by Tomasz Ignatik

Cor ad cor loquitur

Though the term “Culture War” is thrown around much in socio-political discourse, many have not stopped to think what this title means. Specifically in the conservative side of the socio-political divide – in which the term seems of more prevalent use and importance – this term often applies to a broad effort to stem the tide of cultural decay that the modern world has found itself in and to revitalize the values of the forgotten Western Tradition. Various efforts, including attempted legislation and voting awareness campaigns, all are claimed under the united theater of this nebulously defined “war.” A quick glance at a world replete with crying for constitutional amendments protecting abortion, plummeting rates of religious conviction, and a growing pandora’s box of mental disorders can tell you that victory remains a distant and unlikely possibility for the future. What victories it does claim are often symbolic waving of ill-defined standards with vain hopes behind them that this near-inconsequential action will magically rally an army that has for decades been shivered and scattered throughout the disparate realms of ideology. And though traditionally minded classical schools and the few colleges dedicated to true education are doing good, the fruits of what they are sowing will not ripen until the distant future, a time in which their efforts may be overshadowed by the encroaching tide of cultural despair. Upon inspection, this “war” breaks down into three distinct, though intertwining, fronts: the political, the religious, and the social.

Each front has its own main method of combat. The political focuses on legislation and following the dictates of the governmental system in electing representatives who will vote to uphold and instill traditional values. Pundits such as Ben Shapiro and the late Rush Limbaugh try to turn the tide of common opinion, citing statistics and their own logic to support their claims about why you should agree with them and join their cause. Though dissenters and differences of opinion exist, all action flows through the main channels of statistics, logical arguments, and government procedure. Similarly, the religious means to revitalize itself through further outreach and presence in the lives of the younger generations. This can take the form of religious movements or events that seek to inform the faithful, the proliferation of products and faith-based entertainment, or even apps for one’s phone. Finally, the social and educational mainly take the form of either schools to form the young or solidarity movements and non-profit organizations that seek to raise awareness and rally support for specific social issues. 

But none of these methods are effective. Most methods take a defensive stance, shoring up what they have under the guise of an offensive strike at a corrupt culture. Private schools only educate those who attend knowing the tradition in which they will be taught. Religious movements, though of benefit to the few faithful, bear no appeal to a secular and disinterested culture, and the watered-down tradition that claims a broad appeal only ensures mainstream disinterest. Though they provide a safe haven for those already pledged to the religion, such efforts rarely administer to those outside the influence of the specific church; in other words, they rarely reach those who would benefit the most from it. All these measures rarely work on their own, for they assume the “enemy” will approach them in the field they have chosen to define and operate in. Defensive measures do have their purpose, and even a defensive counter can inflict casualty on the enemy, but one would be disillusioned to insist that one can win a war by circling around with linked shields waiting for the enemy to throw themselves upon your spears. 

Once one realizes how a war is fought and won, seeing how these movements in the so-called culture war fail to grasp any significant victory becomes evident. Efforts in war can be divided into two different actions: offensive and defensive. The defensive braces for the enemy’s assault as one waits for the proper time to strike. The offensive strikes the enemy and wins the war. The problem with all these previous efforts is that they take a purely defensive stance, even if they are phrased offensively. They seek to preserve the people who are already inclined towards the cause, and those who are opposed to it get turned off by its frankness and open-intentions and brace themselves against their efforts. Counter-arguments can always be made for any political point and short of a miracle, religious conversion rarely happens if the subject knows someone intends to convert him. A mind convicted of its current position when faced with pressure can always construct a rationalization to defend itself when it feels itself under attack. It may have been said that facts don’t care about feelings but the truth of the matter is that feelings don’t care about facts. 

These approaches are not befitting a war, but of a cooperative effort, for they do not realize the oppositional nature of the exertion of cultural influence. Military theorist Carl von Clausewitz spoke that “War is no activity of the will which exerts itself upon inanimate matter like the mechanical Arts; or upon a living but still passive and yielding subject, like the human mind and the human feelings in the ideal Arts, but against a living and reacting force.” Here Clausewitz realizes what the “culture warriors” do not, that the objects of war do not cooperate, but resist, one’s attempts for victory. War is not the forming of a cooperating clay which accepts the hands of the sculptor, but the forcible conforming of one resistant will to another; and in the battles for the hearts of men the enemy will harden their hearts in the face of attack. 

One can see why these efforts I have named fail, for they butt their efforts against the shields of an enemy who knows it is being attacked in this way. To truly win these battles, one must launch “attacks” that aim to succeed, slipping past the armor and finding its way into the vulnerable chinks. This is a tenet of warfare: strike where the enemy is weak, strike without him knowing and when he least expects it. Avoid the points of great contention, for in those you will meet the most resistance, make the least progress, and incur the most losses. An overt attempt to directly attack the issue and convert others may stymie its own attempt, for a direct strike can be foreseen and prevented. Cultural inertia resists a direct and open attempt to dislodge the status quo. If this struggle is a war, it is a gentle war, one that must be fought within the fragile confines of each human heart while retaining the imposing force of military conflict.

But this article would be merely a whining tantrum of an academic brat if it did not offer a solution. This article has identified the problem in the current attempt for cultural reform with directness, and so the solution to this is an adaptive form of warfare, an indirect attack that through slant indirection slips through the chinks in the armor. Rational and direct defensive measures are necessary as a defensive base that prevents positions from being overrun, but they cannot far move past their emplacements into an offensive maneuver. For that something else is required. Several potential methods of doing so present themselves. One of which is improving the standards of public architecture, for the use of buildings is something that all must do and cannot resist through mental faculties. Philosopher Roger Scruton wrote that “A work of architecture imposes itself come what may, and removes from every member of the public the free choice whether he is to observe or ignore it. Hence there is no real sense in which an architect creates his public; the case is wholly unlike those of music, literature and painting, which are, or have become, objects of free critical choice.” Architecture is the public art, creating a space wherein one must live in, and in the beauty of the space within its lines and form, it can lift the mind to higher things. A hostile mind cannot resist the usage of architecture, nor does it usually notice the effects of it, but winds its way through a subtle testimony to a beauty which looms above us all. A beautiful building reminds Man that he was meant to inhabit beauty, living in it as an aspirational construction of his faculties. Formal architecture directs Man to a cosmic telos which the space we inhabit merely imitates.  

Architecture is not the only method in which modern man can be directed towards a desire for transcendent values. A glance at edits of popular films and shows on Youtube will reveal a market for messages of honor, virtue, and truth. Though imperfect, these indicate a dormant desire in the populace for values of greatness and holistic beauty. Though they provide basic entertainment value, they can lead the viewers in the right direction by acquainting them with the idea of a higher calling to one’s life. A similar effect is achieved in the adulation of athletes; though at times it can tip into juvenile idealization, the praise of athletic prowess inclines towards a culture of personal excellence. People see the greatness some achieve, whether in national sports or in the narrative of a film, and aspire to reach such heights. Such aspirations can lead to resolutions of personal improvement. Though it may seem selfishly motivated at first, a step in the right direction is a step in the right direction; by preying on people’s most precious and genuine feelings, one can lead them to goodness through that which they feel themselves naturally drawn to. This finalizes as the recognition of the greatest attack one can launch against a culture of death and mediocrity: the creation of a beautiful life. The good example of one saint can tip the balance of multitudes, for it is in the personal beauty of the human heart that one finds the conviction to change one’s life. 

Indeed, one also does not mentally exclude an encounter with beauty from the formative impressions of one’s life, and an encounter with beauty can direct one towards more tradition and goodness. This makes beauty the pre-eminent weapon in the conquest of the human heart. Goodness can be warped and put in the service of slant sentimentalism while truth can be manipulated to yield compelling conclusions, for it is as the devil admonishes in the Inferno, “Perhaps you did not think I was a logician.” The late Pope Benedict XVI spoke that the greatest apologetics the Church possessed were not the mounds of philosophical thought it has collected over the years, but the lives of the faithful dead and the works of beauty it has birthed. He realized that the conquest of souls depends not on the arm that bears the sturdy shields of doctrine, but the hand that reaches out to plant a seed of divine yearning in fellow men. If one desires to alter the face of modern morality, one must seek to change the roots of culture, not amend the symptoms in the pursuit of a rational society. Beauty foremostly has the power to breach all defensive barriers and storm the heart of Man. 

Tomasz Ignatik is a senior majoring in English

Roger Scruton, Aesthetics of Architecture, p. 13.