CS 340Q

Culture Wars from PC to Woke

‘Culture wars’ refers to ideological struggles over issues seen as beyond structural or political-economic components: e.g. abortion, sexuality, multiculturalism. Some recent manifestations include: ‘The 1619 Project’; the anti-‘Critical Race Theory’ campaign; residential schools and ‘cultural genocide’’; ‘Cultural Marxism’; and the anti-trans agenda. These areas of controversy are fundamentally a war over differing cultural values, beliefs, attitudes etc: i.e. ideological worldviews. We will examine definitions of key terms, including ‘political correctness’, ‘woke’ and ‘cancel culture’, before turning to a brief historical trajectory followed by an examination of the institutional and organizational support for ‘culture warriors’ before focusing on these contemporary examples.