Why Culture Wars Are Dangerous

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There was a time when we were able to discuss our differences without resorting to violence in the U.S. Then came the culture wars. James Davison Hunter wrote a book and titled it with a phrase for what he saw playing out in America’s fights over abortion, gay rights, religion in public schools and the like: “Culture Wars.” Thirty-some odd years later, America has doubled down on the “war” part—with the culture wars expanding from issues of religion and family culture to take over politics almost totally, creating a dangerous sense of winner-take-all conflict over the future of the country. Morphing into "class-culture wars," we have moved from the confines of religiosity into questions of ultimate moral truth. Culture has always underwritten our politics. When it comes to “culture war,” there are two ways of thinking about it. The most prevalent way, is to think of it as a political battle over certain kinds of cultural issues, like abortion, sexuality, family values, church-state issues, and so on. In that sense, the “culture war” is really about the mobilization of political resources —of people and votes and parties—around certain positions on cultural issues. In that sense, a “culture war” is really about politics. But the deeper story is about the cultures that underwrite our politics, and the ways in which our politics become reflections of deeper cultural dispositions—not just attitudes and values—that go beyond our ability to reason about them--to "moralistic ultimate truth" if you will. The question boils down to what we want America to be like, to look like. The answer is complicated and not one rooted in policy. It is hard to negotiate questions of ultimate truth. This is where we are. The issue of danger lies in the correlation between culture wars and shooting wars. Culture wars can and often do lead to shooting wars--not always, but often. Think about the Civil War for a moment. There was a culture war for 30 years prior to the Civil War. The Civil War was—without question—about slavery and the status of Black men and women. Martin E. Marty, a church historian from Chicago, once said that after the Volstead Act and the Scopes trial, evangelical Protestants became a cognitive minority—a minority within intellectual realms—but remained a social and behavioral majority—they basically owned middle America. What we have seen since is a continuation of those structural changes. The Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment culture got carried by universities [and] other important cultural institutions during the latter part of the 20th century, and these cultural institutions are dominated by supermajorities of progressives. Conservatives see this as an existential threat--to their way of life and those values they hold sacred. You can compromise with politics and policy, but if politics and policy are a proxy for culture, there’s just no way one can compromise. I fear for this country because I cannot see a way out from this point at which we find ourselves. I would like to think that we can create enough space around our thoughts and emotions to be able to understand the consequences of our actions before we choose to act. I fear that we will all continue to react without that understanding. I fear the likelihood of political violence in this country.