They Shall Not Grow Old – How the First World War sowed the seeds of identity politics.

How the First World War sowed the seeds of identity politics.

As we mark the hundredth anniversary of the end of the
First World War, it is clear that the moral wounds it inflicted on
Western culture have not healed. Recent incidents, such as the rejection
of Remembrance Day poppies by Cambridge University Students’ Union
(CUSU), or Southampton University Students’ Union’s (SUSU) threat to
paint over a mural dedicated to war heroes, are symptomatic of the
sense of malaise and confusion regarding the memorialisation of the
First World War.

In a sense, however, this hostility towards the memorialisation of
the war, as an expression of antagonism towards a cultural legacy, has
its roots in the First World War itself. Because although it was
principally a military conflict, it also served as a catalyst for the
emergence of a powerful mood of alienation from the values and cultural
practices of the past.

This should not be underestimated. The Great War, as it was then
called, fundamentally undermined the cultural continuity of the West.
Disconnected from the past, Western societies found it difficult to
develop a compelling narrative with which to socialise young people. As a
result, the phenomenon known today as the ‘generation gap’ acquired a
powerful significance — precisely because it was not simply a
generational gap. Rather, it was a cultural gap that opened up between
the post- and pre-war eras which, in the decades to follow, was
experienced through generational tensions as the problem of identity.