culture wars

Noun

culture war (plural culture wars)

1. (rare) A political struggle for control over cultural institutions.
2. (in plural, often) Conflict between different ideological groups, especially political conflict for cultural dominance between liberals and conservatives in the United States.
   • Little wonder, then, that stories about the “culture wars” have been burning up the pages of newspapers, magazines, and intellectual journals for the past few years: There’s so much more to fight about these days.1999, Nick Gillespie, “All Culture, All the Time”, in Reason