I am intrigued by some of the rhetoric of “culture wars” and genuinely think that on the whole this rhetoric is neither commonly nor appropriately deployed in the UK, even while hints of it are beginning to emerge in global Christian circles (liberal and conservative) especially in relation to debates over sexuality. It is possible that in making that claim I am simply being naïve.
I wonder of those who commented here or here, among others, might be willing to explore and answer some of my slightly bemused English questions.
- Am I right I thinking the concept was (and is) chosen and deployed to enforce a sense of embattled divisions, and therefore discourage the idea that the issues at stake are not matters for reasoned debate, but for the unquestioned tribal allegiances of the progressive and traditionalist alike? Or is this characterisation unfair?
- When would most people say they began? I gain the impression that Roe v Wade did not bring any significant responses from evangelical churches for some time after it happened. Is that right, and if so, what triggered its subsequent emblematic statement?
- I note the comments of both CD-Host and Scott F here on the Supreme Court. Clearly there is a uniquely American history here, not least in the relationship between the Federal and State levels which seems to be a recurring theme at every stage of the culture war rhetoric. Is this part of the explanation for why the culture wars seem a particularly American phenomenon even if they affect a great many others? In fact, does the “culture war” theme result from trying to draw a parallel (and an equivalent sense of disaster) between Roe v Wade and Dred Scott?
- Is another part of the difference between the US and the UK (and Europe more generally) also something to do with the 1950s. It seems to me that the 50s are often subtly presented or looked back on as part of a Christian golden age in the US. The Depression had ended, America had freed the world, employment was high and the vast shift of the 60s with easy contraception and the disillusionment of Vietnam were still in an unimaginable future. By contrast, Europe was in a stage of painful rebuilding, the UK was crippled by war debts and food was still rationed. There is no way they represented a golden age. Does that help account for our differences around this topic, or am I overplaying the significance of the era?
These are just a handful of the questions the last 24 hours debates here have made me ponder, and so if any of you have answers, thoughts, or additional questions I would welcome your contributions in the comments below.
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Doug,
A couple of observations. Within a journalistic milieu, the term “culture wars” is used with a great variety of settings and conflicts in mind. After all, in some shape or fashion, cultural-political conflict is always going on. The question is, is it pertinent to speak of the conflict in terms of military metaphors? Again, what does it say about one’s approach to these matters if military metaphors are declared out of bounds?
Sensibilities in the United States apparently differ from those in Great Britain. Here we speak of “the war on poverty,” and the “war on drugs.” The phrase “culture wars” has a family resemblance to those and similar phrases. It gets old, I admit.
There are two basic stances in any culture war. You can pick sides and be a true blue, for example, modernist or fundamentalist. Or you can seek a mediating position, in which case you will be in the line of fire of both polarized sides.
A good example of an American periodical that fights the culture wars with consummate self-awareness is “First Things.” I recommend it though I don’t always agree with its line.
CD-Host uses the term “culture wars” in a semi-technical sense. With respect to *those* particular culture wars, a tiny subset of those in progress, I recommend, as a starting point, the preface to the second edition of “From culture wars to common ground,” by Don S. Browning, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, and Pamela D. Couture. It is easily viewable on google books.
Don Browning provides an interesting model of academic engagement in cultural-political conflict, one I highly appreciate. He is critical of many in his field of expertise, and within his church tradition (mainline Protestant) who do not seem to have a clue about the underlying dynamics at work in society as a whole, how that impacts average families, and why evangelical churches respond to the stresses out there with far greater precision than liberal and/or establishment churches.
On the other hand, though he does not spout liberal pieties in knee-jerk fashion, Browning is hardly a fundamentalist. For example, he espouses an egalitarian ethos, but that is only one dimension of a full-orbed approach to the crisis of the family, sexual mores, and so on.
In short, he takes an integrative, mediating position. He is a bridge builder. The amount of cognitive dissonance bridge builders trigger on both sides of a polarized continuum as they go about their work is enormous.
Anyway, that’s the way I see it. There are many other possible angles on the question, both narrowly and broadly defined.
I think “culture wars” and the “war” metaphor for discussion of cultural issue is mostly used by right-wing ideologues in the US. The term became popular after Alan Bloom’s 1987 The Closing of the American Mind which was, in turn, a vulgarization of Leo Struass’ philosophy. (Bloom himself never used the term I personally think of Bloom as the first of the great right-wing frauds, but he attracted quite a following, despite the many contradictions between his libertine personal lifestyle and his preachy remarks.)
The term first attracted wide attention in the US when Pat Buchanan, whom Wikipedia terms a “paleoconservative” used the term repeatedly in his religious-based attack on homosexual, feminist, and minority rights.
I never hear the term in the US except from right-wing commentators and a single blogger.
If you are interested in Bloom, I recommend Saul Bellow’s excellent roman à clef Ravelstein. Ravelstein was Bellow’s last novel, and in my opinion, his best (Bellow, you will recall, won the Nobel Prize for literature.)
My goodness, Theo, you need to get out more. From what jaded ivory tower do you view the world?
The term “culture wars” has a very wide currency. Whatever the origin of the phrase – that you think the origin matters so much is an index of your flawed methodology – the phrase caught on long before Alan Bloom, and was the title of a book by Ira Shor, preface Paulo Freire, in 1984.
It continues to be used throughout academia (check google scholar) and the media (check google) without regard to ideological barriers. The top hits in the BBC’s use of the phrase are particularly interesting.
Your guilt-by-association tactics are utterly transparent. I am happy for vigorous debate, as you know. Your hissy fits, however, make it a little bit difficult to take you seriously.
You can read (and listen) to Pat Buchanan’s speech.
Here is one passage:
Friends, this election is about more than who gets what. It is about who we are. It is about what we believe and what we stand for as Americans. There is a religious war going on in this country. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as the Cold War itself. For this war is for the soul of America. And in that struggle for the soul of America, Clinton & Clinton are on the other side, and George Bush is on our side. And so to the Buchanan Brigades out there, we have to come home and stand beside George Bush.
It’s a jihad to the rightist out there.
But some of us think we can have a discussion about issues without having a war. That was Obama’s point in his Notre Dame speech:
The question, then, is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?
Theo, I don’t see how you have any business quoting Obama about the need not to demonize those you disagree with. Doctor, heal thyself.
John, I don’t think it is a war. One of my relatives — and one of my friends — died in the September 11 attack, so I am sensitive to the notion of jihad.
You are the one who cleaves to that metaphor, and, apparently, wields a sword.
Be well.
Here are my answers to the 4 questions
1) No you are right about the lack of reasoned debate. There is lots of reasoned debate. Generally political arguments in America are about means not goals, both parties agree on what a desirable outcome is and disagree on how best to achieve it. In the differences about goals generally Americans solve the problem by individualism a live and let live.
In the case of the culture wars the problem is the debate is about goals. Should public policy encourage homosexuals to marry and be “in the closet” or build a society where the homosexuality openly accepted? Should procreation be a choice divorced as far as possible from sex or should the natural connection be maintained as part of God’s design? Etc….
The problem though is that the assumptions these goals are based on aren’t part of the American social contract. Americans simply disagree about what desirable outcomes are. So there is a debate but it is about essentially the purpose of life not about the best use of a budget.
2) I’d say 1953 when Earl Warren became Chief Justice. By 1954 we had Brown v. Board of Education which started to allow/force the federal government into the business of reorganizing cultural issues, and little respect was paid to limits to federal authority.
4) Just one thing to add. Between 1880 and 1924 the United States absorbed an enormous number of immigrants. There was tremendous cultural diversity followed by the depression and the World War II. It takes about 15 years for people to become “Americanized”. By the late 1940s we had a population of people of people who had been here for decades and/or were born here. There was a cultural cohesiveness in the late 1940s that America had never really had, and certainly not since the early 1850s prior to the Civil War.
The late 1940s till the late 1960s were a period of time where broad society was united enough to have strong social pressures. It is really is a unique period of time in American history.
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