1. Background : Lessons from the Victories of Brexit & Trump
On average, Brexit and Trump supporters are less educated, less open and live in smaller, less prosperous municipalities than their opponents.
This sharp urban-rural division is nothing new in politics: we’ve seen it before during the “Kulturkampf” (German phrase meaning Culture War or Culture Struggle) of 19thCentury Europe.
2. Concept Introduction: What is Culture War?
Culture War is one of the three forms of politics - struggle for power. (Table 1)
In what we termed ‘Politics as Usual’, political struggles are mostly one dimensional and focus on relatively easily reconcilable economic issues, such as taxes. As most people consider both themselves and their opponents to be members of the same polity (a political group with its own resources, identityand organization - such as a country), the struggle for power is limited by rules and is dominantly peaceful.
In a War two separate polities fight for power. The struggle is typically not limited to simple policy issues, identity and its expression (culture) are of high importance. The warring sides rarely follow the same rules and the fightis – of course – violent.
Culture Wars represent a middle ground between the two above mentioned forms of politics. On the one hand they are peaceful as both sides accept the other as part of an overarching polity but at the same time their divergent identities lead to the emergence of two smaller, opposing polities. Us versus Them becomes the main issue of politics and the one-dimensional system is replaced by a two-dimensional one dominated by identity politics.
Table 1. Three faces of Politics
3. History and factors
*Collectivism : unity; stability *Individualism : personal fulfillment; competition
1) Pre-culture war
Since the beginnings of human civilization, collectivism and individualism have been the two main threads of identities. There have always been big cultural differences in the world but no culture wars have emerged for 10,000 years. This was because of the inability of the existing small individualist pockets to challenge the dominance of the collectivist / traditional rural culture and social order.
2) The first wave of Culture Wars: 19th Century Europe
The first industrial revolution enormously accelerated urbanization in Europe.Urban population started growing. By the mid-19th century the urbanliberals became so strong that the main bastion of the traditional order – the Catholic Church started to feel threatened.
The first wave of Culture Wars started in Switzerland in the 1840’s, with a focus on education. Then it spread to most of European countries by the 1870’s, with its epicenter on education, marriage and divorce: social issues dominated by the Catholic Church for well over a thousand years.
The opposing sides were: urban liberal elites vs. a ragtag coalition for the status quo, including different colors of conservatives, losers of the first waves of the industrial revolution and globalization and those on the social / ethnic periphery.
3) After the first wave…
During the 20th century, Culture Wars seemed to become distant shadows as the past as:
The 2 World Wars and the Cold War empowered national governments and imprinted the widest masses with a sense of an ethnicity-based identity overwriting any other identities.
Technological and cultural change spread quickly to the rural areas and helped to create homogenous societies.
4) The second wave of Culture Wars: West
In the contemporary era there seems to be something happening in the west (e.g.victory of Brexit, Trump…), with a background of:
A new wave of Globalization following the collapse of the Soviet Union and China’s integration into the World Economy
The rapid evolution of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence started a new incarnation of the industrial revolution
In the face of the increasing pace of social changes we can witness the division of Western societies (the main polity) into opposing sub-polities as the “real people” start to differentiate themselves from the “cosmopolitan elites”:
People who feel threatened by change find common identity in the traditional culture;
As they make up a big part of their societies, they can mobilize greatresources;
They are taking over previously elite-friendly organizations,such as the American Republican Party and increasingly support previously marginal anti-establishment parties, like the French National Front.
The contemporary atmosphere matches conditions which resulted in the first wave of culture wars and thus point to the coming of the second wave culture wars – expected to shape the the next couple decades.
5) Coming Waves?
Third Wave: Asia? With the trend of rapid urbanization, stark differences between the coastal urban population and the internal “rural” areas emerge in culture, education and wealth...
Forth Wave: Africa? Urbanization to accelerate; urban-rural differences are expected to widen…
4. Potential Issues to Think
LGBT rights
E.g.“I label myself with my gay identity before my nationality.”
Conflictsin between national (regional) policies /l aws and local policies / laws E.g. in the US cities publish local laws to fight against Trump’s new immigrant law;In the UK people vote for Brexit to fight against the EU-level Freedom ofMovement with the purpose of preventing people from outside UK move freely toUK and take over resources ( jobs, economy…)
FreeTrade – stability (collectivism) vs. freedom (individualism) E.g. People who prefer stability tend to support closing down free trade to protectlocal market, while people who prefer freedom tend to support free trade.
New technologies – conservative vs. progressive E.g.People who are conservative find it harder to accept the raise of AI replacing human labor, while the progressive one are supporting this.
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