15 Observations on the New Phase in Cultural Conflict

If the old motto was watch out below, the new one ought to be: Watch out above!

I published this article two years ago—but it was only available to premium subscribers. That was a much smaller group back then. So only a few thousand people had access to it.

I’ve now decided to share this analysis with everybody. The discussion here is more relevant now than ever—and will (I believe) help people anticipate future events.

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15 Observations on the Emerging Vertical Dimension of Cultural Conflict

Back in 2014, I sketched out a widely-read outline of an alternative interpretation of cultural conflict. Curiously enough, the conceptual tools I used came from a 1929 book from philosopher José Ortega y Gasset entitled The Revolt of the Masses—a work that offers surprisingly timely insights into our current situation.

That article stirred up a lot of debate at the time, but the whole situation has intensified further since 2014. Everything I’ve seen in those eight years has made painfully clear how insightful Ortega had been. The time has come to revisit that framework, summarizing its key insights and offering predictions for what might happen in the future.

My conceptual framework was spurred by reading Ortega y Gasset

Here’s part of what I wrote back in 2014:

First, let me tell you what you won’t find in this book. Despite a title that promises political analysis, The Revolt of the Masses has almost nothing to say about conventional party ideologies and alignments. Ortega shows little interest in fascism or capitalism or Marxism, and this troubled me when I first read the book. (Although, in retrospect, the philosopher’s passing comments on these matters proved remarkably prescient—for example his smug dismissal of Russian communism as destined to failure in the West, and his prediction of the rise of a European union.) Above all, he hardly acknowledges the existence of ‘left’ and ‘right’ in political debates.

Ortega’s brilliant insight came in understanding that the battle between ‘up’ and ‘down’ could be as important in spurring social and cultural change as the conflict between ‘left’ and ‘right’. This is not an economic distinction in Ortega’s mind. The new conflict, he insists, is not between “hierarchically superior and inferior classes…. upper classes or lower classes.” A millionaire could be a member of the masses, according to Ortega’s surprising schema. And a pauper might represent the elite.

The key driver of change, as Ortega sees it, comes from a shocking attitude characteristic of the modern age—or, at least, Ortega was shocked. Put simply, the masses hate experts. If forced to choose between the advice of the learned and the vague impressions of other people just like themselves, the masses invariably turn to the latter. The upper elites still try to pronounce judgments and lead, but fewer and fewer of those down below pay attention.

This dynamic is now far more significant than it was eight years ago. So I want to share 15 observations on the emerging vertical dimension of cultural conflict—these both define the rupture and try to predict how it will play out.

“If the old motto was watch out below, the new one ought to be: Watch out above!”

(1) Analysis of cultural conflict is still obsessed with left-versus-right strategizing, but the actual battle lines are increasingly down-versus-up. A lot of work goes into hiding this, because both left and right want to present an image of unity, but both spheres are splintering into intensely hostile up-and-down factions.

(2) The frequency with which you hear the “lesser of two evils” argument is an indicator of how powerful this up-and-down rupture has become. This is the argument used by Ups to retain the loyalty of the Downs. You have to stick with us, even if we are tainted elites, or else we both lose.

(3) When commentators give any attention to down-versus-up, they usually reduce the conflict to income disparities, but that is misleading. Down-versus-up is more attitudinal than economic. Sometimes the tension manifests itself along traditional class and wealth lines, with disputes focused primarily on money, but that’s only a small part of the conflict. Down-versus-up is multidimensional and adapts rapidly to current events. Adding to the complexity, rich people frequently act like Down members, while people with tiny incomes can be fiercely loyal to the Up worldview.

(4) The essence of down-versus-up is that a numerically large group of dissenters focus their anger on a small number of elites whom they view as antagonists, perhaps even evil villains. These Down movements cut across left-versus-right political ideologies, and thus encompass seemingly incompatible groups such as Occupy Wall Street, the truck convoys, Black Lives Matter, the Tea Party, ANTIFA, cryptocurrency fanatics, and a host of other cohort groups in the news. In every instance, these groups have proven capable of mobilizing intense energy among members—much greater energy than the Ups can ever hope to match. Participants seem to appear out of nowhere, leaping almost instantaneously into action.

(5) There will be more groups like this next year—and every year from now on. As strange as it sounds, an organization that doesn’t even exist today is likely to transform the entire sociocultural landscape in the near future. I’m not sure what it will look like, but one thing is certain—it won’t arise from any legacy institution.

(6) The targets are people at the top of the heap, but that can include a dizzying array of individuals—including wealthy CEOs, DC politicians, celebrity TV newscasters, law enforcement authorities, experts of all stripes, Ivy League academics, hedge fund managers, tech titans at huge Silicon Valley companies, movie stars, etc. A key element of the narrative is not simply that these people have different agendas than those at the bottom, but even more to the point, these elites are depicted as inherently untrustworthy—they don’t play fairly, they have sold their souls to the Dark Side. Hence the Down opposition feels the need to take extreme measures. The critiques brandished by the Downs are often reduced to the banal, mind-numbing explanation that people on the Dark Side do bad things and must be stopped. The very banality of the message makes it all the more viral.  

(7) The members of the Up group want to rebrand themselves as Down adherents. They work tirelessly to do this. Hence you see billionaires proclaiming their alignment with all of the leading Down agendas. Politicians see that Down constituencies are the most energized voters and curry their favor—proclaiming at every opportunity that I’m just like you. Even the most established DC insiders with the most elite backgrounds must act as if they aren’t really members of the Up cohort. Media personalities, in particular, take every opportunity to act as Down as possible, realizing that this is the only genuine street cred worth having in the current moment.

(8) When well known political figures move from right to left, or vice versa, many onlookers are surprised. But in almost every instance, the Up maintain their Up allegiance, and the Down retain their Down status. It's much easier to make the psychological shift from one party to another than to abandon your emotional attachment to the Down or Up worldview.

(9) All of the cultural energy right now is on the bottom. And that energy has been intensifying. The attempts to distort this conflict into conventional left-versus-right battle lines has prevented opinion leaders from grasping the actual dynamic at play. Any ambitious agenda that doesn’t take into account down-versus-up is doomed to failure.

(10) This is not just a political shift but also impacts arts and entertainment. Reality TV, for example, is a manifestation of legacy institutions trying to capture the vitality of the Down lifestyles in faux narratives that emulate non-elites in everyday situations. Music genres each have their own up-versus-down positioning—just consider your mental images of the audience for rap, classical, country, jazz, etc. (But genres can move: jazz was once Down, but it has become Up.) Art forms that seem to be in crisis—sculpture, the novel, the symphony—are always aligned with the Up cohort. Nobody ever claims that Down genres are in crisis.

(11) The emerging counterculture today is almost entirely affiliated with Down agendas. I’ve mentioned elsewhere that we lack a genuine counterculture, but the more precise way of putting it is that the legacy institutions are forced to operate as if this counterculture doesn’t exist, and this creates a general impression of stagnancy and solidity, which is misleading but nonetheless pervasive.

(12) For all these reasons, the two major political parties in the US (and other places with binary conflict traditions) are incapable of resolving their internal down-or-up dilemmas, despite constant calls to unity. This will not change any time soon. If new parties emerge, they will reflect the vertical structure of cultural conflict.

(13)  Media platforms associated with Ups are losing energy. This is why award shows, to cite one example, have such a small and dwindling audience (down by 70-80% over the last decade). The very concept of an award show is tainted by its image of elites giving prizes to other elites. To maintain relevance, the award shows must take on a veneer of Down—which they work assiduously to cultivate (e.g., the People’s Choice awards)—but few in the audience are convinced. No award show will ever genuinely placate the Down constituencies.

(14) The media platforms associated with Down agendas are messy, and often seem amateurish. But these are the focal points of cultural energy right now, and if you aren’t aligned with their worldviews you probably should fear them. They include TikTok, YouTube channels, social media, live feeds, grassroots podcasting, Web3 communities, gaming platforms, Bandcamp, Substack, etc. Even when these platforms are owned by huge global corporations, they convey the ambiance of a bottoms-up insurgency. And the simple truth is that the corporations behind the platforms may be incapable of controlling them—and if they somehow do manage to impose order, they will see their platforms lose energy and impact.

(15) No one has successfully integrated all of the Down splinter factions into a single constituency. That might not even be possible, but it hardly matters. These groups have the potential to form ad hoc coalitions—perhaps bizarre ones, at times, especially for those who continue to view the world on a left-versus-right spectrum—just so long as the overlapping interests provide a stronger bond than their differences. In other words, the enemies of your enemy may not really be your friends, but you still might join them in a street uprising.

So if the old motto was watch out below, the new one ought to be: Watch out above!

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This essay was originally published on September 14, 2022.