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| Series Theme: "Culture Wars" |
Chapter 11: Warfare Strategy (2) – Acrimony & Divisiveness
CONTENTS
PART 11.1: Acrimony Acrimony Example 1: Kathy Clanchy Example 2: Kathleen Stock Example 3: Cathy Boardman Example 4: J.K.Rowling
PART 11.2: Divisiveness Divisions Watch the Divisiveness 1. Racial Divisions 2. Battle of the Sexes 3. Identity Crises Back to Church
Acrimony: I don't remember ever having come across this word in my reading but it crosses my mind that it sums up what is at the heart of the culture wars of the present day. It simply means bitterness or ill-feeling, qualities that are being found in numerous examples of ‘canceling' today.
In chapter 4.2 ‘Looking beyond the Surface', I was reminded of when I first started writing Christian blogs online quite a number of years ago. Some of the responses, only some, were seriously hostile, but they went far beyond that, they were vitriolic, bitter, hurtful (if you let them), and seriously spiteful. What is it, I thought, that is causing this? Today this goes wildly beyond just Christianity, it is seen in the anguished outpourings against anyone who dares resist the mores, the customs and values, being espoused in the culture wars. Just to make the point we'll present just four of many examples of those who have earned the wrath of the mob.
‘Canceling', we noted in chapter 5 means, “means to stop giving support to that person. The act of cancelling could entail boycotting that person or their works.” However, the reality is that often ‘cancelling' involves a firestorm on social media, the new form of the mob baying for blood. Canceling invariably involves acrimony and extreme hostility from what can only be described by any civilized, mature adult, as a seriously disturbed person who in past decades or centuries would have themselves been shunned by society. One has to acknowledge that many of these ‘canceled people' in the following examples, themselves hold outlooks on life that many Christians would query. They are, nevertheless, examples of the spite, anguish, bitterness and hostility that is ‘out there' in society on both sides of the Atlantic. Here are our examples:
Example 1: Kathy Clanchy: In a book review article on the 7 th April 2019, a Times reviewer wrote of a book by teacher-writer, Kate Clanchy, entitled ‘Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me', “it may well be one of the most uplifting books you will ever read. It's a collection of true stories, mainly about children, but also about teachers, schools, class, race, education and, most important, poetry.” Now put aside whether or not you agree with her, her style of writing, or the content, note what followed.
On the 13th August 2019, again in the Times, we find the following being reported:
Kate Clanchy has been censured for offences against ever-more-stringent modern orthodoxy in her memoir about teaching in British state schools, Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me, specifically for referring to “chocolate-coloured skin” and “almond-shaped eyes”. The book won the Orwell Prize in long-ago 2020, back when our standards of sensitivity were criminally lax. After a burst of consternation, the author apologised — in today's predatory cultural climate, a sign of weakness and always a mistake. “I am not a good person,” she grovelled. “Not a pure person, not a patient person, no one's saviour.” Picador, her publisher, also apologised for the “anguish” the book had caused, although the experience of shooting down a prize-winning author is likely to occasion an emotion closer to “glee”. The publisher will soon release a new version of the memoir that is cleansed of sin.
Now the article doesn't highlight the criticisms or the forms they took but they were obviously sufficient in the present climate to cause both the author and her publisher to back-pedal vigorously, one simple example of something that has happened numerous times in recent years in response to what is often serious expressions of hostility.
Example 2: Kathleen Stock: Perhaps the example of Kathleen Stock, a professor at Sussex University became one of the prime examples in 2021 of this sort of thing:
Oct 9th 2021: The Times: An academic abused by students for allegedly “transphobic” views says it is a “sign of the toxicity” of today that she is considered dangerous. Last night the head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Baroness Falkner of Margravine, called the attacks on Professor Kathleen Stock disgraceful and said that tougher regulation was needed to protect people from abuse…. Students put up posters calling for Stock to be sacked and critics abused her in vitriolic terms online. Sussex University, where she is a professor of philosophy, defended her and the right of freedom of speech. Stock is a gender-critical feminist who believes individuals cannot change their biological sex. The hostility of the campaign against her and the inadequate support of the university authorities, resulted in her resigning her post.
Example 3: Cathy Boardman: On Aug 22nd 2022 The Times ran an article about a college lecturer, Cathy Boardman including the following comments: A lecturer is suing a music academy over claims that she was forced out of her job because of her stance on trans issues, which included asking students to consider whether drag acts could be seen as sexist….. In March 2021, Boardman was criticised after using a lecture on sex and gender to focus on the mistreatment of women after the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a Metropolitan Police officer. The lecturer allegedly faced claims of transphobia by a small number of the 400 students present for not mentioning transgender people….. Boardman told The Mail on Sunday: “The sad fact is there is now a climate of fear on our campuses.”
Example 4: J.K.Rowling: THE most notorious case that hit the headlines for a long while was that of the famous Harry Potter writer:
12th June 2020: The Times: If JK Rowling thought she would prompt a debate with her late-night tweet in which she “spoke up about the importance of sex”, the response in her timeline will quickly have told her otherwise. The author's declaration that “it isn't hate to speak the truth” about natal sex generated more than 45,000 replies, as well as 220,000 likes and almost 35,000 retweets. A great many opposed her view, considering her tweet to be hateful transphobia and responding with trolling of the most abusive sort. The more restrained trolls called Rowling a hag. One apologized for having previously calling her a Terf (trans-exclusionary radical feminist), considered a derogatory term, adding: “What I meant to call her was a vile rotten raggedy old hag as well as a Terf.” “Delete your account hag,” another said. Such replies were relatively restrained, however. Many Twitter users exploded with expletives in the online equivalent of shouting someone down. The article then followed with a stream of vitriolic abuse tweets.
1 Cor 1:10 I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.
Divisions: I believe it is fairly obvious from the above verse that Paul was addressing a particular problem there in the church in Corinth. Mostly in his day the divisions in the Church were caused by those who came up with doctrines that varied from those originally taught by Jesus and his apostles. Today the challenges come from outside the church but have filtered into it and are still divisive. Division is one of the primary outcomes, I believe, of these culture wars and for that reason we must see them as a work of the enemy.
Watch the Divisiveness: All these things come in the name of righteousness, they say, as they claim to be righting wrongs, injustices we have tolerated for too long. So what are the primary divisions that these culture warriors have been using? Let's see these expressions of the fallen world before we try to determine the truth about them, and perhaps make some preliminary comments about them.
1. Racial Divisions – black verses white. The Atlantic slave trade providing labour for the settlers in what is now the United States, has become the major focal point for conflict in the twenty-first century. As we'll go on to see, what is strange is that slavery has existed as long as mankind has sinned and some of it existed in Africa long before the Europeans joined in. That's not to excuse it – for all slavery is terrible and abhorrent – but it is to seek to create a more accurate picture, as we will do later. But it's not only the slavery of yesterday but the untruthful mantras of the present. It has taken someone like black writer, teacher, anti-woke activist, John McWhorter, to challenge such mantras as, “Unequal outcomes mean unequal opportunities” and “Historical figures who weren't woke on race must be cancelled”. Along the way, we will examine the heresy of ‘white privilege', a tool used to make all white people feel bad, and we'll do it in the context of ‘equality'.
The Times: June 28th 2021: The term “white privilege” is stoking divisions and marginalizing the most disadvantaged, an equalities minister has claimed. Kemi Badenoch said that an “intense focus on race” was weakening Britons' sense of national identity. She suggested that people should be emphasizing what they have in common, rather than their differences….. She pointed to a BBC educational video designed for children, that had been viewed three million times, which said that white children had a duty to understand their privilege so society is “fairer and more equal”. Badenoch said: “We should not carelessly use skin colour as a proxy for disadvantage”….. She added: “As someone who grew up in Nigeria, where there is only one skin colour but more than 300 ethnic groups, the more ethnic identity is emphasised the weaker national identity becomes. This is a dangerous trend for a multiracial society where we need to lean on what we have in common not emphasise our differences.”
2. Battle of the Sexes: That is how it was once called, and after a long period in the wilderness, it is interesting that one young radical feminist has thoroughly upset the already divided feminist camp, with a remarkable book about modern sexual behaviour in which she dares to declare, what has in latter decades been seen by many in the feminist camp as heresy, ‘men and women are different.' It's come home! So, as we'll see later on, there is a swing back (but don't get excited it's still a little way off) towards the biblical teaching.
Sexism, unfairness that has occurred within society in respect of women, women doing exactly the same job as men for less pay, not being allowed to vote, etc., arose because of it not being properly addressed as the world developed and changed. But gender issues may be a completely different ballgame for they arise not so much from history but stretching attempts to decriminalize certain sexual behaviours in private (more on this later) and using them as weapons to bring darkness. As we'll remind ourselves later there are many good differences between men and women but because the inequalities were not being addressed, they have become the weapons of the new war.
3. Identity Crises: We have already considered the question of identity. The confusion that has spread through the battlefields of racism, into the battle of the sexes, and now into the battlefield of gender identity, is really all a battle over identity but it is a battle that in each case creates an increased sense of difference or division from others, fertile ground to cause discord and upset. The attack in the sphere of race has been to accentuate differences of race – black versus white – playing on historical injustices of slavery but, as we shall see in that chapter, distorting the truth as to how that has played out. The attack in the sphere of sexuality has been to overstate the need to balance out equality of women, to challenge the realities of gender, and to cause ever widening gaps between men and women, straights and gays, and those demanding they change their sexual identity. More and more division that has been used to change ways of thinking that, under scrutiny, fail to stand the tests of truth.
Back to Church: The existence of local churches was never, I believe, a sign of division of the Church, merely an expression of the reality of local believers gathering together. Travelling apostles, prophets, and evangelists are the initial threads that held the Church together. The Great Schism or Schism of 1054, a divide between the churches of east and west was a serious division as, it might be suggested, was the work of the Reformation and, indeed, the creation later of new ‘denominations'. Unfortunately new life didn't mean the old life died. Division has always been a goal of the enemy. Why? Remember the old adage: united we stand, divided we fall.
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