Masks, Mandates, and Cultural Hegemony
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A House Divided
Abraham Lincoln gave his famous “House Divided” speech on the night he was nominated to be Senator by the Illinois Republican Party. Only a few hundred miles from where the convention was held, armed conflict between pro- and anti-slavery factions had left as many as 200 people dead. It was 1858, four years after the Kansas-Nebraska Act became law, and Kansas was on its way to statehood. The legality of slavery would soon be up to a popular vote that could lead to more bloodshed. Concerns about polarization in the nation, especially about the future of slavery, were foremost in everyone’s mind, and Lincoln said:
A house divided against itself, cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.
Lincoln was right to be concerned about the future, but in some of the dark days after Fort Sumter, it looked he might be mistaken about the Union being preserved. Fortunately, the country did eventually all become “one thing”, but for that to occur, 600,000 American men had to die, the Confederacy had to be crushed, and the South had to be humiliated by Reconstruction. Some believe that people from the states that seceded have never recovered from their defeat. The Civil War united the nation politically but not culturally, and the country is still divided.
Poor Joe Biden
The Biden administration has done little to heal our country’s divide. Most of the President’s legislative initiatives are failing and he is suffering from abysmal approval ratings, much lower among Republicans than Democrats. There is dangerous polarization in America, seen in the conflicting ways members of the different political parties view the President. At least one commentator has said that Biden’s difficulties with governing are because he is really the President of two separate nations, not just one. The situation is more worrisome because these two separate nations are both nearly the same size, leaving neither with an enduring majority or the power to take permanent control. Worsening political polarization over the last few years, accelerated under the Obama administration, has brought us to the most divided America since Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. People talk about the possibility of a second civil war.
U.S. Political Typologies
The Pew Research Center shows political polarization clearly in polling data published only 2 months ago. According to analysis by the Center, Americans have self-segregated into nine groups, referred to as “political typologies”. Each of these comprises 6 to 16% of the general population, and they range from “Faith and Flag Conservatives” on the far right to the “Progressive Left” at the other end of the spectrum. Adding together the three most partisan groups on each wing, those who are least likely to vote across party lines, one finds 28% of the population strongly identifying as conservative, 35% strongly identifying as liberal, and a remaining 37% making up the categories “Ambivalent Right”, “Stressed Sideliners”, and “Outsider Left”. These last three groups are the independent or “swing voters” that determine national elections.
Another Pew Research Center study from November, 2021, gave evidence that the differences between Republicans and Democrats are not merely economic, as the Progressive Left would have us believe. When asked about what factors give life meaning, both groups consider family and children to be most important, but after that, opinions diverge. Following family, Republicans value spirituality, faith, and religion, while Democrats are more concerned with friends and community. Republicans benefit from association with societies, places, and institutions, whereas Democrats are more interested in their physical and mental health, and in involvement with hobbies and recreation. Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to mention freedom and independence as having important impacts on their happiness.
Culture War or Cultural Shift
All these measures confirm there is a pronounced cultural divide in this country. Differences in culture drive political affiliation rather than the other way around. International polling shows the degree of culturally-based political polarization is greater in America than in other countries. It has weakened the nation. The question is, has this split occurred organically among the population, or has the cultural divide been planned and amplified by outside sources? Are outside forces manipulating cultural norms in order to soften resolve against erosion of traditional American values? Is the cultural shift spontaneous or has it been purposefully created?
These questions prompt consideration of the idea that American cultural hegemony is being purposefully manipulated by those who wish America harm. The concept of cultural hegemony was developed by Antonio Gramsci, a prominent Italian communist who had been jailed by Mussolini’s fascist regime. Although providing support to the communists seemed to be in the best interest of the Italian proletariat and peasant classes, these groups instead sided with Mussolini to bolster his Brown Shirts and provide “muscle” to energize his takeover of Italy. This baffled Gramsci, but he concluded that the problem was not with what his Italian Communist Party offered, but with cultural influences that favored tradition and reactionary responses to communism. Cultural hegemony had led the citizenry to act against its own best interests.
Cultural Hegemony
Gramsci understood that political power comes in two ways, either through coercion or by consent of the people, the authority coming by consent being called “hegemony”. “Cultural hegemony” refers to the predominant, spontaneously arising, norms, expectations, traditions and desires of a population that guide decisions about what people want and what they think is appropriate behavior. Gramsci believed that communism would surely succeed and achieve political hegemony after fascist culture had been conquered. Unfortunately for the Italian Communists, it was George Patton who conquered Mussolini (and the Seventh Army, of course.)
Cultural hegemony is a neutral concept, neither good nor evil. But its use can be for benefit or harm, a harm that the population willingly accedes to, even though the people realize that long term detriment will outweigh short term gain. A good example of this phenomenon is the current push by Democrats to neuter the filibuster for the sake of nationalizing elections. The fact that the constitution specifically gives authority for regulation of voting to the states does not deter them, as they push the narratives that “American democracy is at risk”, and that “all rights flow from the right to vote”. Over the years, the country has been left purposely ignorant of the fact that the country is a representative republic, not a democracy, and that rights come from the Creator, not from the government, as emphasized in the Declaration of Independence. Cultural hegemony has shifted away from respect for the ideas that built America.
Another example of the leftward shift of cultural hegemony is shown by the extreme attitudes that have grown up around Covid-19. Never before in our nation’s history has it become the norm to elevate “science” above religion, and blindly follow flawed, constantly changing, and agenda-driven federal “guidance” to the point that Faucism has become the latest denomination of the agnostic faith! Never before has the truth been so purposely muddled for the sake of political gain. Early in the pandemic, those trying to shift cultural hegemony to the left decided that maintaining the country on a “fear footing” would allow them to befuddle the population into ignoring a blatant campaign to unconstitutionally increase power of the federal government.
The Unhinged Left
A recent article by Yvette Borja in the website Balls and Strikes shows how successful the left has been in turning cultural norms on their heads. This author ruthlessly castigates Associate Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch for not showing the “common courtesy” to virtue signal as she (and Anthony Fauci) would like. We all know the Justices are vaccinated and boosted, and appropriately social distance. They are tested routinely for Covid as is everyone with which they come in contact. But Borja is infuriated that Gorsuch has decided not to wear a mask on the bench. She pays homage to the “science”, but denies the fact that there is no unequivocal evidence that his wearing a mask would significantly lessen his own risk of becoming infected by an asymptomatic person near him. Likewise, there is no secure evidence that his wearing a mask, if he were asymptomatically infected, would stop aerosolized virus from leaking around the sides of the mask or penetrating through the mask itself.
Studies have shown that the aerosolized virus can travel much further than the arbitrary 6-foot social distancing guidance, and can remain airborne and infectious for three hours. Admittedly, droplet transmission, as would be commonly seen with someone who is symptomatic and coughing, can be mitigated by proper mask wearing. However, I’m sure that Borja would agree that it is appropriate for a Justice to remove his or her mask while talking to the court. Speaking itself causes droplet formation and transmission, to the degree that 30 seconds of maskless speech is as potentially infectious as an unmasked cough. Maybe we should just shut down the court until the pandemic is over?
Are We Done as a Country?
The level of vitriol in discourse by leftists about the virus, vaccines, masks, and mandates shows they have become unhinged, untethered to the realities of the disease and the efficacy of the vaccines. (Recent studies have shown that double vaccination without a booster does not provide meaningful protection against the Omicron variant.) We have given up many liberties at the request of government officials, and they have not hesitated in deceiving the public and spreading propaganda to enlarge federal cultural hegemony. They have used the virus to unconstitutionally increase their authority. Soon, we will learn to deal with Covid as a part of nature and proceed with living our lives. It will be much more difficult to recapture the freedoms we have lost. Will the federal government yield the power it has illegitimately grabbed? Will the divided house fall?