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

THE TECHNOLOGY OF PUBLIC DISCOURSE

163

political advertisements as well, concerning such issues as U.S. policy in Central America and South Africa, disarmament, church-state relations, welfare reform, blasphemy, and the like.

There are also paid television commercials. People for the American Way, for instance, aired over 2,000 commercials in a single year, "reaffirming the Founding Fathers' dream of a free and tolerant nation.''9 In the same genre, though of a different format, are the religiopolitical oratories of many televangelists. Nearly 40 percent of the U.S~ population in 1987 claimed to watch a religious broadca5t every month, while 20 percent claimed to watch one every week. 10

Direct maU soli~itations are perhaps the most cnmmga ef the new co~nications technologies. The technique was first used on behalf of

soOal and political causes in the early 1950s during the Eisenhower- · Nixon campaign. The technique was refined and developed on a much larger scale through the 1960s and 1970s: by the mjdrerm e!Wi,ons of 1982, more than half a billion pieces of p;iitically oriented direct.mail

*""'eie sent to ordmacy Cifiiens. 'rhe amount of.mail has not diminished since then. Even for what direct mailers call a "house list"-people who· are known to be loyal contributors to particular organizations-the num-' hers are quite remarkable. People for the American Way, for example, had more than a quarter of a million people on its house list in 1988;

A	cans for	emocrauc		cuon a	20,0 names·	"on
			n	ependent	Action had nearl	18 000. errf
	-	tme	spel Hour," in		1979 alone. had	mga:c than 2

million individuals on its mailing list. And the American Family Association has had as many as 3 millionnames on its direct mail computers.11 The implications of these media for the contemporary culture war are tremendous. They define a historically unique "environment" within

which public discourse takes place; an environment that establishes novel, perhaps unprecedented rules for the condud of public discussion. A comprehensive study of all of the newer media of communications, exploring the particular ways that each effects the environment of public debate, is impossible here. For the present purposes, a brief inquiry into just one of the new technologies-direct mail-is sufficient to make a case.

Direct Mail as Public Discourse

The explicit objective of direct mail solicitation is, of course, fund raising. The success of the technique, on the surface, is quite striking: lobbying

164 CULTURAL WARFARE

groups raise millions of dollars annually. Common Cause, for example, is known to raise approximately $8 million a year; the American Civil Liberties Union, $6 million; the National Organization for Women, $10 million; People for the American Way, more than $7 million; and while it existed, the Moral Majority/Liberty Federation took in $10 million a year. The Republican National Committee in election years raises more than $60 million, while the Democratic National Committee raises just under that amount. Some estimate that, cumulatively, the politi~ left and right raise up to $200 million on each side annually.!.2

There is another side to this story, however. From the persEtive of cost-efficiency, serious problems arise. n a word, there is ve little urn agamst t e mvestment. The way in which direct mail solicitation iSapplied to electoral politics is instructive. Senator Jesse Helms's Congressional Club, for example, a lobby committed to providingfinrncidl backing wconservative congressional candidates, pised $9 3 million in 1982 through direct mailin s. B\lt out of this, only $150,000 w ouse an ena e candida.tes in that year. e rest of the money raised went to covering operating expenses. iS-Likew1se. Senator Ted -Kennedy's Fund for a Democratic MaJOnty gave out onl rcent of t e money it raise m 1982. Indeed, one study from 1976 showed that

Carniidates only recelvea	ninerents for every dollar spent oil dhect
iiiail. 14 Much the same d	na · · at lay among the social actio'il or-

gan~ations of the ~and left. According to one report, trect ail cQii;umed so much ~f e resources o(one progressive lobby that after giving out the $250,000 promised to candidates, it ended up $328,061 in debt, most of which was owed to its direct mail consulting firm, Craver, Mathews, Smith. The lobby Independent Action spent the entire next year sending out still other solicitations written by the same firm just in order to pay back Craver, Mathews, Smith.15 Elsewhere it was reported that the U.S. Committee Against Nuclear War raised $1.3 million from a direct mail appeal that appeared to be written on the stationery of a hotel in Hiroshima, from a congressman looking out at "ground zero." As is common in these sorts of mailings, the stationery was counterfeit, the letter was written in Washington, D.C., and 97 percent of the $1.3 million was used to cover the overhead expenses. 16

~ite the prpblems surrounding the cost-effectiveness of direct mail, social and olitical organizations continue to use them. The reason is lain: in the end, makmg money is not reall the oint behin he appeals. s t e conservative 1rect mat expert Richard Viguerie put it,

THE TECHNOLOGY OF PUBLIC DISCOURSE

165

It is a form of advertising. It is not an eyj! mnspiratorial rhiBg. It i~jwt a fact of life, whiCh I haven't found anybody to deny that

the major media of this country has a left of center rs · ctive. The onserv ge eir message around this blockade, except tfirough dired tmdl. Ic's a way fbr conservatives to bypass the monopoly the left hason the media. It's a way of mobilizing our people; it's a way of communicating with our people. 17

Morri~ees, a liberal direct mail consultant (who handled the mailings for George McGovern's pres1denda1 bid in 1972), acknowledged the samrmotive when he called direct mail a technique for "raising the cmtsc1ousness" of the people. 18

_..::fbe capacity of direct mail to "advertise" or to "raise popular consciousness" is vast. For the average organization, the house list (loyal contributors) typically represents under 3 percent of a total mailing list. Therefore, to sustain a house list of 270,000 contributors (the size of the People for the American Way house list), it is necessary to send out over 9 million letters. For the Christian Action Council to sustain a house list of 46,000 contributors it has to mail out over one and a half million letters of appeal. By the late 1980s, the most successful direct mail brokering firm in the' country had well over 30 million names of people • from which to draw.19

Some may doubt the effectiveness of direct mail to really commu- •, nicate to a large constituency, given the conventional wisdom that "peo- . · pie really do not open and read 1unk mail'." Yet several studies have shown that up to three-fourths of all those who receive politically ori-

ented direct mailings not only open them but actually read them.20 ~ The insight of the communicatio~s technicians, then, is essentially Jb

correct. Direct mail may not be a cost-effective way to raise money but

it certainly is a practical and self-supporting mechanism of social an<t I' political advertising. · ~~

In the broader scheme of things, however, it is even more than this. Direct mail copy can be viewed quite literally as a form of public discourse; the letters themselves as a mechanism for communicating publicly about issues of social and political consequence. In this capacity direct solicitations also are instruments ofcivic education; a device for the prejudicial instruction of large segments of the population in the dynamics of contemporary social and political life. In this view, direct mail (as well as mariy of the other new forms of media) is anything but superfluous. It

166	CULTURAL WARFARE

makes a very consequential contribution (whether for good or ill) to the reconstruction of public philosophy-to formulation of the myths and ideals of American life.

Direct Mail and the Discourse of Adversaries

Because of its ability to reach so many people, direct mail has clearly become an important new mode of public communication. The medium itself is closely related to the message of what is communicated. Something about the very nature of direct mail exerts a strong influence on the substance of public debate. The feigned familiarity (such ·as personalized address, personalized stationery, "handwritten" enclosures, "penciled" underlining and marginal notes, "personal" memoranda from political, media, and intellectual celebrities, stamps affixed slightly askew), the sense of urgency (such phrases as "Express Wire," "Urgent Gram," "Jet Message," "Air Express Urgent Letter" printed on envelopes typically mailed third class), the appeal to official,dom (through references

~~igh public office, or a government agency) and the gimmicks (such ~etitions, questionnaires, maps, clippings, fake honors, membership

L\; cards, bumper stickers) are the classic, if farcical, earmarks of direct /J1 - mail. These features are designed to bestow upon"-the individual who r'.' J:eceives the message a sense of personal obligation to become involved.

.I!~~They provide potential donors with the sense of a direct link between 'll'_ \ their contribution and real action taken to further a specific social or

\" political cause. An individual contribution ofjust ten dollars, the reader is encouraged to believe, can influence the very future of the nation, one's community, one's own well-being, and that of one's children. By themselves, however, such features are not what make the medium so consequential for public discussion.

What is most consequential about direct mail is that it uses baldfaced, and rather cynical, manipulation of emotions. "Direct mail," as

one consultant put it, "is a medium of passion."21 The object is to make the reader either indignant or scared. "The message has to qe extreme,

has to be overblown; it really has to be kind of rough."22 Indeed, on both sides of the cultural divide there is basic agreement: the more extreme the appeal, the more successful the mail campaign will probably be.23 The letters are overtly biased since they tend to be aimed at an audience that is already committed. This explains in part the tendency toward sensationalism. In the realm of direct mail, there are no religious conservatives, only Fundamentalists, religious zealots, fanatics, and the

THE TECHNOLOGY OF PUBLIC DISCOURSE

167

like; there are no liberals, only ultraliberals, godless humanists, and so on. In this world, public education is not just teaching secular values but "Your tax dollars are being used to pay for grade school education that

teaches our children [that] CANNIBALISM, WIFE-SWAPPING, and the MURDER

of infants and the elderly are acceptable behavior."24

Going far beyond merely the biased and sensational, every successful direct mail appeal makes effective use of what the technicians in the industry call "the devil factor." In some cases the demonic is embodied in an individual, such as Pat Robertson, the pope, Carl Sagan, Oliver North, Jerry Falwell, Ted Kennedy, or Ronald Reagan. One Moral Majority letter called television producer and People for the American Way founder Norman Lear, "the number one enemy of the American family." In some cases the demonic is embodied in an organization, such as Concerned Women for America, the ACLU, National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, and the National Education Association. One mailings consultant was quite forthcoming about it: "You've got to have a devil. If you don't have a devil, you're in trouble."25 Others in the business. agree, "Find ... a nasty enemy. Tell people they're threatened in some way.... It's a cheap trick, but it's the simplest."26 For example, in 1979, 50,000 letters were sent out to individuals in the pr<>·life movement calling for the defeat of five pro-choice incumbents in the U.S. Congress and in the process using the words "murder" and "baby killers" forty-one times. 27 Even within direct mail appeals each side "demonizes" the other. A letter from Senator Jesse Helms, for example, attacked Senator Alan Cranston "as the ultra-liberal leader of the peace/freeze movement.... Led by the union bosses, they have launched a massive hate campaign against me." To this, Cranston replied with a mailing of his own: "Today Jesse Helms launched a zealous nationwide campaign to defeat me."28 Extremism seems to feed extremism.

One expert provided this rationale: Why "freight a direct-mail letter with a great deal of doctrinaire political language?" After all, the purpose of the letter is "not to convince [the reader] of anything [but to] motivate the person to send some money."29 A former employee of Richard Viguerie agreed, "The bottom line in my business is to raise money."30 As one observer summarized, "The tacit rule among direct mailers is that there are no rules-anything goes in the pursuit of profit."31

Two other features of direct mail have a special impact on public discourse. One is the literary quality of the letters. The rule of thumb in the industry is to keep writing to about the sixthto eighth-grade level. In a society inundated by information, the simple, easily grasped

168	CULTURAL WARFARE

message is the most effective. There simply is no way one can debate the complexities of a social issue or justify an appeal for support with so many people at one time. Political scientist Larry Sabato reports that direct mailers apply the "magic word test" to their letters. "You add up the number of words under five letters in your copy, and if you've anywhere under 65 to 70 percent, you have problems."32 Another obvious feature is the nearly universal poor quality of the moral argumentation. Documents such as these are not born of careful reflection or concern for evidence. The adage within the industry is, "Push the mail.out the door and don't worry about the quality."33

Institutionalizing Superficiality

One must not lose the basic point in all of this: direct mail is, in the end, just one interesting and important case. Virtually all of the newer communications technologies tacitly acknowledge the pressures of time and the need to be distinctive in an information-glutted culture. Television commercials are between fifteen and sixty seconds in length, opinioneditorials are usually between 800 and 1,200 words (and letters to the editor are much shorter); print advertisements are usually one page in size, and dominated by large bold-face headlines; and direct mail letters are no more than four double-spaced pages. These media are also driven by market forces. More time, more space, and greater intellectual reflection just do not offer practical economic pay-off. Therefore, these mass communications technologies provide, as Neil Postman put it, "a structure for discourse, which both rules out and insists upon certain kinds of content and, inevitably, a certain kind of audience."34 By their very nature, then, they must reduce sophisticated moral reasoning to simplifications; they must replace substantive moral argument with sloganeering. In other words, these media demand superficiality, which actually institutionalizes the impulse toward polarization in public discourse.

A noticeable sense of discomfort exists on the part of some activists about this institutional compulsion toward both superficiality and immoderation. One former executive of a large special interest lobby· conceded that much of the rhetoric was indeed extravagant, if not apocalyptic, but also pointed out,

When we complained, we were always given to understand that

certain immutable laws known only to direct mail copy writers ...

THE TECHNOLOGY OF PUBLIC DISCOURSE

169

govern this arcane field. A softened word here and a modified word there could cost us .005% return. So, we let outrageous stuff go over our good name. I wrote many memoranda internally telling my superiors that we had to cool the claims or I couldn't guarantee religious institutional support from mainline bureaucracies. My job was made far more difficult by direct mail production.35

There is, then, a very real sense of the tail of media technology (in this case, direct mail) wagging the dog of organizational ideals and interests.

Television commercials, prime-time debates, newspaper advertisements, and the like suffer from the same tendencies. Social organizations as well ~s politicians falter or thrive depending upon the discourse of paid political advertisements. Approval ratings and financial contributions soar and plunge as a direct response to the claims and counterclaims of adversaries in thirty-second television spots.36

This dynamic even extends to crowd estimates as a form of public discourse. Counting the numbers of people who turn out for demonstrations and rallies has become a politically charged exercise. At a gay rights march in Washington, D.C., in 1987, for example, the National Park Police estimated that 50,000 people demonstrated. Organizers were furious at this official figure and complained, saying that the officials deliberately underestimated the crowd size. (Eventually, the police revised their figures to 200,000.) So too, at the April 1990 pro-choice rally, organizers estimated that 600,000 people came, while police, using aerial photographs; only came up with 300,000.37 Here again, substantive and nuanced arguments are igqored and forgotten. These factors, which encourage shallow rhetoric and crowd-size controversies, can only intensify tensions that are already quite volatile.

The way in which the contemporary cultural conflict is artificially. played up by the newer media of public discourse raises questions about sincerity: Do the activists really mean what they say? On one hand, one is tempted to say that they do not, particularly when we know that many of the activists are capable of reflecting philosophically about their efforts. Yet one cannot simply "explain away" the intensity of the conflict by claiming that it is only an artifact of fund-raising considerations or an artifact of the need to capture public attention by shouting louder than the others. Clearly more is involved than an anificially contrived enmity. The enormous sums of money that sustain cultural conflicts boldly testify to this reality, as does the fervor of the activism on each side. Civil

170 CULTURAL WARFARE

disobedience, in the form of an illegal sit-in, a "rescue" at an abortion clinic, the harboring of illegal aliens from war-torn countries, is not taken on as sill)1Sfy an afternoon's entertainment. Real passion inspires these

tensions(.!here is	·	d	· ·	·	-
nifige ey the use of certain kinds of media'
In the final analysis, however, the			estion of motives may be ir-

relevant. Undoubtedly the cultural division has helped to spawn a superficiality of discourse; at the same time, that superficiality aggravates and deepens the cultural cleavage. Either way we are left with a language and a moral reasoning that are as extreme as they are superficial. But this extremism and superficiality is the only objectification of the debate that really exists, and, like it or not, it is this language and moral reasoning that defines the terms and limits of popular debate.

Here again, the net effect is the eclipse of the middle. The rhetoric required by the new communications technologies simply does not allow fo: middling positions and the subtleties they imply. Of course, moderate and even dispassionate voices do exist, but they do not have access to the same kind of public platform. It is virtually impossible to translate substantive moral reasoning into a sixty-second commercial, a "sound bite" on the evening news, a full-page political advertisement, a syndicated opinion-editorial piece, or a direct mail letter. The more temperate voices on both sides of the cultural divide are either drowned out by the louder extremes, or they themselves are dismissed as extreme. In the end, much of public discourse is reduced to a reciprocal bellicosity.

IV

THE FIELDS OF .

CONFLICT

Opening Observations

Cultural conflict may be a struggle to control the symbols of public culture, but this does not mean that it only exists in the ethereal realm of philosophical speculation-as a noisy and irritating form of sophist bickering. Cultural conflict, in reality, is much more consequential for a very simple reason. The symbols of public culture are always mediated in the social world by a variety of social institutions. It is, therefore, in the context of institutional structures that cultural conflict becomes crystallized.

The present contest is no exception. The contemporary culture war rages on a variety of institutional fronts. But five areas. in which it rages most intensely are in the realms of the family, education, the popular media, law, and electoral politics. Each of these areas can be viewed as instruments of cultural warfare, to be sure. More important, each of these can be understood as a kind of symbolic fiel,d, or territory for which opposing sides assert their interests through competing claims, seek to extract concessions, and endeavor to minimize their own losses.

But why these institutions? The family is an important symbolic territory because the social arrangements and relationships found there are very much a microcosm of those in the larger social order. The way men and women relate to each other, the different levels of status and authority they enjoy (or endure), the place of children, and the nature of legitimate sexuality-all of these, among other matters, have evolved into general social and political issues, but they are perhaps most tangible to ordinary people in the context of their own families and those of their