbelief. Who in their right mind would oppose a regulation that seeks to protect students, particularly female students, from being sexually attacked, he wrote in a recent op-ed.

About 7.2 million students attend university in Indonesia, including 2.9 million enrolled at the countrys 122 state universities. All will be eligible voters in the 2024 presidential and general elections when nationalists and Islamists will square off again.

Since the dawn of democracy in the late 1990s, Indonesias religious and ethnic divide has always been brought into sharp relief during presidential elections, largely because it is normally a simple choice between two candidates.

During general elections, only 12-13% of the electorate appear to vote along religious lines. But outside of PKS and the Islamic-based United Development Party (PPP), parties are always well aware they must be sympathetic to Muslim majority sentiment.

That explains why lawmakers removed consent from the definition of sexualviolence during recent deliberations of the separate Sexual Violence Eradication Bill, saying it amounted to approval by the state of extramarital sex.

Once maintaining an adherence to sharia law, PKS now claims to recognize Pancasila, the states inclusive ideology, while defining itself as Islamist and socially conservative, all in a contorted effort to attract broader nationwide support.

The party won 50 seats in the 575-seat Parliament in the 2019 legislative elections, mostly in West Java, Jakarta and West Sumatra, and seven less than its best showing in 2009. The PPP captured only 19 seats.

PKS attacks on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) movement get strong support from a majority of Muslim voters, with surveys demonstrating that being young in Indonesia does not always mean being progressive.

In fact, research firm Alvaras 2019 Indonesian Muslim Report showed that young Indonesians between 14 and 29 were the dominant age group among those who identify as puritan and ultra-conservative.

However, the numbers reveal little about how young people deal with religious diversity in their everyday lives and how student councils might react to the issue of sexual violence being turned on its head into a conversation about promiscuity.

The Harvard-educated Makarim, the founder of the Gojek multi-service platform, father of three daughters and son of a prominent Jakarta lawyer, issued the regulation in an urgent response to increasing reports of sexual predators preying on female students.

No learning can happen without a feeling of safety, he said, citing a 2020 survey in which 77% of college professors said they were aware of sexual harassment on their campus. We have to reach a higher ideal from a protection standpoint.

Under Indonesian law, sexual violence is only considered a crime when intercourse occurs without consent. But requests for sexual favors, acts ofphysical assault and verbal harassment escape punishment or even censure.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that many complaints have been ignored or covered up by college administrators and that some students who reported harassment have been expelled or otherwise dissuaded from pursuing their legal rights.

Issued last August, but only brought into force on November 12, the ministerial decree directs all universities to form a task force to investigate complaints of sexual impropriety, rather than brushing them under the carpet to save the college from embarrassment.

Muhammadiyahs position may have a lot to do with the fact that until Makarim came along as a surprise choice in President Joko Widodos second-term Cabinet, it had traditionally held the education portfolio.

That was because of its early introduction of a reformist platform, going back to the early 1900s, which mixed religion and secular education as a way of promoting the upward mobility of Muslims. In recent years, however, education has become bogged down in corruption.

They (Muhammadiyah) are after his (Nadiems) job, Bayuni wrote in his November 20 commentary. To the other Muslim groups, however, Nadiems decree provided an opening in pushing their conservative agenda in the ongoing cultural wars.

The role of Islam in the modern state has long been debated, going back to post-independence days. While a broad consensus has been reached on that issue, todays cultural war seems overly fixated on sexuality.

Indonesias largest mass Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, has its own conservative elements including Vice President Maruf Amin but has always been more progressive on social issues as a bulwark against extremism.

Amin is a former chairman of MUI, whichis pushing for provisions in a revisedCriminal Code that prescribe jail terms for adultery, pre-marital and homosexual sex, and inhibits the promotion of contraception and the free flow of vital health information.

The controversial amendment remains stalled in Parliament over those and other provisions that threaten freedom of speech.

But in the meantime, the legal system has found ways to punish gays using the Criminal Codes existing Article 296 on facilitating fornication and Article 7 of the 2008 Pornography Law dealing with financing and felicitating pornographic acts.

Only last year, nine young men were jailed for four to five years for engaging in homosexual activity, with the court calling their actions inconsistent with community values. One has since died in prison from an untreatedstomach ailment.

The MUI played a significant role in shaping policy during the presidencyof Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a period marked by the passage of the misleadingly-titled pornography law and spiraling violence against religious minorities.

Makarim has locked horns with religious conservatives before. Last January, he signed a joint decree with the Home Affairs and Religious Affairs ministries banning government schools from requiring students to wear religious attire, particularly the head covering known as ajilbab.

The Supreme Court revoked the decree in May but for violating 2011 legislation which lays out a framework that ensures laws and regulations are formulated in a planned, integrated and sustainable manner to protect peoples constitutional rights.

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Indonesia's culture wars overly fixated on sex - Asia Times

Mosley Must Fall; Things Fell Apart

BBC Radio 4

Martin McNamara, the writer of Mosley Must Fall, a play on Radio 4 this week, must have had a jolt when he opened the papers to find old Oswald back in the news. Oxford University is said to have accepted 6 million from a trust set up by the fascist leaders son, the racing driver Max, using funds passed down through the family. Cries of Rhodes Must Fall have been echoing down the High in Oxford for many years now. If Mosley must fall, too, then this play may prove particularly timely.

Although set in Whitechapel, east London, in 1936, the story consciously teeters over live issues, including immigration, the polarisation of society and the threat of violent protest. The main characters belong to an Irish family living on the path Mosley and his supporters are planning to march down in their latest recruitment drive. Should they stay home and close the curtains or should they take part on one side or the other? Maureen McEnroe (Maggie Cronin), the mother of two grown sons, can hardly bear to engage with the question: What did I say about politics at the table?

Much of the play is taken up with their discussions and arguments over the best course. There is talk of Mosley leading a holy war and defending his country against foreign interlopers. There is talk of the Civil War in Spain and of Generalissimo Franco stepping in to halt the desecration. It isnt until two thirds of the way through the drama that we actually get to the march, which descends predictably into a punch-up. We hear some soundbites of Mosley, but he is largely absent, standing, like his Blackshirts, safely aloof.

Im reminded of Nancy Mitfords novel, Wigs on the Green, in which The Captain never actually appears, but still influences much of the action. In Mitfords case, removing Mosley from the narrative was partly an act of peacekeeping, intended to appease her sister Diana, who went on to marry him. In the case of this engaging play, Mosleys absence feels more ponderous. Its true that, as the head of the British Union of Fascists, Mosley excelled at stirring crowds into chaos, before slinking into the background. The fact that he remains there throughout the play reinforces the idea that he was far smaller than the movement he created. As a concept, this works, but as a dramatic choice, it feels overly conscientious. We needed Mosley, if only to realise his insignificance as an individual.

Jon Ronson, the Welsh journalist and filmmaker perhaps best known for The Men Who Stare at Goats, has launched a new podcast featuring more than a few controversial marches. Things Fell Apart is subtitled strange tales from the culture wars and seeks to uncover the unlikely origins of the debates raging today. The first episode traced the pro-life movement to the ambitions of a boy growing up in the Swiss Alps. The second, which aired this week, centred on a woman who staged a protest against the introduction of a new set of school textbooks to West Virginia in the 1970s.

The stories were astonishing. The boy in the Alps was Frank Schaeffer, the son of a fundamentalist American Evangelical pastor and art historian, who longed to be a filmmaker like his idol Fellini. When his father suggested he gain some experience by helping him to make documentaries, Frank agreed. The success in the Evangelical community of a segment in which his father discussed the evils of abortion led them to explore the subject in more depth. The films, for which Frank created a dubious installation of dolls floating on the Dead Sea, caught the attention of the press. The resulting conflict snowballed.

It can be hard to prove that any single event is responsible for a culture war when most disputes arise from various origins. The links between cause and effect are sometimes less direct than they appear. Ronsons ability to source a story and run with it is nevertheless compelling. I was particularly impressed by his interview with Alice Moore, the woman who tried to block the distribution of textbooks citing their inappropriate content. A poem printed in one, Ronson gently suggested, was not encouraging people to have sex on a bus, as she feared, but despairing that the world had descended to such a point. As he said of her reaction, what mattered, and still matters now, is not intention, but impact. He was as surprised as I was to discover that the offending verses, which caused such a stir after Moore read them aloud on US television, were written by Roger McGough.

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The astonishing stories behind today's culture wars: Radio 4's Things Fell Apart reviewed - Spectator.co.uk

Russell Arben Fox| Special to Gannett Kansas

The historical special session of the Kansas Legislature taking place this week will, I predict, thoroughly fulfill its true purpose, though not its official one. Being clear on the differences between the two is important if one wants to understand the political motivations at work.

Officially, the Republicans in Topeka have pushed Gov. Laura Kelly to call back the Legislature in order to work out rules that will defend the religious liberty and unemployment benefits of Kansans who refuse to get vaccinated against covid-19, in opposition to President Bidens vaccine mandate.

But truthfully, the session is taking place in order to produce declarations and speeches that will help keep Kansas Republican voters united and focused on the culture war surrounding the pandemic, thus benefiting their agenda in the August vote over an anti-abortion-rights amendmentand the November vote for our next governor.

That such words and images are the true aim of the special session is not to deny that Bidens requirement that all large employers require their workers to be vaccinated can be legitimately challenged. There are real constitutional controversies built into his order, and thats why multiple lawsuits have been filed against the mandate (including those which Attorney General Derek Schmidt, who will be the Republican nominee challenging Kelly, has already joined).

Those constitutional controversies, however, simply cannot be effectively responded to by a state legislature. The question of whether employers can challenge the sincerity or legitimacy of any religious exemptions that anti-vaxxers might claim in order to avoid the mandate is tied up with a long line of Supreme Court cases regarding generally applicable laws, as Bidens mandate arguably is.

If the Kansas Legislature makes it a crime for employers to pose such challenges, then current federal precedents would necessitate an immediate stay on that legislation, meaning that, once again, their work would have to wait until the aforementioned lawsuits are resolved.

As for employment protections for those who might be fired for refusing to submit to mandates implemented by their employers, business interests in Kansas most of which regularly support the Republicans in Topeka have already made it clear that providing financial support for those reluctant to get vaccinated is something theyd rather not see added states unemployment fund.

Republican leaders say that they can write the rules for who should qualify for unemployment benefits when let go for being unvaccinated carefully, but with some estimates of the costs of such guarantees ranging as high at $250 million, this legislation is likely to be kept minimal.

But the likely pointlessness of state action on religious liberty rules, and the likely small potatoes of any benefits for fired vaccination opponents, wont interfere with the sessions true purpose.

Going into 2022, Gov. Kelly wants to make her re-election campaign about eliminating the food tax and fiscal responsibility generally; the Republicans, by contrast, want to tie her as closely as possible to Bidens unpopularity.

With the Schmidt campaign lacking the base-riling fervor of a Kobach or Brownback, drawing sharp distinctions between the governor and the Kansas GOP, digging deep into the cultural conflicts the pandemic has provided, is a smart strategy for building momentum for August and November.

Will it be a successful strategy as well? That remains to be seen, but I wouldnt bet against it.

Russell Arben Fox teaches politics in Wichita.

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Kansas GOP leaders want to exploit culture wars before 2022 elections. It might be a winning strategy. - The Topeka Capital-Journal