Culture Wars: Art, Politics and Capitalism

Culture Wars: Art, Politics and Capitalism

by Simon Elmer

Hardback: £45.00
Paperback: £25.00

 

 

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Description

Written between 2016 and 2024, four years either side of lockdown, the articles collected in this volume have the benefit of straddling this watershed in Western capitalism, and of documenting, from the battlefields of the culture wars of this period, the shift from the neoliberalism of the previous 40 years to the brutal reality of stakeholder capitalism that has been built around us in the five short years since 2020. What they document is not only how art has been turned into propaganda to the exclusion of any other function, but also how much we, as a society, miss art now. Today, the space art once held open for thinking, expression and debate has been shut down with the force of a portcullis, with us trapped in a digital prison from which the freedoms we once associated with art — however naively, given the expansion of the culture industry into every aspect of our lives since the Second World War — have been banished, censored and criminalised as a threat to the security of the state and safety of its citizens.

These articles address many aspects of art and culture in Britain over the past decade, including independent film both before and after lockdown, the politics of mural and banner painting, the contested role of documentary photography, the exhibition strategies of our art institutions, the culture industry as a vehicle for corporate public relations, what remains of protest as a form of political expression, the duties of poetry today, the political function of digital ‘selfies’, and changes in the English language itself. And since they take, as a historical principle, that is is impossible to understand the changing roles of art and culture under capitalism without also understanding the different politics they serve, these articles discuss both the changing forms our politics have taken and the changing politics of those forms.

List of Contents

Preface | 1. The Peasants’ Revolt: Lessons from History | 2. Armed Love: Capitalism, Anarchism and the Russian Revolution | 3. The Social Realism of the Labour Party: Jeremy Corbyn and the Socialism of Fools | 4. What Is To Be Done? Changing Metaphors of Change | 5. In Defence of Our Homes: The Art of Resistance | 6. Invisible Britain: The Art of Catharsis | 7. Whatever Happened to the Working Class? The British Ideology | 8. Sponsorship and Censorship: Why ASH is withdrawing from the Chicago Architecture Biennial 2019 | 9. Whatever Happened to the Middle Classes? Bad Faith and the Culture Industry | 10. Behind the Mask, the Conspiracy! | 11. From Kitsch to Woke: The Aesthetics of Totalitarianism | 12. An Open Letter to Nobody: The Duties of Poetry Now | 13. Gods of Their Own Religion: Post-Lockdown Cinema | 14. Gaza Selfie: Representing the Chosen People | 15. Zones of Interest: The Holocaust Industry in Film | 16. American Newspeak: US Hegemony, Woke Lexicography and the End of Thinking | Publication History | Image Credits | Bibliography

About the Author

Simon Elmer lives between London and Hong Kong. In 2002 he received his PhD in the History and Theory of Art from University College London, and he has taught at the universities of London, Manchester, Reading and Michigan. In 2015 he co-founded Architects for Social Housing, for which he is Head of Research. His books include Case Studies in Estate Regeneration: Demolition, Privatisation, Social Cleansing (2025); The Housing Crisis: Finance, Legislation, Policy, Resistance (2025); Architecture is Always Political: A Communist History (2024); The Great Replacement: Conspiracy Theory or Immigration Policy? (2024); The Great Reset: Biopolitics for Stakeholder Capitalism (2023); The Road to Fascism: For a Critique of the Global Biosecurity State (2022); two volumes of collected articles on the UK biosecurity state, Virtue and Terror (2023) and The New Normal (2023); and with Geraldine Dening, Saving St. Raphael’s Estate: The Alternative to Demolition (2022), For a Socialist Architecture: Under Capitalism (2021); and Central Hill: A Case Study in Estate Regeneration (2018). Culture Wars: Art, Politics and Capitalism is the fourth volume in the ASH Papers, which collect in book form the most important articles from the ASH website.

Simon’s articles have appeared in Off-Guardian, UK Column, The Daily Sceptic, Real Left, The Conservative Woman, The Exposé, People’s Lockdown Inquiry and Unity News Network. His interviews and presentations about the Great Reset can be found on the podcasts of The Delingpod, Panda, UK Column, Brokenomics, London Bitcoin Space, Elevate, Campfire Conversation, On the Fringe, Trish Wood is Critical, Tom Nelson, Thinking Coalition, Think Twice, Common Knowledge, Planet-Uplift, Radically Human, Jerm Warfare (TNT Radio), Jason Olbourne (TNT Radio), Reality Check Radio, Doc Malik, Sonia Poulton and Staying Free.

Publication Details

Publisher: Architects for Social Housing (August 2025)
Distributed by Lulu Press, UK
Language: English
Hardback and paperback: 428 pages | 168 illustrations
ISBN 978-1-3262-8427-5 (hardback)
ISBN 978-1-3262-8308-7 (paperback)
Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 in | 14 x 21.6 cm

Endorsements for some of the articles collected in this book

‘This is a typically excellent analysis of our current crisis. There are few critics of the new totalitarianism being imposed on formerly free peoples more perceptive and articulate than Simon Elmer. His contributions to our understanding of what’s going on are invaluable.’

Jim Bruce,
author of  Into the Memory Hole: Despatches from the ‘World of Lies’

‘The latest in a very fine series placing a historic context, as well as a contemporary interpretation of perceptions, to a bewildering sequence of events over the past few years.’

Roger G. Lewis

‘One of the best constructed, incisive and informative articles I have read for a long time. Quite brilliant.’

Ran Bobskin

‘Absolutely brilliant, so impressed, I am sending it to all who will appreciate this work.’

Martin Warner

‘I’ve just re-read this and I’m still in awe.’

Mike Jenkinson

‘Absolutely brilliant. So good to hear an intelligent and witty account of this ridiculous saga!’

Paul Tucker

‘As usual, your incredibly thoughtful and tremendously informed writing challenges almost all the orthodoxies of the anti-lockdown talking points and leaves me with much food for thought.’

Frieda Vizel, YouTuber and author

Simon Elmer