Thread by @sundersays

People say 'here is next culture war' but don't spot significant differences
- Eg, ditching Proms anthems had anaemic support on 'left', and broad opposition
- Ofcom should sanction ITV/Diversity had narrow support on 'right' : 25k complaints, almost no public voices backed this

- Enormous differences on specific proposals on monuments. An interethnic public majority would put Colston in a museum. Its hard to find any of the tiny fringe who would move Churchill
- Different people are involved in the (v. narrow) group who seek to 'cancel' JK Rowling

Almost nobody in Britain thought there was any issue with Adele's hair. Broadcasters had to get some muppet from Philadelphia on to pretend there was a controversy.

There is a q broad public middle ground, not two tribes with ultra-different pavlovian responses to everything.

Strong evidence UK is less polarised than USA or France. Do media realise?
- Less intense. Less social distance by eg geog, faith, ethnicity, politics
- More bridging terrain (eg NHS, Remembrance,monarchy, sport, TV)
- 'tribes' shift on different issues much more in UK than US

Some evidence

We could go down the US path, but it would take more effort from media and political elites to generate broadly unpopular hyperpolarisation to get there.

- The media should be less credulous in reporting every tweet as if it reflects a movement
- Major instititutions in history/heritage and culture should step up + engage broader publics directly, so help find and build extensive latent bridging terrain

Concept of a 'culture war' is used lazily, without thinking about what drives it and what checks it. Public voices say its a bad thing + fuel it

UK media references always tick up in every US Presidential election year but is now growing exponentially.

You have a serious political/cultural social conflict if two strongly opposed views
- are diametrically opposed
- both command high levels of support,
- are salient to both sides, so keep getting mobilised
- dialogue about them is as likely to entrench views as build consensus

That does not fit UK attitudes to gender, to race, to gay rights, to identity, to citizenship or to history. Pattern of some big shifts across generations, then broad convergence on shared foundational social norms, some political/policy debate within those norms

BSA on gender

It may better fit binary arguments about foundational salient political issues, related to identity

Northern Ireland conflict: violence contained in divided society

Brexit and Scottish independence are very big political questions which do create 'affective polarisation'

Massive binary political debates are trickier.

Need to try to maintain democratic norms consensus at different levels
- how to decide the core issue (rules)
- how to disagree while deciding (culture)
- how to contain spillover to society, (relationships of winners/losers)

Social media exacerbates media culture - sugar rush from platforming conflict, however trivial, but difficulties in animating consensus, or important changes that happen gradually

There has been no Covid culture war in Britain among the public, but you can still report one

Amplifying the un-normal (which news has to do, to some extent) can be one factor distorting public perceptions of others, reducing social trust.

This Covid trust gap is quite wide in the UK (though much wider again in France)

'Storm'

This is self-selecting online survey of 10k people (yellow) compared to actual public opinion (blue). This is immigration but will be a common pattern on many issues. Its so easy to platform the 10% on each flank but more work to give some voice to the 70% of public in between

To fail to find confidence to discuss history of Empire in an open + constructive way would be the wrong response. Many who might lead this would guess wrong where the public are. I feel major cultural institutions do lack confidence +, experience on race

Its not enough to moan about polarisation, or critique it. Need to put some energy and capacity into demonstrating the broad appetite for the alternative. Thread on lessons/positive experiences and responses of doing that (on history) over last 6 years threadreaderapp.com/thread/1271859…

Broad liberal left in civic society has weak/ insufficient account. (Comfort zone is moaning about Dominic Cummings/Boris Johnson + media stoking it).

Needs clearer strategic thinking about how to pursue causes in an era of polarisation. This is contested, but also q. sketchy

It is not only those who stand for elected office who should see strong interests in *defending principles* (which includes mobilising support) while *defusing cultural polarisation* when it is damaging and corrosive to social relationships

Much of this thinking mostly still takes place in issue/cause-based silos, despite the growing weight of evidence that attitudes across many specific contested issues often as much/more to do with these underlying values + identity drivers, as those issues and causes themselves

Its good that @policyatkings will be digging into what we are talking about when we talk about 'culture wars'. There is a significant gap on whether we know how + what the public understand this term to be about.

A forthcoming UK report from More in Common - next month - will I think be valuable in bringing more clarity to when British attitudes are different/similar to US - and how far Brexit divides do or do not define other issues too. Building on Covid study

Engage Britain are looking in depth at public priorities - capturing a similar pattern of polarisers & balancers on some identity issues, and more convergence on many other priorities

This is @jillyrutter on the experience of Covid during lockdown, and re-emerging tensions to set the scene for the major @togethercoalit #TalkTogether invitation for everyone to get involved in what we can do to counter divisions in our society