Seeking Sense on Culture

American Thinker ^ | 30 May, 2021 | Michael Curtis

[MtnClimber]

How do we appreciate historical nuances without bulldozing everything we don't like?

In every generation, objects of the past tend to be devalued by those ardent on enforcing their own judgment of the past and canceling part of it. Today, monuments and individuals are being displaced on the contention they are incompatible with present-day values and ideas, and irrelevant to changes in politics and international relations. Long ago, there were scapegoats, sent into the wilderness after the sins of the people were laid on them. Now scapegoats tend to be the objects of prejudice and the victims of cancel culture by those blaming others for present or past problems. They are the victims of those eager to limit or suppress free expression by shaming or ostracizing or demonizing the culprits, who may be seen as "evil."

The concept of "culture wars" was propounded, if not coined, by James Davison Hunter in his book, Culture Wars, 1991, to suggest not simply disagreements, but a perception of two incompatible views, originally orthodox and progressive. In recent years, this difference in perception has underlain a variety of disparate political and social issues. Social media have emphasized the expression of these points of view and the conflict for dominance of values, beliefs, practices. Because of its prevalence, the debatable issue is whether cancel culture is a tool of social justice or a form of willful intimidation.

The main issues in the present culture wars are race, slavery, ethnicity, empire. These cultural divisions are present in discussion of many organizations, and in historical interpretation. A few cases are here discussed.

Let's start with the theater. The Globe, the reconstructed Elizabethan playhouse on London's South Bank, is preparing to "decolonize" the plays of Shakespeare, addressing the "problematic gendered and racialized dynamics of his plays."

[MtnClimber]

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day be day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except the endless present in which the party is always right.” ~ George Orwell