Culture Wars and Evolving Culture War over Religion
write five different essays. two pages for each (three citations of the readings I provide for each). In each answer, please make sure to:
● Make a clear point;
● Reference by name at least three of our course readings (or film); and
● Integrate ideas and texts from across our course materials
these are five prompts.
1. Throughout the semester, we have described a series of conflicts as “culture wars.” How do you define the “culture wars”? Does the phrase “culture wars” accurately describe these conflicts? Why or why not?
2. Please write an essay on the following theme: “Church and State: America’s Evolving (Culture) War Over Religion.” In your answer, please explain how church-state relations have evolved over time – and how they continue to generate conflict and controversy in the United States.
3. You have been asked to give a lecture entitled, “The Decade that Made Modern Culture Wars” In your remarks, please explain what decade you’ll discuss (we recommend but do not require either the 1960s or the 1990s), what was new (or not) about cultural conflict in that decade, and how these conflicts have changed – or not – since then.
4. Another university has asked you to teach this course, but their semester has an extra week in it. Draft a memo explaining what theme or issue you’ll add to the course, how it connects to the existing themes of the course, and why that inclusion will improve the course.
5. Are “culture wars” global? How does the American model of “culture war” resemble or differ from conflicts we’ve studied elsewhere in the world?
readings: Morone, Hellfire Nation & Kruse, One Nation Under God & Hartman, A War for the Soul of America & Hunter, Culture Wars & Hartman, A War for the Soul of America, Ch 5 & Corredor, “Unpacking ‘Gender Ideology’ and the Global Right’s Antigender Countermovement” & Larson, Stuck & Adler-Bell, “Behind the CRT Crackdown” & watch the film “Precious Knowledge: Fighting for Mexican American Studies in Arizona” (2011) & Hayhoe, Saving Us & Lenz, God Land &
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Q1
Culture War
Throughout the course, the materials have focused on the unique period known as the sixties, followed by turbulent decades in which a new America was born. According to Hartman (7), the birth of a new America in this period was mainly based on debates about the idea of America. In this new America, old perceptions or conservative notions of America's ideas were challenged by an emerging liberal youth forcing the country to be divided into the far left and the far right. The American Culture became the focus of debate and political confrontations. The clash between these two groups is what amounts to a culture war. In essence, a culture war is a cultural conflict between different social groups within a society, with each seeking to dominate that society's values, beliefs, and practices.
In this case, the two main social groups were rightists and leftists, with the former influenced by the need for new ideas and perceptions of the world that would transform the American society based on critical issues like war, racial discrimination, gender equality, and freedom of expression (Corredor). According to Hartman, "the sixties gave birth to a new America; a notion more open to new peoples, ideas, norms, and articulation of America itself (Hartman 56)" In other words, the primary contest in the culture war was the fundamental idea of who Americans were in terms of their identity, norms, relations with people from foreign countries, and the extent to which it could accommodate equality. Based on this explanation and the definition of the culture war, the concept can also be described as a conflict in which the national culture is at stake. This is because identifying one as an American means that one has been associated with the American culture.
Thus, the culture war phrase adequately describes the conflict for several reasons. Firstly, it is a culture that is at stake. Morone (20) holds that a new nation, drawn from many tribes and races, always faces the primal question of "who are we?" People in this conflict are not necessarily pursuing personal interests. Instead, they are looking to either sustain the current American culture or allow it to take a new direction. This is why major disagreements included affirmative action, abortion, art, censorship, media, multiculturism, sex education, national history standards, family values, and evolution. These are key societal aspects that cumulatively define the culture (Karjalainen). Therefore, people who disagree on the nuances within these dimensions are in a struggle for social control.
Secondly, culture war best describes the conflict because the conflict is projected to pervade other critical areas like legislation and policing. Studies have shown that culture influences law in the same manner laws influences culture (Samuel). Thus, by taking control of the American culture, any social group, be it conservative or liberal, could influence American legislative outcomes and, therefore, the country's direction concerning global developments in issues like human rights, inclusivity, health, education, and environmentalism. The household, for instance, is the fundamental economic, social, and political unit. Therefore, changing family values means changing political, economic, and social perceptions and norms, which is a threat to the current status quo. This is why Hartman emphasizes that the culture war challenged the Judeo-Christian values on which America was built. Thus, 'culture war' best describes this conflict in the American 20th-century society.
Q2
Church & State: America's Evolving Culture War over Religion
Following the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, there was no other single powerful secular government in the West. At the time, however, there was a central ecclesiastical power in Rome, the Roman Catholic Church, which rose to become the dominant power in the West. It was the most powerful entity that surpassed international borders, influenced political decisions, amassed extensive wealth, occupied institutional control, and shaped legislation. Thus, when America emerged, there was a need to address the issues of the plurality of religious views to accommodate the different cultures leading to the separation of the Church and state (Lenz). However, even with this separation, the distinction between the Church and the state is increasingly blurred.
The need to separate the Church and the state, moving on from the ancestral reign of the Church in Europe, was aimed at fostering inclusivity. America, unlike Europe, consisted of different visible and influential religious groupings. As such, the influence of the Church on critical issues like legislation and policing was not acceptable unanimously as it was in Europe (Hayhoe). The separation was intended to enable the formulation of laws and instructions that were free from the influence of the Church. However, throughout history, since the emergence of the United States, the separation between the Church and the state has grown thinner, and the relationship continues to be controversial with time.
According to Hartman, the American culture war interrogated the Judeo-Christian values and beliefs upon which the nation was built. In other words, despite a legal distinction between state and Church, the state's operations seem to be based on the original values borrowed from Europe, on which the nation was built. Thus, the culture war of the sixties came due to the realization that these Judeo-Christian values were no longer applicable to the complex needs of modern America. In essence, church-based values are still in control of the state, a situation that only seems to heighten conflicts within the country.
This situation is best described by Morone, who argues that "America is a nation with the soul of a church (14)" In essence, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1835 that "religion never intervenes directly in the government of American society, but it should be considered that first of the political institutions" is still as relevant in modern America. Today, the Church influences presidential candidates' preferences, acts as a platform for politicians to launch further moral policing, and influences legislation on critical issue...