Are the Culture Wars Over? Look at the States

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http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/6994/are_the_culture_wars_over_look_at_the_states/

April 3, 2013 12:12pm
Post by SARAH POSNER

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, in the latest Democracy:

In 1943, Allied forces achieved a hard-fought victory in the North African campaign, captured Sicily, and began to fight their way up the Italian peninsula. Victories in places such as El-Alamein, Salerno, and Anzio gave America some confidence that the Allies would ultimately prevail in Europe. That confidence allowed the American public to shift more of its attention to the Pacific Theater. Popular magazines such as National Geographic began to publish more maps and articles about the Pacific because Americans suddenly wanted to know a lot more about Saipan and Leyte Gulf.

The same sort of shift is happening now for the left in America’s long-running culture war. From the 1980s until the birth of the Tea Party, most of the action was in the Social Theater, in which the religious right and the secular left waged an existential struggle for the soul of American society. Issues related to sexuality, drugs, religion, family life, and patriotism were particularly vexing, and many people over 40 can recall the names of battlefields such as Mapplethorpe, needle exchange, 2 Live Crew, and the flag-burning amendment. But the left won a smashing victory in the 2012 elections, including the first victories at the ballot box for gay marriage. These triumphs, combined with polling data showing the tolerant attitudes of younger voters, give the left confidence that it will ultimately prevail on most issues in the Social Theater. The power base of the religious right is older, white, rural Protestants, a group that immigration, demography, and urban renewal have consigned to play an ever-shrinking role in American presidential elections.

Haidt argues that the culture wars have moved on to what he calls the "Economic Theater," where battles over notions of fairness and liberty will define our politics, rather than matters of sexuality and religion.

This sort of complacent conclusion that religious conservatives will be hamstrung from continuing to effect our politics and culture has been commonplace for decades, but has been particularly strident after the 2012 election and the rising acceptance of marriage equality.


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