A telling test case came up recently in a news story about a trans-gender related hotel space public performance in Honolulu, in Waikiki. I'm not sure the most obvious conclusions caught all the importance of the context, that people should be tolerant of others expressing themselves, regardless of what kind of identity they portray.
It was a local Hawaiian ceremonial performance, probably a traditional hula style dance. That part was de-emphasized in the story, since the negative reaction by a conservative white woman, and how it all then played out, made for the main parts of the story.
She had no reasonable complaint. She didn't want her kids exposed to people representing that kind of identity, just for being trans-gender, which really is a bit unreasonable. She said that she would gladly leave the hotel if her room charges were refunded, and hotel staff moved quickly to help her with that.
So it's a clear win for freedom of expression and self-definition, isn't it? Especially positive for this occurring during Pride Month. Hawaiian culture is especially open to people representing themselves in all sorts of ways, with a history of trans-gender self-definition being accepted. Sure, all that is positive.
The only tension related to open acceptance relates to mainland white people representing external culture that's not appreciated, which includes a lack of tolerance for others who are different than them, as in this example. It extends a bit from there; any negative aspects of conservative or mainstream culture are looked at negatively, or to some extent people just being white, related to a minority perspective that's not necessarily held by a small minority. Still, everything played out as it should have in this case.
I'm living within a culture where trans-gender acceptance and conventional uptake is even more normalized, in Thailand. Part-time; I also live in Honolulu part of the time, where my kids go to high school and grade school. People living in Hawaii from elsewhere puts pressure on the local housing market, so acceptance of that is mixed, as I suppose it should be. Since people can move freely between all the US states that tension, and any potential resolution, can be hard to place.
In Thailand trans-gender identity is so normal that people don't necessarily make much of it, beyond any other type of expressed identity theme. As it should be. So what deeper issue here concerns me?
US culture war themes
The divide in liberal and conservative perspective never should have extended to where it currently stands, it seems to me. It's problematic for each side to express contradictory viewpoints, and for individual issues, like this one, to sort out who is in the right, correcting shared common perspective to one step closer to a better middle-ground norm. I don't see that as happening. Conflicts reinforce the divide instead.
I think it helps place what is going on to compare this theme to an earlier one in US history, to the civil rights movement. In the 1950s races were quite divided in the US, with black people and other minorities living out a lower parallel form of existence from white people. In the 70s a broad social movement corrected for this. Some white people in the 70s wouldn't have wanted their kids to be exposed to contact with black people, to share schools with them, to attend the same restaurants, or to sit beside them in the same parts of public busses. Those people were wrong, both in retrospect, related to where the culture shifted to, and back then too, related to not having a valid perspective and internal experience of a natural degree of empathy.
We're still landing on the conservative white woman being wrong in this case, right? I'm not going to conclude otherwise.
The point here is to critique where we are in the culture war, if the parallel with racism holds up, or how the two cases might vary.
One other part of the modern context is that media seems to be stoking the basis for this divide in perspective. One part of the media, the liberal branch, is pushing for greater acceptance and openness, and the other conservative side is trying to develop justification of drawing limits for exposure. Could it be that communication about gender identity and sexual preference options has become overextended in schools, or in entertainment media? It seems possible, but we would need to consider why any limit of any kind would be justifiable.
One reason for this divide seems especially problematic; media streams are polarized into liberal and conservative forms because of how ownership of those has changed over the last few decades, and their role in society has shifted. In the 1970s and 80s the role of the news media was objectivity, at least in theory, presenting events and personal stories from as objective a perspective as possible. That's no longer true. Two different conservative and liberal forms represent a general point of view instead.
To me, and this part is my own conjecture, this divide serves a somewhat nefarious purpose at this point, even though it had seemed to evolve organically. Focus on political extremes takes focus off other social issues that should draw more attention, like the wealth divide, emphasis on government spending on defense, or risks related to climate change. That sounds like a conspiracy theory, and I suppose to some extent that's how I intend it, and see it.
Do these themes connect?
Where does this set of ideas lead? People should still be able to express their own identity in any way they like, without others being able to draw those limits for them. Let's consider a decent example of this sort of theme extending too far, and see if there is any ground for rejecting the underlying conflict instead.
A recent case comes to mind; Disney has been producing media content, movies and shows, that move established franchise story lines into this culture-war identity politics range. Star Wars is the main example, but not the only one. The Alcolyte (show) is the latest example. In these shows the heroes are typically only women, who also tend to be diverse in other personal background, from racial minorities, often representing same-gender sexual preference. Taken alone this is not a problem, although extended far enough this would tend to portray straight white males mostly in villain roles, and that does happen.
It reaches back to the cowboys and "Indians" theme, doesn't it? From our current perspective pigeon-holing Native Americans as villains was wrong. But then what if we flip that; does it really work to only show white immigration to the current American west as villainous? It works better, but it seems a bit too polarized. The "noble savage" trope only goes so far. In comparison with later genocide the local nations and tribes context was ideal, and it's probably difficult to separate out finer or otherwise justified distinctions from there, but in reality of course it wasn't ideal.
I think we would be right to conclude that US territory expansion and re-definition was conducted in an immoral way, but there's no way to re-write that history. It's different if local Hawaiians are being pushed out of their own state by economic factors today, isn't it? That's all happening in real time. It can be at least partly resolved. Housing and land allocation projects only supporting established locals have been utilized for this purpose, but it seems to be far too little to make a lot of difference.
Back to the Disney example, one core problem is that new shows don't tell stories as well as older versions. Communicating the context is a main goal, over-riding story development. How can we identify this? Character development is limited, story characters experiencing transition arcs, familiar within most written content, film, television, and theater based stories in the past. That's just an example; story telling seems to suffer in different ways.
Continuity with past story telling is a concern, among fans. The Alcolyte casts the Jedi as the villains in the story. In a sense this isn't necessarily out of bounds; even earlier story themes made allowance for their (fictional) group culture being partly flawed. A good story could develop this further. It's possible that broad fan interpretation isn't objective, that "good stories" are judged in light of past expectations.
But then it seems new story line and character development goes too far, that not much happens beyond making political commentary points. Events seem to not follow natural story progressions, paced development, establishing tension, progression through interesting events, use of unexpected transitions, active conflict and resolution phases, etc. Instead of developing these story elements many show or movie versions seem to rely on the positive emotional impact of female, minority characters dominating others.
Back to cowboys defeating "Indians" / Native Americans, isn't it, a story element crutch that Western genre probably overused? It works to tell stories in which the white immigrants "lose," but it works better when that's applied within the context of a good story, with developed characters.
Backing up a bit, where am I going with all this? I feel a lack of satisfaction with the earlier event as demonstrating a clear and justified cultural victory. It seems to represent that, but I don't think it addresses the context of where the conflict is coming from, or how it finally needs to be resolved.
There is a more pronounced goal on the conservative side of "owning the libs," of people instigating tension and conflict to cause the other side a problem. It's a form of trolling, making unreasonable statements or carrying out activities just to draw a reaction.
My concern is that to some extent justifiable, valid communication and perspective correction going the other way could repeat some part of the same pattern. People expressing intolerance for reasonable self-identification should be corrected, but the ongoing cultural conflict doesn't lead to any positive endpoint, or even limited progress.
Maybe this isn't as much of an issue in the hotel traditional dance performance case. It seems possible that these two forms of correction are both justified, and valid. On the Disney media development side the push-back comes in the form of audience feedback, a "Rotten Tomatoes" audience score of around 15% positive review of The Alcolyte show series.
It's not as clear if conservatives or true "centrists" are the ones pushing back. I suppose it's even possible that some liberals don't care for that form of story telling, especially prior Star Wars fans who happen to be liberal. A minority race woman defeating a white man in a story line that makes no sense would still not be satisfying to them.
I seem to be implying that things aren't working out ideally enough, right? This is my impression. I'm not comfortable with media and news emphasis on the two extreme forms of political perspective. There shouldn't be conservative and liberal perspective friendly hotels, isolation of two population segments in such a way. Two sets of news channels shouldn't communicate only one of the two messages. There shouldn't be liberal and conservative entertainment media. There should be ways to normalize a middle ground.
Of course in the case of that woman and that incident it's not as if she moved to a conservatively oriented hotel, although that might've been possible. One not engaging in open support of Pride Month would be sufficient, a hotel represented as politically neutral.
From my perspective all of this should tip towards open acceptance of a range of identities and ideas, that should be normal, so I'm favoring the liberal side. But I'm still not seeing victory by the liberal side as the right kind of goal, in some range of senses.
Didn't that happen in the US civil rights movement, with minorities being seen as equal to others as decades passed? It seemed to. Then during the Trump era that wasn't as clear. I'm from a rural, white, conservative area, in rural PA, so to a limited extent I can relate to where racism is coming from. It stems from a lack of exposure to racial diversity. It's possible to connect racial diversity with the experience of urban problems, under the right circumstances, seeing urban crime and drug problems as relating to race issues instead of economic conditions, and other cultural influences. Or developed urban speech use can be seen as threatening; it doesn't need to relate to actual societal problems.
But then related to what I've already said I'm seemingly ok with demonizing the wealth divide, elevating this concern to the same level of universal evil. The "eat the rich" sentiment captures this set of ideas quickly, doesn't it? Wealthy people have been controlling the public narrative; individuals buying media news channels and using them to promote one of the two story lines is part of the problem.
To some extent replacing a conservative and liberal divide with a rich versus poor version must just be repeating the same perspective problem. It would be nice if a more balanced wealth distribution in the US could result from that, though.
But then there can be right and wrong related to these divides and issues, right? The US is better off for minorities having equal opportunities, to whatever extent that is the case. Gay people should be accepted, not forced to hide their gender sexual preference from others. It should be ok for people to be trans-gender, or to develop new forms of self-identity definition.
What about extremes; what if someone identifies as an elf, or a fairy, or as some type of animal? Maybe there are practical limits. I'm also concerned that a normalization of non-fixed internal self-identities may lead to new forms of identification that aren't as functional, for our young people.
My kids can identify as straight or gay, or change their gender identification, if they really want to, but I think it would be a mistake for them to try to walk away from consistent forms of self-identity. That particular form context, embracing some degree of continuity, seems to be especially functional. We have yet to experience what would happen if highly variable forms of self-definition became a new norm, people taking up very different self-identification themes day to day, or even intentionally manifesting multiple personalities.
I think our internal and external representations of personas are a bit arbitrary, conventional, and somewhat fictional, but that's a longer set of ideas that I'll need to set aside here.
Where to next?
How can the US culture war be "walked back?" What would that even look like?
Victory by the liberal side probably isn't a practical outcome. And then there doesn't seem to be a natural middle ground to arrive at. There is no shared perspective to be developed between racism and open acceptance, for example. Simple separation is still not ok.
The way forward seems to stem from openness and communication, not by any number of individual victories by one side. In the initial story moving that woman to a more conservatively oriented hotel was only a temporary fix, to the extent such a thing might even exist.
This is the problem I have with this outcome. That conservative woman "got owned" in that story. The social media group sentiment was that she could go back to the mainland with that flawed perspective. It wasn't the worst possible outcome.
I would want her to understand why it's a problem to limit how other people express themselves.
The one other part of the story I haven't brought up yet relates to how this is all playing out in US public schools. I think this is where her tension is really coming from, why the lack of acceptance came up in the first place.
Kids are taught that a broad range of gender identity and sexual preference forms are normal, in some cases, and conservatives don't want their kids to learn this. To me those forms are just normal, maybe not according to what I grew up with, but it's all normal range in today's society. Can my own relatively liberal perspective be universally accurate? Maybe not.
That far extreme of atypical identity options also becomes important. Couldn't it be inappropriate to identify as an animal or mythical character type? Sure, why not. On the more moderate side it becoming fashionable, in-trend, for people to identify as trans-gender may also be problematic. Children don't have a clear gender identity at my daughter's age, typically, at 10. Many would, and in many cases their initial self-definition would carry over to all of their adulthood, but it's also a time of transition.
If children in the age ranges of 10 to 15 explore self-identity in novel ways this seems fine, but early options for hormone treatment and even surgery seem potentially problematic. A decade ago even hormone therapy for a young teen would have been unthinkable, but it's happening now. These kind of options wouldn't have to be completely reversible later on.
I'm not convinced that the most conservative option, narrowing the range of what is communicated as possible options, is necessarily right, but there may be reasons for why that's not inappropriate or entirely negative. Societies become stable when a range of normal identity roles are defined and adopted, related to issues like gender identity, and also role identity, becoming a parent, an employee, a national citizen, a good neighbor, and so on. All of these roles can evolve organically, and change over time. Mapped to all of those conventional roles it's fine to be gay, transgender, to reject parenthood, to be an entrepreneur, to not participate in any political process, and to choose to remain socially isolated.
What if social norms change so that these opposite selections become somewhat universally adopted? The last two seem different than the others, don't they? Democracy depends on some degree of voluntary participation, and a society made up of isolated individuals may not be as stable. It seems likely that both of these have "broken down" in the US, and that this negative characterization is at least partly justified.
In Reddit I've recently been exposed to an anti-natalism group, made up of people who not only choose to not procreate, but also to self-identify in relation to shared perspective that people in general shouldn't do this. Humanity should shut it all down, and cease to exist, more or less as a failed experiment. It's a bit negative. Surely their own negative life experiences are the main cause for this perspective.
It could be troubling if a next step is taken, if it becomes even more common for people to think that more actively reversing human existence would be a good thing, eliminating the people that already exist. That already comes up. 40 years ago these kinds of extremes were a rare aberration, concerns over who might become homicidal, but it's something that needs to be considered more today.
I'm not sure exactly what I'm proposing, related to walking back the culture war, or the rest. I don't see any practical way to make any progress at all in relation to this. I think it should at least come up as an option, that one side or the other winning doesn't need to be the only outcome, that actively setting aside the conflict itself should be considered. It doesn't help that such a vast percentage of Youtube channels draw a lot of their following based on taking up these extremist themes and views. Centrist perspectives that take up one extreme and then moderate and soften the framing and conclusions can also be attractive.
Conservatives could continue to feel uncomfortable about social changes and new self-definition options without dwelling on that scope. Liberals could continue to embrace and support others self-defining and expressing themselves as they see fit without hating the other 40% of the US population, characterizing them as villains. What schools teach or enable could be brought in line with a middle-ground acceptance, arrived at through open dialog. Media forms could embrace political and cultural themes without villainizing broad segments of the population.
Of course in the last case, or all these cases, problems would come up, related to varying interpretations and perspectives. My concern is that we don't seem to be framing these issues in these ways, as divides that we need to somehow work through and move past. I don't think that antagonism and limited issue-based victories by one side or the other is going to help with resolving this divide, the US political culture war. It seems it will have to play out to some form of eventual resolution that we can't currently foresee. Maybe future generations will simply tire of it, so over a long cycle of 40 or so more years it will fall out of fashion?
Possible partial resolution; media content commentary on perspective divides
This leads me to think of what form of discussion or media input support existed 40 to 50 years ago that isn't a factor now. What helped with that earlier change, when a lot of opinions about a race divide did shift for the better?
A 70s television show that openly critiqued the earlier forms of race and gender imbalance comes to mind, All in the Family. It used good writing, insightful presentation of ideas, compelling and relatable characters, and good acting to map out where issues stand, and what might represent progress. The main character, the conservative Archie Bunker, didn't switch over to become a liberal, but the show developed situations where he was exposed to new ideas and people of types he wasn't familiar with, and was biased against, minorities and gay people. He grudgingly came to accept that some of his earlier broad generalizations were too limited, and there were examples of people of good character from those groups, with different valid perspectives.
Of course it was a different age; without three main networks now no shows could have a similar following. But what is popular that is trying something similar? Shows and movies can emphasize representation now, not necessarily addressing modern biases and acceptance issues directly, or even so indirectly, but simply demonstrating a degree of relevance by having modern characters represent different races, genders, and new forms of self-identity and sexual preference. It's not the same though. It would be hard to support the same degree of idea presentation and indirect dialog without at least establishing parallel fictional themes.
The Alcolyte could be seen as a limited form of this sort of attempt, since one story line context challenges the form of established patriarchy by eliminating all male characters in one small social group. It's still simple representation though; this doesn't communicate any indirect message. In that much earlier All in the Family television show context they used familiar societal forms and character types in simulated real-life settings to develop discussion of issues, which would be much less effective if addressed far more indirectly.
The Barbie movie seemed to try to take this other approach, to discuss themes within a fictional context, but it was taken in vastly different ways by people looking for their own versions of messages and conclusions. One simple message might have been that the patriarchy is bad, that women should be regarded as equal to men. Digging a little deeper the movie might have been critiquing current forms of that critique, saying that replacing it with a matriarchy paradigm might only re-form the same problems.
I can explain. After the Barbie World start-up patriarchy was defeated the Barbies decided to allow for token equality and representation of Kens, with severe limits, so that government and judiciary positions could be held by men, but only in a very limited form. This could have represented a main conclusion, that granting women equality in the real world in a very limited form doesn't actually change the nature of the problem, only the appearance of it. One male character states this explicitly earlier on, that patriarchy in the real California has only evolved to hide that form better, replacing explicit gender restrictions by implicit versions, adding other requirement criteria that men would be more likely to fulfill. The Kens in the movie are happy to be heard and granted token equality, not a real version of it, and this could have been a main message, a caution for women accepting limited provisional equality.
Vague movie themes that can be interpreted in different ways may satisfy a range of audiences better, but that's not so helpful for social commentary. It's a different thing, but as in this hotel meltdown example case I also don't see limited, clear-cut, one-sided victories in support of openness and acceptance as nearly as helpful as they might first seem. Some of that is necessary, drawing clear boundaries, but it wouldn't help resolve any underlying tensions.
The same applies to push-back of extremist liberal ideology in mainstream entertainment content as a relatively meaningful step forward. It's positive, related to setting acceptable limits, but that Star Wars fan reaction is also mostly related to keeping entertainment content entertaining. At least the Barbie movie did that; it used relatable fictional characters, developed story lines, and some degree of character transition arcs to tell a story. What that message meant could vary in interpretation, which I guess is a normal component of artistic expression.
If the received message is that the patriarchy is bad, that both genders should be regarded as equal, that seems too simplistic to function much as a social commentary. Of course this is right. Now tell us something we don't know, about how to undo an existing general bias, or about how since it evolved organically in the first place we can unpack and understand those factors to help reverse it.
A Star Wars series could show that the earlier good versus evil paradigm was overstated, and there can be problems within a sub-culture or power structure that is generally identified as positive. The message wouldn't work without a good story structure, relatable characters, individual character development arcs that parallel the general perspective mapping, and great acting pulling it all off.
It's a stretch, but not as much of a stretch as US conservatives and liberals actually talking, and learning to give space to opposing views, to understand them, and to just get along.
