The Use (Meaning) of Language and the Term “War”

Abstract

Many political and social issues currently are framed in terms of “war.” We hear of culture wars, the war on drugs, the war on terror, mommy wars, and so forth. By casting a social or political issue as war, we convey a military framework for approaching the problem, one that involves hostilities, attacks, and battle, and one that generates fear. I became interested in this topic while pursuing how different disciplines conceptualize “culture.” Recently, I wrote about “civic culture,” a set of political beliefs and behaviors proposed to sustain a democratic form of government. Classically, culture is considered the technology, social structures and functions, ideology, language, art, and artifacts of a group taught through the family from childhood on. According to this definition, the notion of civic culture is a very limited use of the term, restricted to the beliefs and actions of a group in a political context. This month I was preparing to write about the expression “culture wars,” another limited use of the concept of culture combined with the discord-inducing term “war.” In American usage, “culture wars” refers to the polarization of values and ideological world views between beliefs considered traditional or conservative and those considered liberal or progressive. As such,