Yes, of course there is a Culture War

But the people leading it are usually the people who most often complain about it.

According to Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland, the British government’s opposition to her ministry’s gender recognition reforms is easily explained. It is the latest episode in a “culture war”, by which term impeccably “progressive” people such as the first minister mean a view with which they disagree. “Culture wars” are only waged by people who are wrong.

And, certainly, “culture war” has become a very convenient means by which opponents can be dismissed and, crucially, presumed to be acting in bad faith. This being so, it is no surprise that everything and anything may now be reckoned part of a “culture war”. Researchers at King’s College, London reported that in 2015 just 21 articles discussing “culture war” issues were published in “mainstream British newspapers”; in 2020 there were 534. The number will have only increased since then. You may not be interested in the culture wars but they are interested in you.

Some - much - of this is plainly intimately-connected …