Everything about The Culture War totally explained
The
culture war (or
culture wars) in American usage is a metaphor used to claim that political conflict is based on sets of conflicting values. The term frequently implies a conflict between values considered
traditional or
conservative and those considered
progressive or
liberal. The "culture war" is sometimes traced to the
1960s and has taken various forms since then.==Origins==
The phrase "culture war" is a translation of the German
Kulturkampf, the name given to the struggle between the government of the
German Empire under
Otto von Bismarck against the power of the
Catholic Church from 1871-1878.
Italian
Marxist Antonio Gramsci in the 1920s argued that the reason the
proletarian revolution hadn't advanced in Europe as fast as many Marxists had expected it would was due to
cultural hegemony. The theory of
cultural hegemony states that a diverse culture can be dominated by one class because of that class's monopoly over the mass media and popular culture. Gramsci therefore argued for a culture war in which
anti-capitalist elements seek to gain a dominant voice in
mass media, education, and other mass organizations.
1990s
The expression was introduced again by the 1991 publication of
Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America by
James Davison Hunter. In that book, Hunter described what he saw as a dramatic re-alignment and polarization that had transformed
American politics and
culture.
He argued that on an increasing number of "hot-button" defining issues —
abortion,
gun politics,
separation of church and state,
privacy,
homosexuality,
censorship issues — there had come to be two definable polarities. Furthermore, it wasn't just that there were a number of divisive issues, but that society had divided along essentially the same lines on each of these issues, so as to constitute two warring groups, defined primarily not by nominal religion, ethnicity, social class, or even political affiliation, but rather by ideological
world views.
Hunter characterised this polarity as stemming from opposite impulses, toward what he refers to as
Progressivism and
Orthodoxy. The dichotomy has been adopted with varying labels, including, for example, by commentator
Bill O'Reilly who emphasizes differences between "Secular-Progressives" and "Traditionalists".
In 1990
paleoconservative commentator
Pat Buchanan mounted a campaign for the
Republican nomination for
president of the United States against incumbent
George H.W. Bush in 1992. He received a prime time speech slot at the
Republican National Convention, which is sometimes dubbed the "
'culture war' speech".
During his speech, he said: "There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we'll one day be as was the Cold War itself."
(External Link
) In addition to criticizing "environmental extremists" and "radical feminism," he said
public morality was a
defining issue:
The agenda [Bill] Clinton and [Hillary] Clinton would impose on America — abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat — that's change, all right. But it isn't the kind of change America wants. It isn't the kind of change America needs. And it isn't the kind of change we can tolerate in a nation that we still call God's country.
A month later, Buchanan elaborated that this conflict was about power over society's definition of right and wrong. He named abortion, sexual orientation and popular culture as major fronts – and mentioned other controversies, including clashes over the
Confederate Flag, Christmas and taxpayer-funded art. He also said that the negative attention his talk of a culture war received was itself evidence of America’s polarization.
When Buchanan ran for president in 1996, he promised to fight for the conservative side of the culture war:
I will use the bully pulpit of the Presidency of the United States, to the full extent of my power and ability, to defend American traditions and the values of faith, family, and country, from any and all directions. And, together, we'll chase the purveyors of sex and violence back beneath the rocks whence they came.
2000s
In a 2004 column, Buchanan said the culture war had reignited and that Americans no longer inhabited the same moral universe. He gave such examples as gay civil unions, the "crudity of the MTV crowd," and the controversy surrounding
Mel Gibson's film,
Passion of the Christ. He wrote,
Who is in your face here? Who started this? Who is on the offensive? Who is pushing the envelope? The answer is obvious. A radical Left aided by a cultural elite that detests Christianity and finds Christian moral tenets reactionary and repressive is hell-bent on pushing its amoral values and imposing its ideology on our nation.
The unwisdom of what the Hollywood and the Left are about should be transparent to all.
Campus culture wars
From the point of view of American
academia, the "culture wars" and their alignments were nothing new — rather, they were perceived as an extrapolation of some conflicts that had been simmering in university life since the
1960s. Positions had been taken up on a number of issues: alleged
ethnocentricity of traditional studies such as philosophy and literature;
feminism;
postmodernism; and
homosexuality as a topic in the
humanities. Cruder debates in more emotive terms were expected on the
curriculum,
popular culture,
political correctness,
affirmative action as it applies to admissions, and allegations that teaching was too centered on so called "
dead white males."
The campus culture wars reflected a change in the demographics of the student population, as well as social change in society at large.
Public intellectuals have sometimes blurred the distinction between "culture war" in this sense, and in national politics.
The 1992 book
Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American Education by
Gerald Graff took a positive line on the campus culture wars.
In Australia
The concept of a "culture war" is also current in
Australia, particularly in the area of
Australian historiography. The so-called
history wars concern how to interpret the country's history, especially regarding
Indigenous Australians.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Culture War'.
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