FREE ESSAY ON CAUSE OF THE CULTURE WARS

CAUSE OF THE CULTURE WARS

Cause of the Culture wars
Even a casual observer of the American culture cannot help but be impressed by the
increasing degree of polarization not only of American politics, but of cultural values
and even lifestyles and attitudes. 
There seems to be an endless array of conflict - not just minor differences of opinion,
but major conflict - even resulting in violence and murder. The results seem to be
applauded or abhorred - depending on whose side you are on. 
The outcome of this conflict could not be more important - it is nothing less than the
survival of Western civilization. This is because the roots of this conflict run far
deeper than most people realize, and its consequences far more serious. 
For example, one of the major battlegrounds is over civil rights for homosexuals. 
On the one side, there are conservatives who claim that homosexuals are seeking special
rights and have a gay agenda calculated to secure those special rights. 
On the other side are liberals who believe that homosexuals are a repressed minority who
suffer discrimination and bigotry, and that homosexuals deserve minority status and
rights. 
The liberals who represent that view believe that government should not involve itself in
the private lives of individuals, provided it cannot show a compelling state interest in
doing so. 
Many conservatives, on the other hand, believe that the government should be based on a
view of governance inspired by their interpretation of Christian culture, rooted in the
Bible. 
Why are the two views at such loggerheads? Why are they willing to fight each other, even
to the death? 
It is because of a basic, fundamental change that has taken place in Western
civilization. 
The change is the result of two technological innovations that have fundamentally changed
how Americans and Western societies in general are organized and how these people relate
to each other. 
The first is mass transportation. 
For the first time in human history, it is possible begin a journey on one continent in
the morning and be on another continent in a different part of the world before the sun
sets that same day. And at a price that can be afforded by a large percentage of the
world's population. It is also possible to pick up and move on short notice, to follow a
career or find more acceptable neighborhoods or living conditions. 
The second is mass communications, especially worldwide television broadcasting. 
Again, for the first time in human history, it is possible for an individual to make his
voice heard by people around the world, and in so doing, make his opinion known. And
every evening, the opinions expressed by ordinary people regarding events that have
affected them, are seen and heard by viewers around the world. Again, people living in
the poorest villages in India and Africa see these events in a world they have never
known before. 
The results have undermined the very basis on which civilizations have been organized
since the first stirrings of civilizations in Mesopotamia and East Asia. 
For millenia, people have had a commitment to their home town for no other reason than
that they were stuck there. They couldn't move. Even if they had the physical means,
there was often no job or other economic opportunity that made moving away from the
birthplace possible. For this reason, most people were forced to remain in the same
community, and few were willing to risk the ire of their neighbors. It was a clear
reality that these people would be part of the rest of their lives, and it was vitally
important to get along by going along. 
Now that is no longer the case. Mass transportation has made it possible to change
hometowns and find a more workable or pleasant living and working environment. And since
people can, they often do. Americans move more frequently with each passing year. 
The result has been a lack of commitment. Why make an effort to know your neighbors when
you are going to be gone in a year or two anyway? Or they may even be gone before you! So
why get to know them? Why settle a dispute? Just move away! We no longer have the
incentive to settle disputes and go along to get along. 
So we no longer feel a commitment to our communities, and cheap mass transportation is
the reason why. 
But why all the acrimony? 
It is because the very basis of civilization as we know it has been undermined. 
That basis is patriarchy, and it works like this: Since time began, since the origins of
humanity, right up until about 7,000 years ago, societies were organized around women. 
Contrary to what most people think, archaeologists tell us that in ancient
hunter-gatherer societies that did not live in villages, women ruled the roost. They told
men when to hunt and what to gather. They were responsible for rearing the children. They
did the work and since men were dependent on them, the women called the shots. Men seemed
to be along for the ride, and were considered inferior in status. This is reflected in
the religions of the period - gods were almost always female in gender and were benign of
character (fertility goddesses and the like). 
About 7,000 years ago, a remarkable change occurred. Almost all over the world at about
the same time, people settled down in villages with agricultural economies. What made
this event occur was the invention of the army. 
To defend resources, favored hunting grounds and the most productive flora, armies had to
be raised to defend the group from its enemies. The logical people to do the defending
were the men, who weren't responsible for anything else. 
So here you have available manpower and someone is needed to organize it. 
Well now, any good tyrant can spot the makings of a deal here: If the men subdue the
women so they can be required to raise lots of sons for the army, and if the men will
join the tyrant's army, the tyrant will give him status - for the first time, the man in
the family will call the shots. All the tyrant demands in return is that the man
subjugate the women in his life and that he maintain political loyalty and the
willingness to go into battle. There was an increase in family size, since women no
longer were in control of their fertility and men were needed for the army. With the
increase in family size, agriculture became important as a means of supporting the
increasing population. The rise of agriculture made centralized governments under control
of the tyrant neccessary because of the need to organize the production and distribution
of resources. The patriarchial tyrant was the perfect organizer to make it all happen. 
And so it began. With the development of the army, societies now began to have an
investment in male dominated governments that quickly became so deeply ingrained in
culture, that most people assume they are genetic in origin. 
This was reflected in new religions that revolutionized human spirituality. 
Gone were the benign fertility goddesses (or at least they were sublimated), and they
were replaced by fierce, warlike gods intended to intimidate. These gods not only were
intended not just to intimidate enemies, but to strike fear into the hearts of the
tyrant's subjects. That way it isn't neccessary to station a platoon of soldiers in every
village. The king can simply rely on the fear of the gods, of which he was usually
pretended to be one (or at least a descendent). 
It is from this period that the Old Testament arises. And it is why the Old Testament
begins with the laying down of the law -- this is what the new religion demanded:
obedience to God (and by implication, His representative on earth, the tyrant and his
government). 
So therefore men became dominant in our society not because of any inherent biology, but
because of thousands of years of cultural conditioning. 
The curtain falls. 
Millenia pass. 
The curtain rises. 
It's the twentieth century, and women, who have been subjugated by a myth for centuries
and complaining about it all along, all of a sudden can be heard, because of the forum
provided by new forms of technology, cheap mass transportation and communications. 
Not only are they being heard, but what they are saying makes sense. 
And the old patriarchial order isn't having any of it. For one thing, it undermines the
old power base. For another, it undermines the old male claim to status. 
It's not just the women. It is repressed minorities as well. Why? Because now, for the
first time, they can complain and be heard. And when the complaints make sense, they
offend the old order based on the status quo and subservience to the king and his
government. Often called liberals or secular humanists, these people along with defectors
from the patriarchial camp want nothing to do with the order that has oppressed them, and
have asked for a new arrangement, based on genuine equality. 
It is even becoming apparent that the tyrant and his ways of doing things are obsolete.
For one thing, the tyrant's army can not only destroy the enemy in hours or minutes, but
the enemy's army can destroy his with similar dispatch. Armies have become so destructive
that the most powerful are no longer deployed against each other -- too much destruction
would result. For another, the king can't do anything without all his subjects -- and his
enemies -- knowing it almost immediately. It is no accident that slavery did not end nor
did democracy take root in the world until cheap movable type made printed material and
early forms of mass transportation made the wide dissemination of knowlege possible. For
a third, cheap mass transportation has made international borders porous and increasingly
difficult to control, even to the point of irrelevance in many cases, especially in the
third world. 
Now, with television, the impact of mass communications has become much more dramatic. It
is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, and now television brings thirty of
them from around the world right into the home every second. The results couldn't have
been more dramatic. Now, for the first time, one can watch the governing process in
another country as closely as if one were in that country. And all the arguments and
ideas are heard and understood, even when they reflect poorly on that tired old
patriarchial tyrant and his minions. 
But the old order is having none of it. Among the conservatives, there is a firm belief
in the rightness of the old patriarchy. One hears the slogans: My country right or wrong,
my country, a woman's place is in the home, keep 'em at home, barefoot and pregnant! And
for God's sake keep 'em out of the military! There are serious proposals being floated to
control the content of television, even though as satellite technology progresses, the
ability to control that content erodes. This erosion played no small part in the collapse
of the thoroughly patriarchial Soviet empire. 
The patriarchy isn't giving up easily. It uses all the old justifications, whether they
are relevant or not, whether they are true or not. And often, the principal justification
is an old one indeed - religion. We even see the spectacle of serious proposals for the
American army being increased in size and influence when no credible threat to America
remains, and for the American nation, founded on secular democracy, to be turned into a
theocracy, with an old-style patriarchial religion in charge! 
The more the old patriarchists feel threatened, the more they retreat into the old time
religion. It justifies their fears and their prejudices. It makes repression acceptable,
because it is for God (often Jesus) and king (America was founded on Christian
principles!). Thus, that which was originally invented to support the patriarchial order
becomes its principal justification! 
So here is the basis of the culture war. The millenia-old patriarchial order says its
this way because it is natural and God ordained it this way and women and minorities
saying we are oppressed and we demand to be heard and our rights honored. 
Neither side is willing to concede to the other. But neither side has all the answers to
the problems that Western civilization faces. The rebelling minorities certainly do not
have the answers to the inevitable conflicts that will and are arising between
themselves. The patriarchialists ideas were founded on a myth and can't survive the
intense scrutiny of the new media of idea exchange. 
So the war begins. 
On its outcome, hang the fate of Western societies. 
Get it right, and we will have a more honorable and just society, based on genuine
equality in which the concept of self determination is truly honored. 
Get it wrong, and we will enter a new dark age, based on ruthless repression and
rejection of technologies and ideas that have unquestionably been liberating. 
Which side are you on?