The furore over Oxfam’s “woke” language guide misses the point
The media attack on the charity’s “inclusive” wording forces us to choose between blustering bigotry and preening sanctimony.
ByCulture wars
Culture wars are ideological clashes surrounding cultural and social beliefs between groups, generally divided across the socially conservative and liberal line. The term derives from the German Kulturkampf (‘culture struggle’), referring to the clashes between the Catholic Church and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in the late nineteenth century. Find all our latest news, comment and analysis on culture wars here.
Don’t make sex education a culture war
In a world of Pornhub, sexting and abuse, kids need proper teaching not baseless scaremongering.
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We have lost Russell Brand
This once-sexy communist has become an American culture wars pundit.
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Britain’s original culture wars
A new history of the 17th century reminds us how bitter ideological conflicts have shaped our democracy.
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How Bari Weiss broke the media
The culture war at the New York Times crushed Bari Weiss – and made her.
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Bret Easton Ellis: “Wokeness is running out of room”
The Shards is the famously morbid author’s latest “trickster book”. He prefers cabinet shopping to culture wars now.
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The year woke broke: a brief history of a contested word
From Suella Braverman to Elon Musk, war has been declared on liberalism. How did one word come to mean so…
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No, JK Rowling isn’t being erased by a book-binder
But a young artist is being left to field a toxic storm of abuse.
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Beneath the culture wars, we are not nearly so binary
It is possible to both view climate change as an existential crisis and support JK Rowling’s view on trans rights.
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The war on Christmas values
Forget phoney culture wars. Jesus would have been appalled by conservative attacks on the poor and marginalised.
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Nicola Sturgeon has stoked needless divisions over trans rights
The First Minister has stubbornly refused to debate or even particularly to acknowledge her opponents on gender reform.
ByA brief history of “woke”: how one word fuelled the culture wars – Audio Long Reads
From Suella Braverman to Elon Musk, war has been declared on liberalism. How did one word come to mean so…
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Why Rome had no culture wars
The clash between Caesar and Cato offers lessons for today, but also reveals the gulf between modern and classical thought.
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How to stoke a culture war within the Oxford student union
A bureaucratic change has been blown up into a woke battle between women and trans people.
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Museums like the Wellcome Collection miss the middle ground in the culture wars
In between cancelling and venerating, there is providing context.
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How John Cleese became a hero of the right
The Monty Python comic, and latest GB News signing, was once anti-establishment. Now he is merely “anti-woke”.
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The Philip Pullman affair shows social media is where good arguments go to die
The author of His Dark Materials has spoken out against “gesture politics” – but he too adds fuel to the…
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Who could have foreseen that the Festival of Brexit would be a disaster?
It’s tricky to feel celebratory during war, economic crisis and the tail end of a pandemic.
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Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss are turning green energy into a culture war
In the face of soaring energy prices, they’re complaining about solar panels on farms.
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What my toddler and I learned at Drag Queen Story Hour
Despite culture-war outrage, children’s events hosted by performers in drag are safe titillation for middle-class parents.
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