'Dangerous': Philosopher warns media’s framing of 'culture wars' is a 'misrepresentation of fascism'

14 February 2023

The term “culture war” or “cultural war” can be traced back to 1992, when far-right Patrick Buchanan ran against President George H.W. Bush in a bitter, divisive GOP primary before railing against Democratic nominee Bill Clinton during the general election. Speaking at the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston, Buchanan declared that the United States was facing a “cultural war” in which liberals and conservatives had radically different visions for the country.

Buchanan told the crowd, “There is a religious war going on in this country. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as was the Cold War itself. For this war is for the soul of America.”

Back then, Buchanan was considered a fringe figure in the GOP, but his ideas later found a home in Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and the MAGA movement. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is often described as one of the Republican Party’s most prominent “culture warriors.”

But in an article published by The Guardian on February 14, philosopher Jason Stanley objects to DeSantis’ agenda being called a “culture war.” Trying to eliminate ideas one disagrees with, Stanley argues, is not about waging a vigorous debate — it is “fascism” and naked authoritarianism.

“A wave of Republican enthusiasm for banning concepts, authors and books is sweeping across the United States,” Stanley explains. “Forty-four states have proposed bans on the teaching of ‘divisive concepts,’ and 18 states have passed them. Florida’s Stop Woke Act bans the teaching of eight categories of concepts, including concepts that suggest that ‘a person, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the person played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin, or sex’…. Administrators and teachers have been forced out of their positions on the suspicion of violating these laws, and what has started as a trickle may soon become a flood.”

Stanley adds that in January, the Florida Board of Education, with DeSantis’ blessing, banned an advance-placement African-American studies course from public high schools on the grounds that it violated the Stop Woke Act of 2022.

“These laws have been represented by many as a ‘culture war,’” Stanley writes. “This framing is a dangerous falsification of reality. A culture war is a conflict of values between different groups. In a diverse, pluralistic democracy, one should expect frequent conflicts. Yet laws criminalizing educators’ speech are no such thing — unlike a culture war, the GOP’s recent turn has no place in a democracy.”

Laws like Florida’s Stop Woke Act, according to Stanley, don’t promote a competition of ideas — their goal is to repress ideas that DeSantis and other MAGA Republicans are uncomfortable with.

“Most frighteningly, these laws are meant to intimidate educators, to punish them for speaking freely by threatening their jobs, their teaching licenses, and more,” Stanley warns. “The passing of these laws signals the dawn of a new authoritarian age in the United States, where the state uses laws restricting speech to intimidate, bully and punish educators, forcing them to submit to the ideology of the dominant majority or lose their livelihoods, and even their freedom.”

Stanley adds, “It is clear that the chief agenda of the GOP is to advance a set of speech laws that criminalize discussion in schools of anything but the white heterosexual majority’s perspective. The media’s portrayal of these laws as moves in the ‘culture wars’ is an unconscionable misrepresentation of fascism.”

Read The Guardian’s full article at this link.

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