The ideology of political correctness that is toppling Confederate memorials is not peculiar to America. It is a global sickness that is forcing the historic peoples of Europe to ask the unnerving question: “Who are We?” In 1980, it was still cool to be Southern. The “Dukes of Hazard” were popular nationally. And president Carter 
could say in some of his speeches that he was “proud to be an American, but even prouder to be a Southerner.”
Culture wars do not arise as a reaction to poverty or injustice. They are ideologies designed by intellectuals to subvert a people’s confidence in their historic identity as a means of gaining political power. Everywhere we see elites in Europe and America cringing with misplaced guilt when accused of “white supremacy”, “homophobia”, or other bully terms found in the vocabulary of political correctness. Culture wars can be won only by a deeper intellectual and moral understanding of our traditions that can restore confidence in who we are and where we came from.
Donald Livingston is President of the Abbeville Institute and a former Professor of Philosophy at Emory University.
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