Culture war is a loan translation (calque) from the German Kulturkampf. The German term, Kulturkampf, was coined to describe the clash between cultural and religious groups in the campaign from 1871 to 1878 under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck of the German Empire against the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. The term cultural war has been in English use almost as long as the original Kulturkampf and generalizes the idea of these kinds of struggle. It is related then to the theory of cultural hegemony.
Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci presented in the 1920s a theory of cultural hegemony to explain the slower advance, compared to many Marxists' expectations, of proletarian revolution in Europe. He stated that a culturally diverse society can be dominated by one class who has a monopoly over the mass media and popular culture, and Gramsci argued for a culture war in which anti-capitalist elements seek to gain a dominant voice in the mass media, education, and other mass institutions.
Read more about Culture War: United States of America, Canada
Famous quotes containing the words culture and/or war:
“I am writing to resist the view that Europe and civilization are going to Hell. If I am being “crucified for an idea”Mthat is, the coherent idea around which my muddles accumulated—it is probably the idea that European culture ought to survive, that the best qualities of it ought to survive along with whatever cultures, in whatever universality. Against the propaganda of terror and the propaganda of luxury, have you a nice simple answer?”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone
In the ranks of death you’ll find him,
His father’s sword he has girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him.”
—Thomas Moore (1779–1852)