The culture is the point.

Maybe the far-right attacks on culture are more than diversions. Maybe, and more terrifyingly, they are the point.

For much of the past two years or so, I’ve been thinking about the far-right’s focus on “culture wars” as primarily a distraction, a way to divert attention from the greed and corruption of many of the so-called leaders who play to their base.

This week, I began to wonder: maybe the attacks on culture are more than diversions. Maybe they are the point.

A gift of the last few years for me was learning a lot more about history than I ever did in formal education. And in each story of conquest and colonialism, groups seeking dominance attacked the cultural practices of the groups they wanted to subdue.

Outlawing native languages, forbidding mixed marriages, chasing indigenous dance, visual art, and literature into the shadows: over and over again, these tactics are used to erase the cultures being dominated. Separate young people from their families (think Residential Schools) and from their histories, and you have an opportunity to indoctrinate them into the dominant culture. Make them ashamed of their culture, and you create converts.

Define anything “other” as sick, unnatural, less than human, making it not just tolerable, but noble, to extinguish it. Make people fearful of being their true selves, and you get conformity.

And this is the point: creating a monocultural society, offering a false sense of security in sameness.

Yes, corruption and greed flourish in monocultures. And maybe many so-called leaders are greedy and cynical enough to promote culture wars as a diversion while they amass their wealth.

More terrifying, in a way, is the thought that other so-called leaders truly believe monoculture is the point.

Together, we fight on for a truly inclusive, multicultural society, economy, and community. Because love, compassion, and justice flourish in multicultures.

Thank you for your company on this journey.