Cultural wars in American politics

Florida Governor and potential Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis wants to push through a law that will end the freedom of the public universities to promote academic courses in gender studies and “critical race theory”, and it would ban considerations of race and gender for hiring faculty under the principle of diversity, made popular under the acronym DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion).

This is the cultural war that far right Republican conservatives are waging against the liberals and the far right liberals now become notorious as the “Woke” force. DeSantis wants to place himself at the head of this cultural battle in his bid to outflank Donald Trump who has already declared his candidacy for the 2024 presidential contest.

The partisans on both sides of this cultural divide hold on to their respective positions with fanatical zeal. There is little doubt that gender studies are important because half of the human race has not been fully studied in terms of history, politics, economics, sociology and science. Women’s contributions in these fields have not received the attention they deserved, and it follows that the neglect of women’s contribution has been neglected so far because most men in all the cultures and civilisations had overlooked the role of women in societies.

It is possible to argue whether the liberals had in their zeal overplayed the gender card and crowded the syllabus. There is scope for a critical assessment of this aspect. For example, in the study of literature, especially of Europe and America, the rebellion tried to marginalise the central literary texts of Western civilisation from Homer to Shakespeare to Leo Tolstoy. Some of the liberals, and cultural conservatives certainly, had reacted to this and argued that it would not be right to deprive students of the younger generation, men and women, from getting to know the literary giants who happen to be men.

But this is a battle that is to be rightfully fought between the conservatives, liberals and ultra-liberals. Politicians should not be interfering in the matter through legislation. But Republicans have an argument that cannot be thrown out that public universities are funded by governments through taxpayers’ money, and people have a right to ask questions as to what is being taught. Republican conservatives also take shelter behind the argument that there is a need to affirm the basic values of Western civilisation. Though they do not mention the word Christian, the assumption is that Western civilisation is infused with Christian values.

The liberals have an argument that Western countries are not any more white and Christian societies that they were till the 19th century, and migrations from Asian and African countries, and from faiths other than Christianity like Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims are now a significant part of the societies of Western countries in Europe and in America. It is but just that their histories and cultures and faiths and values should also be part of the higher education studies so that the educated citizen is well-informed about the diversity of society. Gender and race intervene because these indeed have been contentious issues because of the political arrangements in the Western societies. Women got their voting rights in the United States and in Britain only in the 20th century. And America has always faced the African-American or black issue because of the slave system that defined American society right from its inception.

Far right Republicans are keen to bring these contentious questions into the political arena because they want to appeal to the conservative sentiments of the dominant white and Christian segment of American society. Americans had to fight a civil war in the mid-19th century to settle the issue whether it was right to own slaves, and Abraham Lincoln, the Republican president, said that slavery was morally untenable. Now the issue is whether Americans should know the facts of their history as to how slavery and gender discrimination shaped their past.