There’s an idea kicking about at the moment that some call “culture wars”. This seems to be connected to what right-wing ‘commentators’ describe as ‘woke’, although it’s rather difficult to nail down a definition. It appears to be the idea that being thoughtful in how you treat others, being conscious of racism, sexism homophobia, transphobia and misogyny, and how derogatory terms have been “built into” language, so much so that people use these terms without thinking. This would appear to be what upsets right-wing commentators the most: that we might think about our attitudes and revise them. In fact, one might say that their main objection is to thought itself.
Likewise, when tabloids scream about “culture wars” and accuse folks of being ‘unpatriotic’, what they are really taking issue with is people thinking about history, recognising, for example, that the British Empire was built on murder, massacre and corruption, and is, therefore, not something to celebrate. Neither should our streets be named after slave traders, or should statues of slave traders remain on public display.
This is anathema to the right. Their fervent wish is that we plod along, doing X in way Z because “we’ve always done it like that. It’s tradition.” From these ‘traditions’ they construct an entirely nostalgic picture of a “Golden Age” which, as with all nostalgic constructs harks back to something that never existed, is entirely illusory. All we need do here is recall Thatcher’s bemoaning of the loss of “Victorian values” – no trade unions, ricketts, children being sent up chimnies, slum housing, folks dying because they couldn’t afford medical care. These facts were conveniently passed over in her account.
What is also worth remarking on is the lack (complete absence) of right-wing festivals, whether it’s literature, film, painting etc. There appears to be little aptitude for, or engagment with, Art. This is hardly surprising; a film, say, or a novel that simply records what already exists, trying in some way to ‘celebrate’ this, would generate little or no interest. Even when the odd attempt is made, such artefacts are immediately subject to critique by “leftie bleeding hearts” or, as the Tories are now fond of calling them, the ‘wokeiratti’ .
We also see continuing criticism, particularly in the United States (although I have come across this attitude myself, referring specifically to me), of the ways in which “leftie academics” try to poison the minds of undergraduates with their Marxist/Socialist doctrines, their belief in social communities and (so it seems to some in the USA) their atheism. Parents complain that their offspring go off to college and return ‘changed’ (or ‘possessed’ as one partiularly amusing comment from a parent expressed it).
The question, then, is why should this be the case? Well, in the case of right-wing artefacts, there are always elements which diminish our ability to class X as a “work of art” without our having reservations. Take Reinfensthal’s Triumph of the Will for example. Without doubt, there are some fine shots, and it’s fascinating as a film…BUT it celebrates Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party. We can say much the same of Wagner: The Ring Cycle is an astounding, ground-breaking work yet, no matter how much we allow ourselves to be swept up in these operas, the fact remains that they contain antisemitic themes. Works such as these attempt to persuade us into adopting their positions, asserting the superiority of one group over another.
In tje right’s attitude to academics, we can perhaps identify the defining factor. Academics, who spend their lives thinking (it’s what they do for a living) move towards the left. When topics such as justice, equality, fairness and community, together with many others, form part of your working day then a shift to the left is more than likely because these concepts are vital to a just and democratic society. Such a society prioritises the human person, regardless of nationality, class and all the other ephemera that the right use to apparently ‘justify’ their outlandish claims that competition is ‘natural’, that some people are simply ‘lazy’ and ‘feckless’, that nepotism and “old boy’ networks do not exist.
What Art (and the Humanities) do is to expose the ideological basis of these claims: the attempt that the right make to ‘argue’ that their narrow self-interests are universal, that they have everyone’s “best interests” at heart. Their concept of freedom is based solely on private property and exploitation – this, as Badiou argues, seems to be the guarantor of all other freedoms.
In short, the right do not like thought because thought, and the competing rationalties we find within it, contradicts their simplistic view of the world. It exposes the inherent violence of capitalism, its cruelty and its corruption.
This is why the universities, especially the TUs, must be brought into line, must be run as businesses. Only by doing this can the capitalist class (and those who serve it) assert that there is no alternative. The battle appeared to be over once the Berlin Wall fell, but universities as centres for the discussion of ideas remained.The expected capitulation did not happen, despite the best efforts of postmodernism…and the resistance was, and is, led by Art.
Art, as I’ve said before, is produced by conflict, by dissatisfaction with the way things are. It presens us with alternatives, with different perspectives; it is, from one point of view, philosophy in action – praxsis.
What we are experiencing with the advent of TUs in Ireland is the return of Mr. Gragrind from Dickens’ Hard Times.
Murmurs from the Forest 