The Culture War And Consumption In A Partisan World

The culture war. It never ends. Though it became formalized back in 1990s when American cable news was just starting to shift from respected fourth estate to overbearing talking head chorus, the struggle has always been there and hardly shows signs of ever leaving. It is the glue that holds communities together, and in which we've come to approach pivotal moments in our lives. Much of it is thanks to the way in which said news (along with the advent of social media) has framed daily events, constantly going for the divisive, the controversial. Conversations hardly are level-headed and the topics tend to get more absurd each time. But much of the reason the news goes into hysterics is because the dialed-up tension brings in more eyes. Politics is seen more of a sports game than an intellectual discussion, and all of us partake in the spectacle to see our side win. It doesn't matter if the subject is abortion or whether to say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, all we need is the proper evisceration and we'll bask in the glow of righteousness. Afterwards we might feel dirty about the whole ordeal and wince at how partisan the world's getting, but we'll get back to gloating when our side wins another point.

It is truly insidious how much the current 24-hour news cycle and social media has fueled the culture war but the sources where it extracts the crude reactionaries are all around us. Our lives are inherently political by not just what we say and do but from what we buy and react to. We try our best to construct a set of principles that we abide to along with ones that we believe that society should strive to better progress. In doing so, we either directly or indirectly form the ways in which we consume media. Those that we choose as our intellectual beacons, the thoughts we have on the latest film or TV show or even our own diet or fashion say to ourselves and others, "this is what lies within my core". These aspects are what then push us into the communities that we want to be a part of and drive us to be hostile to those which are our adversaries. Those communities have within them individuals that then rise up and claim themselves leaders and influencers who then burst onto the monitors that we in turn like, comment are share. 

There is nothing wrong with coming to terms that life is political and to be aware of what you're doing in relation to how you wish to be defined in those terms. Indeed one must have that self-awareness and be willing to view the world through a political lens. However, if you can't knock those glasses off your face, what you're left with is utter frustration and misguided aggression. We see this with virtue signalling about how people aren't paying attention to some news, as if people cannot pay attention to both. We see it with overreaching pop culture analysis that opts to view the incredibly trivial as the highly significant. We see it with how people instantly turn to boycotting and destruction of a company's merchandise for violating its beliefs, only to find that it would never manifest into any resounding change or helps to raise their profits. None of this allows for proper reflection, rather it plays into a reflexive outrage that comes across as paranoid. 

Moreover, it is that very outrage that becomes amplified. It is the ammunition that the media loads up on and shoots across its networks to provide that rush of vitriol to others. They push more urgent issues to the side and engage in a sensationalist game of telephone where each outlet puts its own spin on it to push their agenda further. From this, what was a minor grievance becomes a rallying cry built on misconceptions and half-truths. Even worse is when an issue that is of urgency gets trivialized either through distorting it or by turning it into a selling point. Perhaps in some way it helps to bring the issue to the masses but ignorance is forced upon it, diluting its urgency for the sake of advertisement.

Some believe that because of this constant need to make mountains of molehills that we should just dull our senses to what goes on and try to look for simplistic compromises. This mentality presents problems by declaring everything as equally subjective and thus incapable of being properly debated. After all, how can one truly say whether apples or oranges are the superior fruit? It also does not resolve the mismanagement of priorities and only helps to ignore when smaller issues do add up to a troubling trend. 

That's not to say that it's not understandable why some go down that path. After all, the culture war is a tedious ordeal. It tires the general public as much as it energizes it into a frantic shouting match.  Moderation would be a better status quo than what we have now. But there's yet to be a proper pivot back to the middle. We must not sacrifice our beliefs unless we have a good reason to. Neither should we be willing to be at each others throats so quickly.  It's hard to find common ground, but when it appears it is in everyone's best interests to solidify themselves in it and come around to strengthening it. If we are drafted into the culture war and thrown into the battlefield already, it makes no sense to run away. One has to go in and fight, maintaining their focus and keeping with them honor. Yet this is an unconventional war, one where friends can be made across the lines and extended breaks exist to ease the tension. Be armed when it comes to another battle, but don't point your arm everywhere expecting enemies to crawl out.