James Davison Hunter takes up a daunting task in Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America. His work attempts to serve as a primer on America’s modern kulturkampf, an epic confrontation between orthodoxy and progressivism over the “power to define reality.” To achieve this end, Hunter defines the participants and philosophies involved in the struggle, and provides the historical context of the conflict.

For Hunter, the “culture wars” are the fruit of an essentially moral struggle. On one side stand the orthodox, who fashion their worldview around the existence of transcendent moral authority (usually in a theistic sense). For them, history falls under the control of a real, active supreme being. Government is and should be based on divinely revealed principles. Freedom is essentially economic in nature. Justice is done in accordance with divine fiat and could be alternately defined as “righteousness.”

On the other side stand the progressives, whose relativistic worldview reflects their belief in the mutable nature of moral tradition. For them, history is made at the behest of man (or on a grand scale, chance). Morals are based on “self-grounded rational discourse” in conjunction with subjectivism and pragmatism. Freedom is defined sociopolitically. Justice is egalitarianism, the end of oppression in all forms.

According to Hunter, orthodoxy and progressivism are, in fine, faith-based systems. At their core are truth claims, existential statements about the universe that when joined create a faith system that will define what Hunter calls private and public culture. The culture wars are carried out in the arena of public culture--in a nation’s government, its symbols and its collective myths.

The culture wars, however, are far from a simple battle between readily-defined enemies. Hunter acknowledges the breadth of his categories, admitting that the participants “cannot be easily caricatured.” They cannot be distinguished by religion, race, class or even political party. Furthermore, most Americans fall somewhere in the middle of either extreme, and may waver between progressivism and orthodoxy depending on the issue in question-be it homosexuality, abortion, gun control, or any of a host of controversies.

Hunter further asserts that the current conflict is not the first “culture war” in American history. It merely replaces the Catholic/Protestant division that roiled the republic during the nineteenth century. Indeed, the former enemies have joined forces as the battle has shifted; conservative Protestants side with conservative Catholics against their respective liberal brethren over moral issues in a sort of “new ecumenism… based on perceived self-interest.” According to Hunter, the new conflict springs from the adoption of post-Enlightenment philosophies that criticize the foundations of traditional morals, and the rise of an information-based economy that has necessitated the expansion of higher education, always the scourge of orthodox morality.

The conclusion of the initial segment of Culture Wars seems largely negative. Due to the interminable nature of the conflict--itself due to the irreconcilable clash of faith systems--the adversaries can at best only “talk past each other.” The consequences are “new forms of prejudice, discrimination, social strife, and political conflict”--and there seems to be little hope for change.

Hunter’s analysis of the (semi) contemporary cultural conflict, despite its breadth of scope, on the surface seems to be an accurate (if obsolete--being nearly a decade old) description of America’s moral struggle. Hunter’s book might be better titled “Moral Wars,” since the battles are not fought between separate cultures per se but rather for the moral authority to shape American culture. That is, only if America has any sort of culture left. As Christopher Clausen (2000) writes,

To Hunter’s credit, he acknowledges the complexity and downright confusion caused by the blurring of categories in the culture wars, admitting that the descriptions of orthodoxy and progressivism represent at best only “polarizing impulses.” However, the situation has become even more baffling, as progressives take up positions in what might have formerly been considered enemy turf. Ironically, as Clausen (2000) points out, the progressive tendency toward open-ended tolerance has led to attacks on its sister attribute, empiricism.

Finally, as a tribute to Hunter’s sense of fair play, he seems to take considerable pains to present both sides of the struggle in realistic terms, without favoring either side. He acknowledges the extremist elements in both camps, but also notes that “on all sides the contenders are generally sincere, thoughtful, and well meaning.” His history of American cultural controversy uncovers a wealth of facts, statistics and quotations that offer concrete evidence of his assertions.

Overall, Culture Wars is a well thought out, coherent and highly readable perspective of the moral conflict of recent decades. It is a work that takes a massive subject and clarifies it without oversimplifying the issues involved.
 
 

Clausen, C. (2000). Faded Mosaic: The Emergence of Post-Cultural America. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher.

Fukuyama, F. (1999). The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order. New York: The Free Press.