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THE YEAR THE CULTURE WARS WENT GLOBAL
Eesti elu, Estonian World Review
Dec 23 2014
Arvamus 23 Dec 2014
Turning geopolitics into a battlefield over values is a really
bad idea.
Frank Furedi, spiked 23 December 2014
A century after the outbreak of the First World War, it seems humanity
is confronted with new cultural disputes that have the potential to
mutate into violent conflicts.
The experience of the past century has demonstrated that the
politicisation of culture always ends badly. And little wonder:
cultural crusaders create a climate of intolerance towards the norms
and values of their cultural targets. They are often censorious and
seek to devalue their opponents. In its more extreme forms, cultural
politics leads to the mutual dehumanisation of the antagonists.
Such dehumanising sentiments were far too evident a century ago. The
Armenian genocide of 1915 represented the most extreme and destructive
manifestation of this lethal synthesis of culture and militarism.
Tragically, almost a century later, the spectre of culturally motivated
violence haunts that region once more. Until recently, the great
Armenian church in Deir el-Zour in Syria served as a memorial to the
mass killings that occurred during the Great War. Earlier this year,
however, in a savage act of vandalism, a group of Islamists blew the
church up. They destroyed its archives, and the bones of hundreds of
victims of the 1915 massacre were left strewn in the streets.
Today, the most extreme exponents of the politicisation of culture
are the jihadist zealots who regard the lives of those who do not
share their faith as unworthy of moral value. But the depravity and
barbarism of a movement such as the Islamic State can obscure the
disturbing reality: namely, that the politicisation of culture, and
its intolerant consequences, is gaining strength across the world. It
has certainly contributed to the hardening of the rivalry between
the West and Russia. And it is this, the emergence of a caricature
of the Cold War, that is arguably the most significant international
development of 2014.
It seems that disputes about lifestyle, family life, sexual orientation
and the nature of community life are no longer confined to the
domestic sphere. The Culture Wars have gone global. Muslim jihadists
are not just fighting with bombs; they are directly assaulting Western
liberal values and denouncing them as immoral. For his part, Russian
president Vladimir Putin has sought to present himself as fighting
for traditionalism and the Christian way of life.
In turn, Western diplomats have criticised Russia for its patriarchal
and sexist culture.
http://www.eesti.ca/the-year-the-culture-wars-went-global/article43929
Eesti elu, Estonian World Review
Dec 23 2014
Arvamus 23 Dec 2014
Turning geopolitics into a battlefield over values is a really
bad idea.
Frank Furedi, spiked 23 December 2014
A century after the outbreak of the First World War, it seems humanity
is confronted with new cultural disputes that have the potential to
mutate into violent conflicts.
The experience of the past century has demonstrated that the
politicisation of culture always ends badly. And little wonder:
cultural crusaders create a climate of intolerance towards the norms
and values of their cultural targets. They are often censorious and
seek to devalue their opponents. In its more extreme forms, cultural
politics leads to the mutual dehumanisation of the antagonists.
Such dehumanising sentiments were far too evident a century ago. The
Armenian genocide of 1915 represented the most extreme and destructive
manifestation of this lethal synthesis of culture and militarism.
Tragically, almost a century later, the spectre of culturally motivated
violence haunts that region once more. Until recently, the great
Armenian church in Deir el-Zour in Syria served as a memorial to the
mass killings that occurred during the Great War. Earlier this year,
however, in a savage act of vandalism, a group of Islamists blew the
church up. They destroyed its archives, and the bones of hundreds of
victims of the 1915 massacre were left strewn in the streets.
Today, the most extreme exponents of the politicisation of culture
are the jihadist zealots who regard the lives of those who do not
share their faith as unworthy of moral value. But the depravity and
barbarism of a movement such as the Islamic State can obscure the
disturbing reality: namely, that the politicisation of culture, and
its intolerant consequences, is gaining strength across the world. It
has certainly contributed to the hardening of the rivalry between
the West and Russia. And it is this, the emergence of a caricature
of the Cold War, that is arguably the most significant international
development of 2014.
It seems that disputes about lifestyle, family life, sexual orientation
and the nature of community life are no longer confined to the
domestic sphere. The Culture Wars have gone global. Muslim jihadists
are not just fighting with bombs; they are directly assaulting Western
liberal values and denouncing them as immoral. For his part, Russian
president Vladimir Putin has sought to present himself as fighting
for traditionalism and the Christian way of life.
In turn, Western diplomats have criticised Russia for its patriarchal
and sexist culture.
http://www.eesti.ca/the-year-the-culture-wars-went-global/article43929