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Our opera special arrives this week, riding on the coat tails of a small controversy. Exeunt, a website that specialises in experimental and long-form theatre and performing arts criticism, reviewed a production at the Royal Opera House and put a few noses out of joint. This was not because of its critique of the production, but of its audience.

The critic in question (who also writes for The Stage) took issue with her neighbour, who had remarked that in several years time he hoped to see an all-British roster of principal dancers. She described the unidentified audience member as a tweedy prick and complained it had been another night at Covent Garden in which astounding artistic achievement is clouded by an obnoxious fug of plummy pronouncements from the audience.

I dont propose to get into the rights or wrongs of the review, other than to observe that this incident strikes me as the mirror image of another we affectionately refer to in The Stage offices as McNugget-gate. Our regular columnist, producer Richard Jordan, complained of a night in a West End theatre being ruined by a nearby audience member eating Chicken McNuggets during a show. He described it as possibly the worst West End audience I have ever encountered.

These incidents are the result of clashes of expectations between different groups of audience members. In Tweed-gate, the less traditional audience member was offended by the actions of a more traditional audience member, and in McNugget-gate vice versa.

Who is right? Who has more of a right to enjoy art in the environment they desire? We live in divisive times and these divisions are being played out within our public spaces.

If this is a growing problem for theatre, it strikes me as nothing compared with the challenges that opera faces. It is striking just how many of the features in this issue touch on perceived elitism and audience expectations.

Oliver Mears refers to challenging peoples preconceptions about the art form, Michael Chance wants to be accessible to a wider demographic, James Clutton comments on Opera Holland Parks lack of dress code and Antony Feeny warns of country-house operas reputation for toffs snoozing through antiquated performances. Wasfi Kani is eager to stress: All this stuff about opera being elitist is simply tosh.

The culture wars are alive and well.

Email your views to alistair@thestage.co.uk

This articleis part of The Stage special on opera. Read more stories here

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The Editor's View: Culture wars rage on in our opera houses - The Stage

Jeff Charles

Jeff Charles is a freelance writer specializing in politics, issues of race and law enforcement.He is the founder of Artisan Owl Media.

Editors Note: This is part two of a three-part series on the Culture Wars.

Fortunately, the left is still making many of the same mistakes that cost them power. They are learning but slowly.

Leftist agitators continue to use violence to keep conservatives from expressing their points of view. Recently, they prevented conservative author Ann Coulter from speaking at UC Berkeley with threats of violence. Leftist activists shut down Milo Yiannopoulos planned speech at the same college. In New York, comedian Gavin McIness was scheduled to give a presentation at a university. Leftist protesters physically attacked McIness and his supporters. Not surprisingly, prominent liberals were silent on the issue. As long as the left embraces violence, conservatives will remain more attractive to middle-of-the-road Americans. Nobody wants to join a party that threatens to physically harm them if they dont acquiesce to their demands.

Despite the protests of well-known liberals such as Bill Maher, the left wont let go their strategy of smearing conservatives as bigots. They are still pushing the lie that their opponents are people who hate everyone except white conservative Christians. In the previous piece in this series, Liberty Nation discussed a deceptive poll by The Washington Post. This survey was designed to conclude that Trump voters are racists. However, this is not the only example of the left using bigotry-baiting as a tactic.

Social justice warriors have also used social media to perpetuate the myth that all white people are racist even the ones who agree with the leftist narrative. In March, they shared a list that gave white people ten ways to reject their privilege. The items on this list repeated many of the same tenets pervasive in the cultural left. The last point on this list is the most telling: recognize that youre still racist, no matter what. This line exposes their intent to use bigotry as a weapon to discredit anyone who disagrees with their point of view. The idea that all white people are racist no matter what they do is a notion that will keep creating more Republicans but only if we continually expose it.

Although the left is still making some of the same mistakes that caused them to lose power, we cannot ignore the fact that they are starting to use strategies that could prove effective. As a matter of fact, if conservatives want to retain their position, they should take note of these tactics and use them more efficiently.

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a left-wing activist group now using these new strategies. In the past, the anti-police organization engaged in violent protests and riots to draw more attention to their cause. After seeing that riots and physical attacks do not work, they are now turning to local politics. This pivot is a smart move on their part. While most of us pay more attention to national elections, the mayor of our city is more likely to have an impact on our everyday lives than the president. BLM realized that if they want to enact legislation that hampers the efforts of law enforcement, they must encourage their followers to influence their city and state governments. Liberty Nation has weighed in on this issue:

This pivot could push them closer to realizing their goals. When they engaged in protests and riots, the American public saw them for what they were: a violently anti-police organization. It was this type of behavior that helped conservatives win the election. However, if they are serious about organizing locally and every indication says that they are they will be able to gain more influence.

If BLM finds any amount of success with this new approach, other leftist groups are sure to follow. Conservatives cannot afford to ignore this reality. If we are to prevent the left from regaining their hold on our society, we need to be willing to fight them at the local level.

In the previous piece in this series, I mentioned the lefts disdain for free speech. Attacks on the first amendment have been one of their greatest mistakes. However, they have not yet given up on squashing ideas contrary to their own. Instead, they are coming up with other ways to prevent conservatives from expressing their views. Rather than allowing the free flow of ideas, the left is trying to silence conservative voices wherever they can. Their attempts to keep conservatives from speaking on college campuses have largely backfired. However, there is another way they are trying to marginalize conservative viewpoints: social media.

The major social media companies including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are owned and run by leftists. Both Facebook and Twitter have come under fire for marginalizing conservative opinions. Twitter has deactivated the accounts of users who espouse conservative points of view. Former employees of Facebook have publicly stated that the company regularly singled out conservative posts for censorship.

These companies are well within their legal rights to censor any types of content they wish; they are private corporations. However, both Twitter and Facebook have claimed that they do not discriminate between conservative and liberal posts and they are lying. In reality, both of these social media platforms make sure that liberal points of view are featured more prominently than conservative opinions. Although this approach is not right, it is both legal and efficient. Most people do not take the time to analyze social media posts; eighty percent of users do not even read past the headline.

YouTube is another company that attempts to silence conservative voices. They do so by demonetizing videos that espouse traditional values. Conservatives who use the video platform to express right-wing views are not able to earn money from the content they publish. Of course, the Google-owned company does not treat liberal users in the same fashion. The organization has a clear objective: minimize conservative content while promoting left-leaning videos. Comedian Steven Crowder and talk show host Dennis Prager have both become prominent targets of YouTubes efforts to squelch right-wing points of view. Naturally, these actions are intended to make it more difficult for conservatives to continue to produce content by making it harder for them to fund their efforts.

While the left is still making the same mistakes that led them to their current downfall, they are beginning to use tactics that could actually work. In light of this, conservatives cannot afford to let up. As the left strives to regain influence, people on the right must develop strategies that enable us to capitalize on the lefts weaknesses. If we want to seize and secure more territory in the war for our culture, we must diligently expose the many flaws of the lefts principles while effectively advancing the cause of conservatism.

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Culture Wars Part 2: How the Left is Regaining Power - Liberty Nation (registration) (blog)

Liberals are continuing to get the better of conservatives on arange of long-running moral debates, according to a new Gallup survey:

Americans continue to express an increasingly liberal outlook on what is morally acceptable, as their views on 10 of 19 moral issues that Gallup measures are the most left-leaning or permissive they have been to date. The percentages of U.S. adults who believe birth control, divorce, sex between unmarried people, gay or lesbian relations, having a baby outside of marriage, doctor-assisted suicide, pornography and polygamy are morally acceptable practices have tied record highs or set new ones this year.

Sometime during the late Obama yearsand especially after the Supreme Courtsame-sexmarriage ruling in Obergefellcommentators (on both sides) began to say with increasing frequency that the culture wars were over and that the liberal side had won. The new Gallup poll shows that, for better or worse, there is a good deal of truth to this.James Davison Hunters authoritative 1992book on the culture wars described a battle between thereligiously orthodox, who prioritized Biblical teachings and natural law, and secular progressivists, whose lodestar was reason and utilitarianism.While tens of millions of Americans still adhere to the moral vision that defined the cultural right in the latter half of the 20th century, the progressivists, aided by the decline of institutional religion, have steadily gained groundon most questions related to sex and the family.

Of course, that doesnt mean that cultural politics is overfar from it. It just means that the key issues defining the culture war, and the coalitionsfighting it, will evolve. We have already seen political correctnessor the increasingly pitched struggle overwhat kind of social sanctions should be attached to offensive speechtake center stage, with the right taking the position of the rebellious counterculture and the left arguing for stricter limits on expression. While debates over the morality ofsame-sex relationships are essentially moot, journalists and academics and policymakersare now debating different kinds of sexual conduct, like affirmative consentand catcalling. And as Peter Beinart has argued,the decline of the religiously-animated conflicts that characterized the old culture warshas brought various forms of ethnic tribalism to the fore in new and unsettling ways.

The liberal coalition has probably won what Pat Buchanan famously called the war for the soul of America that was inaugurated by the 1960s and 1970s social movements. But another war is coming. And we dont yet quite know what it will look like, much less which side will win.

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Liberals Won the Culture Wars. What Comes Next? - The American Interest

We hear a lot about the culture wars being fought in this country. That conflict is often described as the struggle between those whose deepest commitments were to God vs. those humans who believed their own value systems evolved through what some describe as steady enlightenment.

These folks conclude for most issues the culture war is receding. For example, public opinion about gay marriage has shifted dramatically. While that is true, I think this crowd misses the boat on some other issues.

Some believe the question Who are we? was at one time about how we defined ourselves morally. Many now seem to favor a different answer that emphasizes how we define ourselves ethnically, racially and linguistically. What a change that is and for me its counter-intuitive as well. This new theory says we should emphasize our differences rather than searching for those things we have in common. For example, the civil rights movement at one time told us we should be blind to racial differences, but now we are told attempting to ignore differences is actually racist micro-aggression is the new term.

Does this mean some Americans celebrate a theory that seems to relegate the concept of morality to a low priority level? Is the concept of morality too old-fashioned to be relevant? Has the concept of having moral absolutes been set aside in favor of making personal decisions? Recall Barack Obamas explanation of sinfulness when asked about his religious and moral foundation. He clearly answered a sin was something he considered to be wrong. Apparently he was making a personal decision with no moral absolute as a basis.

Lets apply this apparent shift in moral standards to the recent presidential campaign. Was a de-emphasis on moral standards somehow reflected in the selection of candidates? Many would answer yes. Most voter complaints related to feelings the candidates had ethical and character issues. Were these two candidates delivered to us because much of the country is becoming more comfortable with ignoring moral standards? Would an emphasis on traditional moral standards have generated better conduct by the candidates and better choices for the voters? Think about it.

I believe a true culture requires some level of philosophical consistency and moral and ethical absolutes. Some seem to celebrate standing in the way of developing or maintaining what I consider important a unique American culture. Many radical progressive elements in our society even contradict the otherwise liberal notion we are moving from an old culture to a new one? I believe some of their goals and actions actually suggest we are moving from the old culture to a condition of no culture.

Steve Bakke is a Courier subscriber living in Fort Myers, Fla. He is a retired CPA and commercial finance executive.

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Moving from 'old' culture to 'no' culture - Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier

Saudi king Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, then defense minister, is seen in his office in Riyadh, December 9, 2013 (DoD/Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo)

The Saudi stereotype is bleak. Environmental desolation is mirrored by a cultural desert. Religious police meander between buildings, looking for victims. Women hurry between shadows behind their male guardians. The strict interpretation of Najdi Islam dominates nearly every aspect of life. It is a quiet, bleak place, with the only civic engagement at the mosque, whose loudspeakers are the only music the kingdom ever hears.

Its stark and it sticks in the mind. It is, of course, not totally true.

Saudi Arabias approximately twenty million citizens may be dominated by those who wish the kingdom to look like that; theyve done a bang-up job controlling the kingdoms image. Yet beneath the surface, discontent stirs.

Reuters reports:

When senior Saudi cleric Abdulaziz al-Tarifi told his almost one million Twitter followers that musical instruments were ungodly, it helped spark a hashtag among likeminded Saudis that the people reject music academies.

The hashtag, echoing the language of Arab Spring revolts elsewhere, captured the hostility to reforms that introduced entertainment events from rock concerts and comedy shows to kickboxing into the conservative kingdom.

Even having the controversy feeds the monolithic Saudi stereotype: yet more bearded clerics lambasting modernity and innocuous pursuits.

But simply having the debate is proof of strains within the kingdom. Saudi Arabia has embarked on an ambitious program of modernization on as many levels as it can handle. It has set the artificial deadline of 2030 to get most of them done. For the sluggish Saudi state and the stubborn cadre of clerical conservatives that dominate much of it, this is a huge ask.

Saudi Arabia is a nineteenth-century state with twentieth-century institutions lording over a divided and dividing society.

When Saudi Arabia was first founded during the post-Ottoman 1920s, its founder, Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman, fought a very nineteenth-century tribal war, as sheikhs had for centuries throughout Arabia. He was the state; institutions were fellow sheikhs who commanded different portions of his conquered kingdom.

This lasted until the 1950s, when, after World War II, oil money began to flow in. This coincided with Western, especially American, technology.

To support all this, the Saudis built a twentieth-century state with influences from the postwar West. Ministries sprung up, tribal levies were organized into battalions, passports were issued. The trappings of a twentieth-century state took hold.

Yet the powers that be remained distinctly nineteenth century: sheikhs and princes elevated by blood dominated the top echelons of power, stuffing the ministries full of family and friends. Many of them were, predictably, not very competent or motivated.

When development was merely a matter of writing checks to get foreigners to build things, this did not produce overt complications. Building a highway, or an office tower, is a relatively straightforward affair.

But to get people in that office tower to run profitable businesses? That is a much harder job.

Getting Saudis to work and work meaningfully is already a massive challenge in the most classical rentier state in history. But there are also generational, regional, sectarian and political conflicts.

There is a massive youth bulge. Normally thats an opportunity for a country. But Saudi Arabia is scarce in every resource but oil and oil, right now, is cheap. Providing jobs is tough.

Whats worse, the nineteenth-century patronage-heavy character of the state means most Saudis expect their government to invent jobs for them, not for citizens to create jobs for themselves.

It doesnt help that the conservatives would call just about any job but prayer, construction, military service and food service sinful.

Unemployed youth tend to channel their restless energy into crime, terrorism, protests and anti-state activities. They drove the Arab Spring, they marched into Syrias and Libyas civil wars. Direct cash transfers from Saudi Arabias still-considerable sovereign wealth reserves can buy many off for now, but that fund will dry up should oil prices remain low much longer.

Then theres the issue of regionalism. Saudi Arabias cultural heartland is its Najd province, the conservative core that conquered the rest. Yet western Hijazis, Eastern Province citizens and its southern provinces along the Yemeni border all do not wholly buy into their overlords worldview. People from Jeddah, near the holy city of Mecca, are quick to point out their modernity; people from Qatif, in the Eastern Province, openly call for the overthrow of the king. Meanwhile, the southern provinces have been forced to duck and cover from Houthi bombardment, something sure to cause resentment.

That Eastern Province, by the way? Full of Shia, remnants of the days when the Persian Gulf was very much Persian. Like their counterparts in Bahrain, they choke under Sunni rule.

Yet to focus on the Shia-Sunni divide leaves out the diversity of Saudi Arabias Sunnis, who may profess they are all one religion but have a vast diversity of religious opinion. Some mumble favorably about the dying Islamic State, others scheme for veil-free weekends in Dubai. In between are a gamut of opinions on religion and life.

This diversity is strictly controlled by powerful kings. Saudis are used to being told what to do, even if they dont agree with the decision. The danger is that soon they will have no strong leader to command them.

Meanwhile, Saud Arabias shaky political contract is being stress-tested by a quagmire in Yemen, stagnating economic growth and glaringly obvious corruption.

Corruption Saudis could endure so long as their cradle-to-grave welfare state provided them with easy cash. But Saudi is suffering a housing crisis, cutting bonuses to state employees and is suffering a stagnating GDP. If the state cannot bribe, it cannot endure.

Saudi Arabia and its allies are not winning the war in Yemen and the bodies are piling up. Dead soldiers coming home from a less-than-essential war is always a recipe for blowback.

In democracies or republics, anger would be channeled into electoral politics; new elites would swap out with old ones peacefully. But Saudi Arabias nineteenth-century state has no such mechanism. Old King Salman has neither check nor balance to his power. His brutish security forces are reliable for now. How they feel about all of Saudi Arabias multiplying problems remains a matter of speculation.

The culture wars are just the most overt sign of the Saudi geopolitical bomb ready to go off. Bet on crisis in the next decade.

This article originally appeared at Geopolitics Made Super, April 21, 2017.

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Saudi Arabia's Culture Wars Strain the Kingdom - Atlantic Sentinel