Becoming a monster: on culture wars

I am only very slowly beginning to understand why throughout the entire Scriptures and in Holy Tradition there is a warning about how you ought to relate to other people. Though I do not agree on most things with Nietzsche, yet I am coming to heartily agree with the quote below.

Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehen, daß er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein (Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.)

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

1 John 1:5 (KJV)

In the late 1980s the term “culture wars” began to be used by a Professor of Sociology named James Davidson Hunter. He saw it as coming out of the cultural changes of the 1960s. The term itself comes from the late 19th century and was used by Otto von Bismarck (Otto of Bismarck, he was the Prince of Bismarck) the great German unification strategist. The term in German was Kulturkampf, which means culture struggle. It referred to the attempts to unify the Protestant German north to the Catholic German south.

In 1871, the unification of Germany was complete at the end of the Franco-Prussian War and the German Empire, under the Kaiser was declared. However, in order to achieve this unification a series of mini-wars was necessary leading to the last war against France, which unified Germany against a common enemy. Bismarck had successfully overcome the resistance between Catholic and Protestant by conquering some areas, but finally by giving them a common enemy against whom they could unite.

Nietzsche was alive during that time. He did not live to see the full results of Bismarck’s culture war strategy but he already discerned it. Bismarck united Germany by creating a common set of enemies. He clearly meant to create a united Germany that would be the strongest power in Europe. What he succeeded in doing was creating a Germany full of monsters, who were willing to go to war with the entire Europe, if necessary, in order to prove their rightness and superiority. And so, Nietzsche penned his warning from what he had seen.

But, the culture did not listen to his warning. Two World Wars later, Germany was devastated. Parts of its territory had been given away. A couple of pieces had become new countries. And, what could have been a vibrant country in the middle of Europe had become a wasteland. It is true that Germany has rebuilt itself with help from the Allies. Modern Germany finally was unified again after the fall of the Berlin Wall nearly a generation ago. There are still two cultures in Germany, but they have basically learned to coexist after a century of painful lessons.

We have been fighting the Kulturkampf since the late 1980s, and we are beginning to become more like monsters on both sides of the debate. There is a cogent quote from an article in the Washington Times.

As elite institutions increasingly repudiated the values of the masses, the culture wars took on what Mr. Hunter calls a “Nietzschean” quality: The stakes began to seem so high that coalitions would “abandon their values and ideals in order to sustain power.” Upper-class culture professes cosmopolitan openness, but “cultures are not, by their very nature, tolerant of much plurality,” he says. “So the Harvard Law School prides itself on its diversity, but it’s a diversity in which basically everyone views the world the exact same way.”

In the heat of battle, religious conservatives too have found themselves defending behavior that contradicts their stated moral values. On the relationship between the religious right and the president, he says: If “there is a hope that the state can secure the world, even by someone as imperfect as Trump, ” then “religious people, are willing to make all sorts of accommodations”—willing “to justify pretty much anything.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-man-who-discovered-culture-wars-1527286035

And so, I am beginning to realize that the warning of Scripture and Holy Tradition are correct. When we see another person as the enemy and when we use warlike language to refer to them, we inevitably start becoming what we see the other person as being. We see them as monsters and we slowly start becoming monsters. We see them as empty of truth and we slowly begin to behave as though we, too, are empty of truth. The less we see another person as one who bears the image of God, the less we bear that image ourselves.

It is less and less surprising to me that many of the stories of the Desert Fathers and Mothers are less about discipline than about forgiveness. They could be sharp with their words. But, even when they were sharp with their words, it is clear that their attitude was a loving attitude toward those whom they addressed. By loving attitude I do not mean the modern squishy formless emotional dreck that modern society calls love. Rather, I mean that active love that will lead a parent to ground a child out of a loving desire to ensure that they will grow up correctly and not make a mistake that will damage their future. Yes, gentle lovingkindness is part of love, but so is faithful correction and guidance.

There is nothing wrong with advocating for one’s position. There is nothing wrong with supporting particular political candidates. But, when the “other side” begins to be classified as the enemy then inevitably we will begin to behave toward them as not worthy of being listened to. When we fight a war, we will inevitably and slowly begin to believe that–like in a real war–we must sometimes undertake, or condone, actions that are not fully moral in order to ensure our ultimate victory. When the other side is the enemy, we will find reason to push away even our friends and relatives if they dare to speak words supporting the other side. When the other side is the enemy, we no longer listen to our friends and relatives if they agree with that other side. We will not even listen to our own religious authorities when they try to tell us that it is not immoral to support one or another group.

It is no wonder that we are called to love one another. It is no wonder that we are called to turn the other cheek. It is no wonder that Peter was told to put down his sword after he cut off the servant’s ear when Jesus was arrested. Because when we gaze into the abyss, when we see others as monsters, we start becoming the monster and having the abyss gaze out of our eyes.

Germany stands as a warning to us. By the end of World War II, it no longer mattered whether one was a Catholic or a Protestant, whether one was Prussian or Bavarian. No, nothing mattered except unquestioning loyalty to the party. And, if the party said to exterminate certain members of the society, then you averted your eyes when the orders were carried out and hoped that you would never become part of one of the proscribed groups. And, you told yourself that you were doing the right thing and that you were basically a moral person. The end of Kulturkampf is never the victory of all that is good and true and right. The end of Kulturkampf is hell and bitterness and regret.