The Culture War is dead! Long live the Culture War!

A few days ago, I scrupulously avoided an Australian Culture War debate over whether the Culture War was "over." This was despite the fact that Glenn Reynolds had gone out of his way to passively-aggressively link the debate, which made it much harder to get back to the original "OUCH."

Perhaps "cowardly avoided" is more accurate than "scrupulously avoided." More likely is lazily; I get too damned burned out on Culture War stuff after five years of blogging about it (this in a blog I started only because I was already burned out on it, mind you), and sometimes I honestly don't know what to do.

Because of my Culture War burnout, I genuinely would like to imagine that the Culture War is dead. Why, I even want the issue of whether the Culture War is dead to be dead. I've discussed the idea (of whether the Culture War is dead) before, of course. Long before. But then, there isn't much I haven't discussed before.

Er, not so fast.

Much as I'd like to tidy up the Culture War by limiting its scope to certain social issues of the kind commonly normally associated with the term, it's now become clear to me that because of the well-oiled discussion machine -- which finds its nexus in instant mass communication technology -- any cultural phenomenon (no matter how seemingly minor) can be lifted out of obscurity and be catapulted from some anonymous backyard or bedroom to the front page of a national newspaper.

In this way, the Culture War is not limited to things like same sex marriage or abortion, or pornography, or pot smoking, or even slutty children's attire; it can be about things as seemingly mundane as cutting the grass and killing bugs in your backyard. Or even hanging laundry on a clothesline. Yes, I have blogged about that before, of course, and just this morning in the Inquirer, there was yet another piece fueling the clothesline war.

Most Saturday mornings, Steve Oliver picks up a laundry basket and heads for the backyard, taking action for his planet and his wardrobe.

No renegade, he's nevertheless flying in the face of convention and convenience.

He's hanging out the laundry.

Yes, Oliver has a dryer in his Berwyn home, "but I hate to use the damn thing," he says. "If you have a full sun, it's the most wonderful thing to take advantage of."

Viewed by some as a remnant that went the way of Leave It to Beaver, the clothesline may nevertheless be poised for a resurgence. Earlier this year, AOL's money page listed clotheslines - along with silicone breast implants and Paula Abdul - as one of the 20 "comebacks" to watch for in 2008.

Not that there's anything new about clotheslines; when I was a kid they were all over the place. Yet today they can be seen as an assault on traditional culture. (And I admit that I find something supremely annoying about people I suspect are doing it for the attention....)

From traditional culture to cultural assault in just a couple of generations? Is that possible? But of course! As I tried to carefully document in another post, even toilets are becoming a culture war issue, with the new composting toilets annoyingly evoking shades of "traditional" outhouses once used by the Greatest Generation. There's a rule almost along the lines of when the traditional gives way to the modern, the modern becomes traditional, and the traditional becomes a cultural enemy. I don't say this to be inflammatory, or judgmental, or political; it could almost be reduced to mathematical formula.

If history shows anything, it's that dead wars don't die. One war leads to another, in a sort of gruesome continuum. Despite the desire of people to declare it over history does not end. (I've been thinking about the rather silly contention that it did while reading Robert Kagan's book, which I learned about in this podcast.)

Now, if war does not end and history does not end, it would be silly for me to expect the Culture War to end, and I'm not so naive as to expect it to end.

I've recently written a couple more posts about pit bulls, and during the course of that I stumbled onto the factoid I decided to ignore (at least in this blog) -- that a leading anti-pit bull activist is also a Barack Obama committee activist. This surprised me, as to my bitter way of stereotypical thinking, the pit bull banners would be more likely associated with the Hillary voters, because the latter tend to be more conventional, while pit bull supporters tend to be more unconventional. (For a related cultural discussion, see "If pit bulls are lesbian lap dogs, Gavin Newsom has a problem!")

Anyway, I decided to ignore this activist, and I emailed my thoughts to M. Simon:

I don't want to criticize her, as I'd prefer to see her spin her wheels in leftyland. Better there than in the real world of Hillary supporters, who are (at least, so I worry) more likely to want to ban breeds in the interest of prevention and safety.

One of these days I'd love to write an essay about the culture war aspects of pit bulls. White rednecks, urban blacks, libertarian cranks, and animal rescue lefties are their defender. Working class whites, drug war/police supporters, and blacks who left the ghetto want them banned. I've owned them since the mid 70s, and I have watched the breed's cultural seepage. From rednecks to blacks, then because of adoptions, to young hip whites and Hollywood trendies. Utterly fascinating to anyone who studies the dynamics of culture war -- which is largely based on manipulated hatreds and backlashes of one sort or another.

Someone could get a Ph.D. in sociology or public policy if they did it right.

Opening the Wall Street Journal, I had a genuine "Every time I try to get out, they draaaag me back in!" moment, because right there on the front page was a picture of something even more culturally inflammatory than laundry flapping on clothesline: a pit bull with a baby!

I kid you not:

Text:

While pregnant with her first child, Meridith Duffy cried nearly every day -- to her dog trainer.

She feared she'd have to part with her pit bull, Haley, when her child was born. Haley "had never bitten anyone," says Ms. Duffy, who lives in Braintree, Mass. "But I knew she had that potential, and I was nervous."

Why oh why can't the Culture War just stick with traditional Culture War issues?

You know, like condoms on bananas?

I wish I could just declare the war over, that the traditional has devoured the modern, that the enemies have won and they are us, so give me my damned Ph.D. and leave me alone.

But that would be simplistic.

Besides, it takes five years to get a Ph.D. in whatever despicable academic discipline(s) might be involved. It seems infinitely more worthwhile spend the time blogging....

UPDATE: Via Glenn Reynolds yet another cultural tidbit confirming my awful thesis. Retrosexual is devouring Metrosexual. Get on with it. Draaaag me back in from where I never wanted to go to where I never wanted to be until now. Except if you want to avoid the Culture War, it's always too late.

UPDATE: This morning I added a follow-up to my earlier email to M. Simon:

I probably shouldn't have mentioned pit bulls as a culture war issue in my email to you. This morning's WSJ has a picture of a pit bull and a baby on the damned front page!

Can't the Culture War stick with traditional issues?

:)

Once we lost our "shit happens" and "sometimes you get lucky" attitudes it was all downhill. Now a days so many have combined the two into a profit making venture. Now it is "shit happens and that is when you get lucky".

I think we have one whole party that just feeds on that. And you can quote me.