The Culture Wars

What are the "Culture Wars?"

The term culture war refers to political and social conflicts centered on values, cultural symbols, identity, and moral norms. While citizens have debated social values for centuries, the specific concept has a distinct history that stems from historical conflicts and processes related to power, colonialism and cultural control.

Historically, the term traces back to nineteenth-century Germany, where Chancellor Otto von Bismarck initiated a political conflict known as the Kulturkampf ("culture struggle") against the Roman Catholic Church over control of education and civil society. In modern use, the term was popularised in 1991 by American sociologist James Davison Hunter in his foundational book Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America. Hunter observed that public disagreement was shifting away from traditional political platforms toward fundamental divides over morality, family structures, education, and national identity.

In contemporary society, culture wars thrive because issues are universally accessible. As historians and journalists point out, every citizen can form a rapid opinion on whether a commercial advertisement is offensive or if a public figure's tweet crosses a moral boundary. Consequently, these disputes allow political actors to rally support by appealing directly to emotion, identity, and belonging.

Contemporary Examples: Case Studies in Commercial Missteps

Research in fashion branding and crisis communication from Lund University highlights how global brands frequently blunder when deploying minority cultural artifacts without historical awareness. Here are some examples:

• The Balaclava and Blackface Controversy (Gucci, 2019): Luxury brand Gucci released a black knit sweater featuring a pull-up neck with cut-out red lips, closely resembling blackface imagery. 

• Cornrows on Non-Black Models (Comme des Garçons, 2020): During a Paris fashion show, a high-fashion brand styled white models in braided wigs mimicking cornrows.

• The "Coolest Monkey in the Jungle" Campaign (H&M, 2018): Retailer H&M published an online advertisement featuring a young Black child modeling a green hoodie printed with the phrase "Coolest Monkey in the Jungle." The campaign provoked outrage because comparing Black people to primates is a long-standing racist trope historically used to justify enslavement and colonial oppression. 

Appreciation to Cultural Appropriation

Building upon postcolonial insights, cultural appropriation is the adoption or use of elements of one culture, such as traditional clothing, sacred symbols, music, or hairstyles, by members of another culture, particularly when a dominant group takes from a historically disadvantaged or minority group.

It is important to carefully distinguish between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation. 

The central conflict in cultural appropriation revolves around power. When dominant commercial institutions use sacred or historical ideas purely as superficial, eye-catching elements for marketing, marginalised communities often view it as exploitation.

From "Political Correctness" to "Woke"

Language is one of the primary arenas where culture wars are fought. Over the past four decades, specific words or terms have emerged, shifted in meaning, and been weaponised.

During the late 1970s and 1980s, the phrase politically correct (PC) originated as a joke among left-wing activists to describe someone who sticks firmly to party ideology . However, by the early 1990s, conservative politicians and media commentators took the phrase and converted it into a label to mock efforts aimed at reducing sexist, racist, or homophobic language.

A nearly identical journey happened to the word woke. Today, the term is used across international media, but historical documentation emphasises that its roots are grounded in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and Black civil rights struggles.  The earliest documented uses of "woke" in a political sense date back to the 1930s and 1960s. In 1962, Harlem-based African American writer William Melvin Kelley published an essay in The New York Times titled "If You're Woke You Dig It." It spoke about how Black slang was frequently adopted, misunderstood, and distorted by mainstream white culture.

Following the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the hashtag #StayWoke became a global rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement. Within Black activism, to be "woke" meant staying alert to systemic racial injustice, police violence, and societal discrimination. 

As the word entered mainstream internet culture, two distinct things happened:

• First, corporations engaged in woke-washing. Woke-washing is the use of socially aware words in advertising campaigns to appeal to "woke" consumers, while failing to make changes to their actual business practices . A famous example occurred in 2017 when Pepsi released a commercial featuring celebrity Kendall Jenner resolving a tense street protest by handing a police officer a can of soda. 

• Second, by 2019, conservative politicians and media commentators in the United States and Great Britain began changing  the meaning of woke from positive to negative. It became an insult to describe progressive social politics, diversity orenvironmental awareness. Florida's "Stop W.O.K.E. Act" (2022) demonstrates how the term was transformed into a formal legal target to restrict classroom discussions on race, gender, and history.

Studies show that as the frequency of the word "woke" skyrocketed in UK and US between 2018 and 2023, the usage of "political correctness" sharply declined. This demonstrates that "woke" effectively succeeded "PC" as the dominant word in culture wars.

Accountability vs. Censorship

The term cancel culture refers to the practice of publicly calling out, boycotting, or withdrawing support from public figures, brands, or institutions following statements or behaviors deemed offensive, discriminatory, or harmful. A "call-out" was a public warning, giving the individual or organization an opportunity to acknowledge the misstep, apologise, and reform. 

Surveys highlight how deeply divided the public is regarding online cancel culture and call-outs. The survey revealed two primary opposing viewpoints:

• Those in favour calling out offensive behavior on social media see it as a vital tool for social accountability. In this view, digital platforms allow everyday citizens and marginalised groupsto hold powerful public figures, corporations, and institutions accountable.

• Critics view online call-outs as an unjust form of public shaming, digital mob censorship. They argue that internet outrage rushes to judgment, ignores context, stifles open debate, and inflicts severe personal and professional penalties without the appropriate process.