Culture wars Archives - Public Seminar

Social Research

Conspiracy Thinking, the New Issue of Social Research

The New School journal introduces its latest issue

November 10, 2022 • by Social Research

The Fall 2022 issue of Social Research tackles the subject of conspiracy thinking, from ungoverning to elective affinity....

Conspiracy Thinking, the New Issue of <em>Social Research</em>

The Arts

A reply to my critics

March 3, 2022 • by Jed Perl

Authority and Freedom is dedicated to the freestanding value of the arts—a value that is absolute but not isolationist. ...

Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts

Three observations on “Authority and Freedom”

March 2, 2022 • by Paul Berman

Art has always been an instrument of social oppression, except on occasion when it has been an instrument of resistance. Such is art’s meaning. And, in order to resist oppression, we ought to go about judging art on the basis of which side it supports, the side of vice, or ...

Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts

The Hip-Hop Revolution that Never Happened

Why it’s foolish to expect any form of art to change the world

March 2, 2022 • by John McWhorter

Today, hip-hop lives on without most fans taking seriously the fantasy that it will trigger a revolution or even increase political activism—that conceit now feels as antique as an iPod. Even a form of poetry as viscerally compelling as hip-hop cannot, it would seem, change the world....

The Hip-Hop Revolution that Never Happened

Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts

How Many Americans Believe that Art Has Any Value?

The real threat to the arts today

March 1, 2022 • by Lindsey Scharold

When I worked for an arts non-profit in suburban Minnesota, I saw the widespread lack of appreciation for the arts firsthand....

How Many Americans Believe that Art Has Any Value?

Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts

What makes the arts an essential part of a society is their freestanding value—a value that cannot be described as radical, liberal, or conservative

February 28, 2022 • by Jed Perl

While there have been many periods when the arts inspired some sort of controversy, different times have different troubles. In our data- and metrics-obsessed era, the central problem is that the imaginative ground without which art cannot exist is under threat....

Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts

Politics

The Horrifying Right to One’s Own Context

Seven rules of culture warfare

November 8, 2021 • by Ondrej Slacalek

Anybody can become a cultural warrior, even unwillingly. With common grounds diminishing and liberals and conservatives dead-set against each other, is the Left doomed to fail? “Culture wars” has become a rather annoying expression, encompassing far too much while explaining far too little. At the same time, it seems to be ...

The Horrifying Right to One’s Own Context

Politics

The Power of Empty Terms

The increasingly militant culture wars divide the public into two irreconcilable camps

November 2, 2021 • by Zora Hesová

Unlike a historical dispute or ideological debate, the “politics of morality” is primarily about power, a concept with American origins, now playing out in Europe. But what lies even further behind central Europe’s growing disagreement over same-sex marriage, abortion rights, and immigration? The Czech Republic has recently caught up with the ...

Media

Watching Afghanistan

On television and the Afghan culture wars

July 12, 2021 • by Jeannette Estruth and Wazhmah Osman

_____ Media scholar Wazhmah Osman’s book, Television and the Afghan Culture Wars: Brought to You by Foreigners, Warlords, and Activists (University of Illinois Press, 2021) analyzes the impact of international funding and cross-border media flows on the national politics of Afghanistan. Her research is rooted in feminist media ethnographies that focus ...