Whether you believe that the culture war represents an existential struggle between two serious forces, or whether you suspect it is a largely fictional construct used to sell the copies of tabloid newspapers, its tentacles, real or imagined, are intruding into areas far beyond statues, race and trans rights.
Take the latest Covid variant, omicron. You might have imagined that this new development is a matter for policy-makers who seek to steer us through an economic recovery while putting in place the necessary practical safeguards to prevent a spike in hospitalisations. But you would be wrong.
To many, the Omicron variant is a welcome opportunity to impose, or reimpose, government restrictions on the way we conduct our lives. And those who resent or resist such impositions will find themselves neatly categorised under the same heading as Brexiteers, Trump supporters and opponents of trans self-identification.
It’s a wholly disingenuous process that makes false assumptions about our fellow citizens based on our own prejudices. The new divide in our society, it seems, is between those who relish the prospect of tougher mask-wearing and social distancing rules and those of us who can’t wait for all this to be over with.
The journalist Dominic Lawson has written about the Left’s love of lockdowns — a scurrilous notion, until you actually start looking at the evidence. Lawson cites good examples, such as Professor Susan Michie, a member of the SAGE committee and a lifelong communist who seems to believe China’s strongarm anti-Covid tactics should be emulated here.
Indeed I have noticed this yearning for restrictions, this disconcerting enthusiasm for anything that smacks of government diktat, during personal interactions with friends who are Labour Party supporters.
One of my Facebook friends wrote indignantly about what seemed to him to be a life-threatening experience in a coffee shop. A stranger had sat in a seat opposite him to drink coffee. That’s it. The jeopardy started and ended with someone sitting near him. Given that my friend and his nemesis were in the coffee shop for the same reason — to drink coffee — masks were not worn. But my friend nevertheless took to Facebook to bewail the insensitive disregard that was apparently on show.
Until this week, when the rules in England will change, I had relished the opportunity, when travelling by train from Glasgow to London, to remove my mask as soon as I arrived at Carlisle. This was not because I sought to flout the rules, but because we ought to be free to do as we like where the Government has chosen not to impose any rule.
This approach seems to be anathema to many of my Labour friends, who appear to prefer it when Whitehall (or Edinburgh) lays down the law about when you can show your face in public and what shops and theatres you are allowed to frequent.
Why do so many of my acquaintances seem to regard the prospect of another lockdown with such equanimity? It may well be because, unless you happen to be employed by the NHS, public sector workers (as so many Labour Party members and activists are) were paid to remain at home for long periods of time while being entirely confident that their jobs remained safe and sound.
My perception is that there is a lack of empathy among many on the Left for people who work in the private sector, or indeed own a business, to whom the re-imposition of restrictions can cause great financial harm. Both the restaurant owner and the café barrister are expected to embrace financial uncertainty for the supposed greater good.
I fear that even when, one day, we can at last leave all this behind us and return to normal, some of us will walk that path only reluctantly, for there will be many who insist on the voluntary wearing of masks indoors (and even outdoors). If not to prevent the spread of illness, then to remind everyone else who is a better person.
