The expression ‘culture wars’ is having a flush of popularity just now, but it is surprisingly old. Recorded in English from at least 1879 it began life as the German word Kulturkampf (literally ‘culture struggle’). At first it referred to a seven-year political conflict (1872-1878) between Pope Pius IX and Chancellor Otto von Bismark. Although Prussia was a nominally Catholic kingdom at the time Bismark wanted to take over the Catholic parochial schools and Catholic church appointments. (In the end, Bismark won.) Then Kulturkampf widened its meaning to cover any conflict between any worldviews and ideologies – and became our English expression ‘culture wars’. Sociologist James Davison Hunter applied the word to America in 1991 in what he called ‘the struggle to define America’. Well, these days the struggle to define Australia is well and truly on for young and old! Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has accused Liberal leader Peter Dutton of only being interested in ‘fighting the culture wars’. But is he right? Surely what Peter Dutton is engaged in is ‘cultural defence’. Claiming he is fighting a ‘culture war’ turns the situation on its head. Imagine in the first world war when Germany invaded France, would it have made any sense to say France was engaged in a ‘territorial war’? Surely they were pursuing ‘territorial defence’? It was Germany pursuing a ‘territorial war’. In the same way, Albanese is pursuing a hot ‘cultural war’ (trying to write identity politics into our constitution, and so on) – while Peter Dutton is pursuing ‘cultural defence’. Is that a better way to look at what’s happening?