culture is a peculiar entity—simultaneously omnipresent and elusive, invoked to justify, to sanctify, to condemn. it is, at once, the foundation of identity and the scapegoat of decline. we rely on it to define who we are while blaming it for what we have become. yet, the moment we attempt to pin it down, it morphs. ask someone to define culture, and you are likely to receive an answer so broad as to be meaningless, or so narrow as to be exclusionary.
culture is, we are told, a battlefield. on one side stand the gatekeepers, armed with the canonical texts of high culture, decrying the erosion of standards. on the other, the vanguard of cultural studies, celebrating the transgressive potential of popular media, rejecting elitism in favor of the democratization of meaning. both claim to be engaged in a struggle against ideological deception, both insist that their position exposes the mechanisms of power more effectively than the other. yet, at their core, both operate within the same framework: the belief that culture is the key to understanding and shaping the world.
but what if culture is neither salvation nor threat? what if it is simply a veil, an abstraction that obscures rather than reveals? what if the conflicts we frame as “cultural” are, in fact, something else entirely—displaced struggles over material conditions, economic power, and political control?
culture as metapolitics: the illusion of resolution
francis mulhern, in his critique of “metacultural discourse,” argues that both the reactionary tradition of “kulturkritik” and the progressive aspirations of cultural studies share an underlying assumption: that culture can provide a symbolic resolution to the contradictions of capitalist modernity. for the former, culture is the timeless repository of human excellence, threatened by mass society. for the latter, it is the site of resistance, where marginalized voices reclaim agency. the irony, however, is that both assume culture can function as a surrogate for politics, as a domain where social tensions can be addressed without engaging in the messy realities of power.
this is the essential illusion of cultural politics—the belief that the right kind of cultural critique, the right kind of representation, the right kind of symbolic intervention can lead to structural change. but does it? history suggests otherwise.
consider the endless debates over representation in media. every year, new controversies emerge about the lack of diversity in film, literature, or corporate branding. progress is measured in casting decisions, in award show nominations, in social media approval. but has any of this fundamentally altered the material conditions of those whose identities are supposedly being affirmed? has symbolic recognition translated into economic redistribution, into political empowerment, into systemic transformation? or has it simply pacified dissent by offering a simulacrum of progress?
mulhern warns against the tendency to see culture as an alternative authority, an arbiter above politics. yet even as he dismantles this illusion, he acknowledges that it is nearly impossible to escape. we are trapped within culture’s gravitational pull, unable to conceive of politics without it.
beyond the mirage of culture
why do we persist in treating culture as the primary terrain of struggle? one answer lies in the exhaustion of traditional political movements. as economic inequality deepens and democratic institutions falter, cultural discourse offers an easier, more accessible form of engagement. it is far simpler to critique a film for ideological bias than to organize against the structures that maintain inequality. it is more gratifying to deconstruct a text than to dismantle a system.
this shift is not accidental. neoliberalism thrives on the displacement of political struggle into the symbolic realm. when economic conflicts are rebranded as “culture wars,” the real levers of power remain untouched. we argue over media representation while corporations consolidate wealth. we debate language while labor rights erode. we celebrate “visibility” while economic precarity expands. the symbolic becomes a substitute for the material, and in this substitution, power remains undisturbed.
when todd gitlin called for a “harder-headed, less wishful cultural studies,” he was diagnosing this fundamental problem: the tendency of cultural politics to imagine itself as a radical intervention while functioning, in practice, as a diversion. culture is not a substitute for political action, yet it is often treated as one. this is the great mirage: the belief that winning the narrative battle equates to winning the political war. but history teaches otherwise.
from cultural critique to cultural escape
perhaps, then, we should ask whether “cultural politics” is itself a kind of retreat, a way of avoiding the disappointments of actual politics. cultural discourse allows us to indulge in critique without assuming responsibility for change. it is, in this sense, a deeply comforting practice: we can deconstruct ideologies, expose contradictions, dismantle dominant narratives—all without ever having to construct an alternative.
there is something seductive about this failure. to remain in critique is to remain safe. to analyze is to avoid acting. to problematize is to avoid proposing. the language of cultural studies, endlessly recursive, self-aware to the point of paralysis, offers a kind of refuge. failure is not simply accepted; it is institutionalized. we critique, we dismantle, we fail—again and again, like beckett’s “fail better” mantra, rehearsing our own powerlessness as if it were a form of resistance.
but what if we stopped? what if we admitted that culture is not the battleground we think it is, that the real struggles are elsewhere? what if we abandoned the comforting illusion that understanding something is the same as changing it?
the impossible exit
of course, to reject culture altogether is itself a cultural gesture. this is the paradox we cannot escape: to critique culture is still to be within it, to operate within its logic. even mulhern, for all his skepticism, cannot help but propose a refined, more self-aware version of “cultural politics.” and perhaps this is the ultimate tragedy of the intellectual: to see the cage and yet still pace within it.
so where does this leave us? with no neat conclusions, no final truths. culture is neither the cause of our problems nor their solution. it is simply the name we give to a particular kind of collective self-reflection—one that is necessary, but never sufficient. the real question is not whether culture matters, but whether we are willing to look beyond it, to where the real conflicts lie.
if cultural politics is to mean anything, it must be a means, not an end. otherwise, it is nothing more than an elaborate distraction, a hall of mirrors in which we see only our own illusions reflected back at us.
