e-Claire

Is it a War ?!?!?

Here, again, you can see the meaning behind my choice of my writ large: I gotta question. And I mean a Question. And I need your help with it. Here goes:

What is this Culture War I'm hearing so much about these days?

Fill me in as much as you can -- don't be shy. Tell me how it affects you, and your kids, if any. Tell me what the sides are -- are there only 2 or are there 3 or 7 or 9? Who is on these sides? Where do you stand? Tell me how you first encountered and recognized it. Tell me where you've seen it and how it has changed while you were lookin'. Tell me anything else you think I don't know. G'wan - I'm listening.

1. I’m not sure if War is the correct metaphor. Perhaps Hegelian dialect would be closer to what is going on. There are various cultures conflicting, interacting, and changing thruout our overall culture.

   I’ve always found fault with the “melting pot” image of American culture. It’s more like a stew pot, with ingredients absorbing and contributing flavor but retaining their own identities.
   

   Posted by triticale  on  03/07/04  at  06:20 AM

2. Sometimes I want to shake that pot of stew and just scream “MELT!  MELT, damn you!” Everyone has to be a hyphenated American.  And the madness doesn’t end with country-of-ancestral-origin-American or quasi-ethnicity-American.  Now we’re gay-American, fundamentalist-American, anti-abortion-American.

   The stew has set too long without being stirred. The broth that once bound us together is evaporating and soon we’re just going to be a bunch of potato-Americans sitting next to carrot-Americans and beef-cube-Americans.

   I don’t know about you, but I prefer my Americans unhyphenated.

   Posted by Mark  on  03/07/04  at  08:15 PM

3. got to you via baldilocks. 

   I thought I knew what the culture wars were (left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative) but now I am not so sure.  Some inklings:  things look different the farther you get from either coast; public education nation-wide is in sorry shape (and dominated by not-so-sophisticated folks); same-sex marriage may be a red herring (high number of divorced or never-married kids w/no paternal contact the real deal); Wal Mart and the death of small-town mainstreet; the de-population of the Great Plains....

   Posted by liz  on  03/08/04  at  05:43 AM

4. It’s just a new name for stuff that has always been going on. The media just like the word “war.” It gets people excited so they watch more TV and buy more newspapers.

   I linked to this post on my blog.

   Posted by Lynn S  on  03/08/04  at  07:33 AM

5. I believe humanity always needs a cause, and hence an enemy.  I see it as part of our fundamental nature.

   This is not to deny the badness of some of these enemies or to negate their badness by making all enemies “necessary evils”.

   I just believe ambition and rivalry are built into our core, and can be used for good or bad.  It sells papers, but it also motivates humans.  During the Cold War, we put aside local differences to stand against an alien government and worldview.  That roadblock resolved, we keep looking to improve our world by promoting our self-assured good taste with others - be it our avid love of hockey, Republicans, metrosexuality, or skateboard parks.

   In a cute comment, I can’t write a full essay, so take the idea and wrestle with it if it strikes you as odd, crazy, or strangely appropriate.

   Posted by  on  03/08/04  at  09:20 AM

6. I am proud to be a Potato-American! 

   Posted by jace  on  03/08/04  at  10:27 AM

7. I’m pleased to see Mark expanding on my metaphor, and I agree that the stew could use stirring, but I disagree with his conclusion. I’d rather have America flavored carrots with a bit of crunch remaining, and America flavored potatoes, some with the peel still on them, than one homogeneous mush.

   I like having an Asian grocery on the corner where I can get garlic pork sausages and white gourd drink and pickled galangal. I like going to the Parkview Cafe, a Black truckstop where we are usually the only white customers, for pork shoulder and sides (greens w/ chow-chow, skillet corn, homemade mac and cheese) for dinner. I like having moved the short distance from Chicago to Milwaukee and exploring the subtle differences between Flatlanders and Cheeseheads, damn betcha.

   Posted by triticale  on  03/08/04  at  11:26 AM

8. Just an observation on our times.  At the dissolving of the Soviet Union and the downing of the Berlin Wall some person wiser than I said something close to the following. “With the loss of Americas’s external enemy we will now turn within to find our evil”. And sure enough TV programing like the “X-Files” working around the conspiracy of government arose. It is still there but soon a new-old theme will prevail. The external foe returns in the form of the Middle East and Islam. And the beat goes onnnnnnnnnn.

   Posted by  on  03/09/04  at  02:31 AM

9. Good points, Andrew and twoma3.  Maybe the next “War” oughta be against terming everything a “War,” eh?

   Posted by Claire  on  03/09/04  at  03:37 AM

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