How to spot a culture war

Culture war arguments can come from the left or the right, but at the moment they are coming predominantly from the right. How do you spot a culture war argument when you see it?

As an example of the classic culture war-style argument, we are lucky to have on hand Robert Jenrick, one of the contenders for the Tory party leadership, who has written a column in the Daily Mail. As an example of the culture war style, it is unimprovable, a perfect exposition. Thank you Robert.

There are three signature traits to a culture war argument. First, a culture war argument is always set on the big, sweeping, civilisational scale, and inevitably carries with it a sense of imminent threat. Second, it uses lots of grand, abstract terminology. Third, the contents of the argument are unquantifiable – they cannot be measured and are therefore unprovable.

First – when it comes to the grand civilisational scale of the culture war argument, consider the opening line of Jenrick’s Mail column, where he writes: “Our country is not at ease with itself.” There it is, No.1 on our list. It is the grand, sweeping statement, made at the highest level of generality, which Jenrick backs up by reminding us of the summer riots which he says tell us that “a frank discussion is needed about the state of the nation”. 

It is a classic culture war opening. Immediately the writer is trying to vault across the awkward terrain of people, facts and the tedium of everyday lives, and instead attempts to land a direct blow on that well-known psychological weak-spot – our natural susceptibility to paranoia. 

In writing “our country is not at ease with itself”, what Jenrick means to suggest is that “you, the reader, are not at ease with yourself”. This idea, that the very essence of our society, of our civilisation, is broken, knocked off-balance, somehow under threat, and that this is a direct threat to you, is the first sign that a culture war argument is at hand. 

The second thing to look out for is the use of grand, heroic, abstract language – over to you Robert. “We won’t be able to heal our divided nation if we refuse to confront complex issues about identity,” he writes. 

“Who we are, and what community we belong to, matters. It gives our lives meaning and purpose. Confidence in our identity reassures and grounds us in a world changing at dizzying speed.”

“Divided nation… meaning… purpose… confidence…” The use of these highly abstract terms flows directly from the culture warrior’s tendency to frame arguments on the grand, civilisational scale. That type of argument has to fall back on similarly grand abstract language because it’s the only way to talk about this abstruse stuff. 

In the same way that the Brexit campaign leaned heavily on abstract words to frame its civilisational argument about liberating Britain from the EU – sovereignty, freedom, control – here Jenrick uses the same device, only this time to set his argument in terms of breaking free from the “metropolitan establishment” which he says “have denigrated and mocked expressions of English identity”.

And this leads neatly onto the third sign that you are face to face with a culture war argument, which is that none of what’s being said can be measured, or quantified in any way. 

Jenrick writes that “English children learn little of our history”, which immediately seems like a fairly bald assertion, and which will presumably come as a surprise to the 43,000 kids who sat A-Level history this summer. Then he writes: “Legions of graduates are taught that England has a uniquely evil past that is responsible for the world’s injustices.”

“Legions” is an interesting choice of word. As Robert no doubt remembers from his history lessons, a Roman legion contained around 5,000 soldiers. But “legions” plural – how many students is that? The point is that he clearly has no idea. Neither he nor anyone else can say how many graduates are being taught that England is evil because the number is unquantifiable, and the number is unquantifiable because the central claim itself is so sweeping and vague.

And it’s the same when he writes about “unprecedented migration, the dismantling of our national culture, non-integrating multiculturalism and the denigration of our identity…” He simply states that all of these things are happening. But how can any of this be measured? And if it can’t be measured, how does he know any of it’s true?

It is notable that when Jenrick was questioned about his column on Sky News and asked what, precisely, he meant by “English identity”, he was unable to answer.

The problem with basing a political argument on assertions that can’t be quantified is that you have strayed into a realm beyond evidence. It is impossible to prove that our national culture is being dismantled, because how could something like that ever be shown? 

This is not to say that politicians cannot deal in abstract ideas, or that they cannot occasionally reach for inspiring, poetical language. The politician might speak about, for example, the importance of “service”. But this is not a culture war device, because “service” is a personal value, not one that is framed in terms of civilisational threat. Poetical language that is used to inspire is very different to abstract ideas that are conjured up to stoke paranoia. The two are rhetorical opposites.

And that really is what makes culture warriors such as Jenrick not only objectionable, but also dangerous. Because in making an appeal to people’s instinctive fears that the country is being undermined from within, and by stating that “a nation should put its own citizens first”, as Jenrick does in his column, the argument implies a further question: if our “own citizens” are not being put first, then who is being put first? And from there, it’s only a short inferential hop to our old friend “the enemy within”.

When you spot these three traits at work within a political argument, you know you have stepped into the culture war; that and being told that “you are not living in the real world”. That’s another clear signifier. 

So next time you hear a culture war argument like Jenrick’s, or read one in the press, you will recognise it for what it really is – nothing less than early onset authoritarianism.