Culture is Upstream from Politics

What We're Getting Wrong About The Culture Wars

Just in case you’re one of those blissful folk who have been, for the past three decades, relegating your cultural perception to the sanctuary of ignorance, we are in the midst of a culture war. And, as our good fortune would have it, political pundits and talking heads are as plentiful as the porta potties on the playa at Burning Man—and equally as unsavory.

At present, the contending ideologues fall into two basic camps. One observer’s assessment of the division is judicious, I think, and sums up well the heart of the matter for our purposes. Gregory Wolfe writes,

The progressives are, by and large, secularists who believe that the old Judeo-Christian moral codes are far too restrictive; they actively campaign for new definitions of sexuality, the family, and the traditional ideas about birth and death—the “life” issues. Traditionalists, clinging to what they see as perennial truths of their religious and cultural heritage, wage a rear-guard action against innovation wrought by the progressives. Issues such as abortion and euthanasia, homosexuality and the family, school prayer and other church and state conflicts lie at the heart of the culture wars. The stakes are extremely high and the struggle is fierce and bloody—and likely to become even more intense.

As Wolfe notes well, the stakes are indeed extremely high and as his prediction has played out, the conflict has become more extreme and intense with each passing year.