The Never-Ending Culture War
Using Social Issues to Further Divide Us
“Great minds see unity whereas small minds see division.”
~ Wald Wassermann
Once again, the culture wars are taking center stage in U.S. politics. At a time when we are faced with rising healthcare costs, economic and racial inequality, a climate crisis, and a host of other problems, politicians continue wasting time on nonsense and manufacturing controversy for attention. We have gone through shifting culture wars in the 1980s, 1990s, and our current culture war that is playing out everywhere from social media to the U.S. Capitol.
A New Outrage for Every Decade
The culture war in the 1970s and 80s began with the rise of the Christian Right and the Moral Majority in American politics. The legalization of abortion and backlash against the women’s rights movement provided motivation for increased participation in politics by various religious groups. The religious right helped propel the not-so-religious Ronald Reagan to victory over the very religious Jimmy Carter.
In the 1991 book, “Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America” sociologist and author James Davison Hunter looks at how Christian fundamentalists and conservative Catholics and Jews joined together to fight for control of secular culture. The book discusses the culture wars of that time as a reaction to the changes that resulted from the sexual revolution, Civil Rights movement, and women’s rights movements of the 1960s and 70s.
Conservative Christians took these changes as an attack on “family values” with abortion as a primary issue and gay rights as a secondary issue. Everything was framed through the lens of “morality” and that “side” of the culture wars viewed anything that did not align with ultraconservative values and evangelical beliefs as evil, wrong, or immoral. This really started the personal attacks on political issues.
Race and ethnicity entered the culture wars in the 1990s. The focus shifted in response to increasing immigration and growing diversity. Ideas about preserving ethnic identity and recognizing and trying to find a solution to systemic racism began to enter the cultural and political conversation with more frequency during this time.
Traditional “family values conservatives” never really ended their religious culture wars that began in the Reagan years. However, the larger culture war has moved beyond the ideas of religiosity and differences in theology that characterized the culture wars from the 1980s through the years of George W. Bush’s presidency.
Today’s Culture Wars
Remnants of these past culture wars still exist in our current political battles. Issues like abortion, LGBTQ rights, and ideas about the separation of church and state still take center stage in today’s political battles. They are trotted out every two years to get people to vote. However, today’s culture war has shifted away from the religious aspect and toward a darker and uglier place.
The current war against critical race theory and teaching our children about the country’s racist past and present feels a lot like the fight against teaching sex education in schools a couple decades ago. Once again, they are attempting to ignore the problem and hoping it will go away. It didn’t then, it won’t now, and that strategy has never once worked to improve anything.
Recently, Hunter spoke with Politico about his book and reflected about the changes in the culture wars over the past 30 years. He noted, “I would argue that what abortion was to [culture wars in] the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s and maybe even beyond, when it was really the critical issue, I think that’s now being replaced by race.”
According to Hunter, increases in income inequality since the 2008 recession have compounded the problem and led to us moving from a culture war to a class-culture conflict. He suggests that this led to white people without a college degree voting in large numbers for Trump, as he capitalized on the deepening resentments among the white working class.
Many in his party have followed this blueprint. Too many of the current Republicans, including members of Congress and governors seem to be impersonating him to curry the favor of his base and further their own political aspirations. They are all repeating the same baseless accusations, conspiracy theories, and misinformation to upset people and keep the culture war going.
The effect on the country has not been great. If we aren’t careful and don’t bring down the level of hate in the current culture war, it could escalate into violence. This has already been seen in many ways, not the least of which was the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Who’s “Winning” the Culture Wars
A lot of effort is being expended arguing and debating about which “side” is winning the culture wars. Depending on perspective, some say conservatives are losing and others insist that the left is losing. In fact, some in government are actually encouraging their members to “lean into the culture war” because they think they are winning.
Nobody is winning. The country is losing. Our politicians and political pundits are only concerned about “owning” the other “side” and “winning” an idiotic war that they invented decades ago for no other reason than to mislead the public, sow deeper division in the country, and solidify their own power. Well, congratulations, it’s working out great, if tearing the country apart is the objective.
The undying dedication to perpetuating the culture wars results in our political parties taking unflinching, opposing points of view in virtually every situation, consequences be damned. If progressives want to finally address the systemic racism in the country, conservatives must take the opposing view and fight against any attempt to even acknowledge the realities of systemic racism.
When a Democrat in the White House says we need to get vaccinated and take steps to stop the spread of a pandemic that has killed more than a million people in this country, the other “side” simply has to fight against this. The same process plays out in nearly every situation, from healthcare reform to protecting the environment. It doesn’t seem matter that affordable healthcare and a cleaner planet would benefit all people.
Instead of continuing to participate in this nonsense, maybe we should focus on stopping the war. Democracy depends on compromising with people that don’t share your views or beliefs, and our representatives in government are supposed to be working to find common ground. Instead, they have led us to hate, so that we have stopped talking to each other and now just scream at those who don’t agree with us or make them evil, a danger to our way of life, or an enemy.
