Its Time to End the Insufferable Culture Wars

Dear Readers:

Today’s society is plagued by the so-called “Culture Wars”—an endless struggle in a divided America over how people should speak, express themselves, or live their lives. The foot soldiers of these wars seem to believe that anyone who doesn’t fall in line deserves to be punished, doxxed, or pushed to the fringes of society.

The far-right sees the Culture Wars as a crusade to stamp out “wokeism,” while the far-left treats them as a tool to end the "bigotry" of the right. In practice, both camps have sparked plenty of outrage over things that most regular people just don’t get—though those same regular people often end up caught in the crossfire anyway.

At its core, the Culture War is cynicism weaponized. The rage it stirs up usually comes from assuming the absolute worst about a person or situation. It’s like being in a bad mood and daring someone to say the wrong thing just so you can blow up. Nobody wins from this. Everyone just gets angrier and goes to bed unhappier than the day before.

Policing other people’s word choices does nothing to build support for your worldview—it only breeds resentment. You’re not going to change someone’s mind on immigration by forcing them to say “undocumented immigrant” instead of “illegal immigrant" or vice-versa. And fighting over whether to call someone “homeless” or “unhoused” doesn’t put a roof over anyone’s head. All you get is an argument over semantics, some personal attacks, and two people walking away in worse moods than when they started.

But language isn’t the only battlefield. Everyday life gets dragged into the trenches. A retro Cracker Barrel logo becomes an attack on southern culture. An American Eagle ad somehow morphs into a white-supremacist dog whistle. These may sound like absurd examples, but they're real and they show how both the far-right and far-left inject their delusions into things that should just be… normal.

To be fair, I get that some of this started with good intentions. There really are things people shouldn’t say—overtly racist or sexist remarks have no place in civil society. But when “calling out” goes too far, it ends up undermining the very values it was supposed to defend. Conservatives, who once preached that government should stay out of private business, now want to punish companies for programs aimed at recruiting minorities. Liberals, who spent decades pushing for women to be treated equally, feel free to hurl sexist insults at Sydney Sweeney for appearing in an ad campaign.

At the end of the day, I can’t help but feel like the Culture Wars have distracted us from the things that actually matter. Real problems—like people struggling to make ends meet, broken healthcare systems, or communities dealing with crime and addiction—don’t get solved because we’re too busy yelling at each other over logos, ad campaigns, or the latest “problematic” phrase.

I’m not saying words don’t matter at all. They do. But empathy, perspective, and some basic grace matter a whole lot more. If we could stop assuming the worst about each other and quit trying to score outrage points online, maybe we’d find we have more in common than the culture warriors on both sides would like us to believe.

So my advice? Step out of the trenches, ignore the outrage bait, and talk to people like human beings instead of opponents in some grand culture war. Because if we keep fighting wars over every word and every ad, we’re going to lose sight of the bigger picture—and all go to bed a little angrier, a little sadder, and a little more divided than we were yesterday.

As always, thank you for taking the time out of your day to read my work. If you enjoy my content, please consider subscribing!

Very truly yours,

James Kaiser