Culture Wars The Struggle to Define America by James Davison Hunter (z-lib.org)

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Culture Wars

THE STRUGGLE

TO DEFINE AMERICA

'James Davison Hunter

BasicBooks-

A Division of HarperCollinsPublishen

91-70065 CIP

Part of this book was originally published in an article by the author in The Brookings Review, Spring 1990, pp. 20-27.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hunter, James Davison. 1955-

Culture wars: the struggle to define America I James

Davison Hunter.

p.cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-465-0I533-6 (cloth)

ISBN 0-465-01534-4 (paper)

I. United States-Civilization-I970- 2. Culture con- flict-United States. 3. Pluralism (Social sciences)- United States. I. Title.

El69.12.H77 1991 973.92-dc20

Copyright © 1991 by BasicBooks, A Division of HarperCollins

Publishers, Inc.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address BasicBooks, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022-5299.

Designed Uy Ellen Levine

92 93 94 95 NKIFG 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

For mychi/,(Jien, ..

Kirsten, Colin~ and WhZtney .

Contents

Preface		xi
	I INTRODUCTION
Prologue Stories from the Front		3
1	Cultural Conflict in America	31
	Cultural Conflict: T"8 Amnican Stury	J'
	T"8 End of an Ager	J9
	New Lines of Conflict: T"8 Argumsnt in Bmf	42
	T"8 SITuggle to Define America	49
2	The Anatomy of Cultural Conflict	52
	Public Culture-Private Culture	'J
	Public Culture in Contemporary America	61

viii	CONTENTS
	II THE NEW LINES OF CONFLICT
3	The Historical Roots of the Culture War	67
	The Expansion of Pluralism	67
	Century-Old Fault Lines	77
	The Waning of Denominational Loyalties	86
	Religiously Based Special Agenda Organiz.alions	89
	The Realignment of American Public Culture	96
	The Collapse of the Old Divide	104
4	Competing Moral Visions	107
	Competing Philosophies of American Public Life	108
	Public Philosophy and National Priority	116
	Moral Authority and the Realignment of Public Culture	117
	In Separate Worlds	128
	Ill CULTURAL WARFARE
5	The Discourse of Adversaries	135
	Discrediting the opposition	136
	The Grammar of Contemporary Hostility	143
	Symmetry in Antipathy	156
6	The Technology of Public Discourse	159
	The Eclipse of the Middle	160
	The Media of Public Discourse	161
	IV THE FIELDS OF CONFLICT
Opening Observations		173
7	Family	176
	Defining the Family	177
	The Fate of the Traditional Family	180
	Policy Brawls	182

family and Nation

195

	CONTENTS	Ix
8	Education	197
	The "School Question"	198
	Contending for the Ivory Tower	211
	A Trail of Ironies	224
9	Media and the Arts	225
	Taking on the Establishment	226
	The Politics of Free Speech	2JO
	Censorship	2J9
	Art, Expression, and the Sacred	247
10	Law	250
	Packing the Courts	251
	The Rules /or Resolving Public Differences	25J
	Law and Domination	269
11	Electoral Politics	272
	Playing Off the Interests	274
	The Emergence of "Rhetorical Leadnship"	281
	Politicians and the Culture War: Who Is Using Whomr	286
Parting Observations		288
	V TOWARD RESOLUTION
12 Moral Pluralism and the Democratic Ideal		295
	Locating the Advantage	298
	The Challenges Posed to the American Democratic Ideal	J07
Epilogue Democratic Possibilities		318
	Agreement Within Disagreement	Jl8
	Practical Steps	J20
	An American Legacy	J25
Notes		326
Selected Bibliography		393

Index

403

Preface

A European friend of mine recently observed that Americans typically conduct their lives in private and with little controversy. He did not mean to deny that such issues as abortion, gay rights, funding for the arts, women's rights, child-care policy, church and state litigation, multicultuTalism, and court-packing are followed in the press and even debated passionately among American families, friends, and coworkers. But, my friend asked, do these culture wars have practical relevance for· them? The answer will no doubt become more apparent to him as his stay in the United States lengthens. Eventually, he will see that these issues frequently seem abstract to people only until a part of their own lives intersects an issue of the culture war: a daughter or a friend wants an abortion, a marriage ends in divorce, a cousin comes out of the closet, the local school teaches values they deeply disagree with, they can't find decent day care for their kids; art at a local gallery is censored, a local activist burns the American flag at an antiwar rally. All of a sudden, what had long been confined to the abstract becomes very real. Not only their passions but their very life commitments are drawn into a public controversy much larger than their personal troubles-controversies that seem to have a life of their own. As we will see, the contemporary culture war touches virtually all Americans; nearly everyone has stories to tell.

The idea of a culture war taking place in Americ

to some; the term has of ate ecome a topic of conversation in certain