About cultural (in)coherence

I have an instinctive fondness for the notion of a culture war, but inevitably it turns out to be less fun than it sounds, being shorthand for dim bigotry. First up, the Tory MP Katie Lam, who argues that the scorched-earth repatriation policy she’s floating will leave a population that’s “culturally coherent”, whatever that might mean. Do we all need to believe in God? Support the monarchy? Declare that Del Boy falling through the bar is the funniest thing that ever happened? And if we are an incoherent people, with differing cultural assumptions and aspirations (a “nation of strangers” as another politician put it), might that not be something to do with private and/or selective education, gated communities and all the other manifestations of class and income inequality? Nah, let’s just point at the brown people, it’s easier.

She was swiftly followed by Sarah Pochin of Reform who claimed to be driven mad by the number of non-white faces in TV advertisements. Now, Pochin’s on rather steadier ground in that, yes, there’s been a noticeable increase in the number of black actors in commercials, although why this bugs her so much is perhaps the real question. Of course she doesn’t blame the black faces themselves, rather the “woke liberati” who make the decisions. Which is rather to misunderstand the dynamics of advertising; it’s not the woke liberati that actually call the shots, rather the clients trying to sell energy drinks and funeral plans and sanitary towels and if they think black faces won’t shift enough units, they won’t use black faces. It’s capitalism, Sarah. I thought your people liked that sort of thing.

PS: A few more bits and bobs, about which Lam and Pochin will be utterly indifferent: musing on the apparent death of the humanities; the new age of tech-driven stupidity; the Times tries to big up the joys of reading (and comes out from behind the paywall to do so); and Padraig Reidy on the egregious Cult of Hitchens (and he doesn’t mean Peter).