As far as I can tell, the term culture war stems from the German Kulturkampf, which refers to the conflicts between cultural and religious groups during the 1871-1878 campaign in which Chancellor Otto von Bismarck of the German Empire fought against the influence of the Roman Catholic Church.
The origin of the term draws attention to the innate spiritual aspects of the earlier struggle. Unfortunately, many who fight against the Left in our contemporary struggle accept and endorse only the inherent material, physical, social, cultural, economic, and political values inherent in the war at the expense of the spiritual/metaphysical dimensions, which have been either willfully neglected or explicitly rejected.
I am sympathetic to and support those who fight our current war at the purely material level. At the same time, the shortsightedness of this position frustrates me to no end, and I often struggle to comprehend how those who fight against Leftism under the banners of tradition, nationhood, class, race, morality, hierarchy, natural law, excellence, etc., are so utterly oblivious to or scornful of the spiritual reality underpinning all of these things.
The values and beliefs mentioned above are all significant, but their core significance is only meaningful and comprehensible when interpreted through the reality of the spiritual, which is the spring from which all other 'real' values, virtues, and beliefs flow. Those who fight the so-called culture war at the material level seem blind to this fundamental flaw.
To begin with, engaging at the purely material level plays into the hands of the Left's overall strategy of framing everything solely within the material. Cultural warriors who battle the Left at that level are, in essence, seemingly no higher or better than the Left themselves. Their dismissal of the Divine, with its innate transcendence and immanence, equals an outright rejection of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. Without a belief in the Divine, all truth, beauty, and goodness is relative. Similarly, without an acknowledgement of the Divine, the objectives these culture warriors set remain firmly embedded in the realms of hedonism or determinism or utilitarianism or other such 'isms.'
Secondly, cultural warriors who repudiate the existence of the Divine essentially provide the Left exactly what the Left wants - conditions for perpetual revolution. Pitting relative values against other relative values actually serves the Left's interests in maintaining a pretext of continuous struggle in the name of progress.
Thirdly, cultural warriors who deny the divine reinforce and reaffirm the greatest trick the Left ever pulled - convincing people that the spiritual simply does not exist. Of course, only the vast majority of the Left believes the spiritual to be a fairy tale. The minority within the Left does not share this belief. Unlike the majority it directs, this core minority, or inner circle, not only believes in the existence of the Divine and Creation, but actively and purposively focuses all of its activities on perverting, inverting, and subverting the Divine and Creation for the ultimate purpose of mass damnation. Thus, cultural warriors who fight the Left but reject the Divine are really no higher than the witless minions who serve the demonic forces fueling the Left.
Fourthly, cultural warriors who scoff at the Divine usually end up making idols of their values and beliefs - the nation, the people, the economy, liberty, This is a denigration of Reality, the same kind of denigration the Left employs when they attack the nation, the people, etc., with their own defied idols of human rights, equality, inclusivity, and universality.
I could list several more flaws in the purely material approach to the war with the Left, but for the sake of brevity, I will stop here. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I am sympathetic to those who fight the Left on purely materialistic grounds, but when it comes to our shared struggle, I believe these individuals and groups are only seeing the tip of the iceberg confronting us all.
The true purposes feeding this seemingly endless war lie beneath the surface, hidden from view, much the way the greater bulk of an iceberg lies concealed beneath the water. Being oblivious to or scornful of the ice beneath the surface does not eliminate the presence of submerged ice which can lead to shocking and devastating consequences.
A ship that sees an iceberg, but ignores the massive chunk of ice hidden beneath the surface as it averts the tip jutting out of the water is sure to be damaged or sink. The same could be applied to our esteemed warriors who view our current war as merely cultural. This assumption is, at best, a limited understanding of what is actually transpiring.
The cultural part is merely the tip of the iceberg. The hidden part, the spiritual part, is the part that really matters. In fact, the spiritual is really all that matters because it is the source from which all 'material/physical realities' of culture emanate.
The point of this post is not to disparage those on the right who harbor atheistic or secular beliefs, but rather to point out that the war isn't and never was only a 'culture' war. It's a spiritual war. The time to begin treating it as such is both sorely needed and long overdue.
The origin of the term draws attention to the innate spiritual aspects of the earlier struggle. Unfortunately, many who fight against the Left in our contemporary struggle accept and endorse only the inherent material, physical, social, cultural, economic, and political values inherent in the war at the expense of the spiritual/metaphysical dimensions, which have been either willfully neglected or explicitly rejected.
I am sympathetic to and support those who fight our current war at the purely material level. At the same time, the shortsightedness of this position frustrates me to no end, and I often struggle to comprehend how those who fight against Leftism under the banners of tradition, nationhood, class, race, morality, hierarchy, natural law, excellence, etc., are so utterly oblivious to or scornful of the spiritual reality underpinning all of these things.
The values and beliefs mentioned above are all significant, but their core significance is only meaningful and comprehensible when interpreted through the reality of the spiritual, which is the spring from which all other 'real' values, virtues, and beliefs flow. Those who fight the so-called culture war at the material level seem blind to this fundamental flaw.
To begin with, engaging at the purely material level plays into the hands of the Left's overall strategy of framing everything solely within the material. Cultural warriors who battle the Left at that level are, in essence, seemingly no higher or better than the Left themselves. Their dismissal of the Divine, with its innate transcendence and immanence, equals an outright rejection of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. Without a belief in the Divine, all truth, beauty, and goodness is relative. Similarly, without an acknowledgement of the Divine, the objectives these culture warriors set remain firmly embedded in the realms of hedonism or determinism or utilitarianism or other such 'isms.'
Secondly, cultural warriors who repudiate the existence of the Divine essentially provide the Left exactly what the Left wants - conditions for perpetual revolution. Pitting relative values against other relative values actually serves the Left's interests in maintaining a pretext of continuous struggle in the name of progress.
Thirdly, cultural warriors who deny the divine reinforce and reaffirm the greatest trick the Left ever pulled - convincing people that the spiritual simply does not exist. Of course, only the vast majority of the Left believes the spiritual to be a fairy tale. The minority within the Left does not share this belief. Unlike the majority it directs, this core minority, or inner circle, not only believes in the existence of the Divine and Creation, but actively and purposively focuses all of its activities on perverting, inverting, and subverting the Divine and Creation for the ultimate purpose of mass damnation. Thus, cultural warriors who fight the Left but reject the Divine are really no higher than the witless minions who serve the demonic forces fueling the Left.
Fourthly, cultural warriors who scoff at the Divine usually end up making idols of their values and beliefs - the nation, the people, the economy, liberty, This is a denigration of Reality, the same kind of denigration the Left employs when they attack the nation, the people, etc., with their own defied idols of human rights, equality, inclusivity, and universality.
I could list several more flaws in the purely material approach to the war with the Left, but for the sake of brevity, I will stop here. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I am sympathetic to those who fight the Left on purely materialistic grounds, but when it comes to our shared struggle, I believe these individuals and groups are only seeing the tip of the iceberg confronting us all.
The true purposes feeding this seemingly endless war lie beneath the surface, hidden from view, much the way the greater bulk of an iceberg lies concealed beneath the water. Being oblivious to or scornful of the ice beneath the surface does not eliminate the presence of submerged ice which can lead to shocking and devastating consequences.
A ship that sees an iceberg, but ignores the massive chunk of ice hidden beneath the surface as it averts the tip jutting out of the water is sure to be damaged or sink. The same could be applied to our esteemed warriors who view our current war as merely cultural. This assumption is, at best, a limited understanding of what is actually transpiring.
The cultural part is merely the tip of the iceberg. The hidden part, the spiritual part, is the part that really matters. In fact, the spiritual is really all that matters because it is the source from which all 'material/physical realities' of culture emanate.
The point of this post is not to disparage those on the right who harbor atheistic or secular beliefs, but rather to point out that the war isn't and never was only a 'culture' war. It's a spiritual war. The time to begin treating it as such is both sorely needed and long overdue.
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