Chomsky subscribers:

Is there a cultural war going on in the United States?

What are the define line of battle?

Is it along racial, class or others lines of demarcation?

F. Leon


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A glance at the December/January issue of "Policy Review":

Why there is a culture war

On the surface, says John Fonte, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute,
it appears that ideological discord has been muted in recent years, and
that today's controversies are concerned with practical problem-solving
"rather than with great principles."

But according to Mr. Fonte, a "battle" between the competing world-views
of the Marxist intellectual Antonio Gramsci and the better-known Alexis de
Tocqueville will determine "what kind of country the United States will be
in decades to come." He explores the connections between "Gramscian" and
"Tocquevillian"  ideas to contemporary political debates. Gramsci's most
innovative ideas -- that dominant and subordinate groups based on race and
gender struggle over power, that all life is political, and that knowledge
and morality are social constructions -- "are assumptions and
presuppositions at the very center of today's politics," says Mr. Fonte.
He adds that diversity-education efforts on many campuses are a reflection
of Gramsci's interest in uprooting internalized oppression, in which
people in subordinate groups come to accept the assumptions of their
oppressors. Tocqueville's present-day followers, says Mr. Fonte, argue
that "America's founding principles are sound and that the three elements
of the Tocquevillian synthesis (entrepreneurial dynamism, religion, and
patriotism) are at the heart of the American experience." Recent efforts
to involve faith-based institutions in federal and state efforts to combat
poverty are an example of the Tocquevillian emphasis on "rediscovering"
American mores, writes Mr. Fonte.  "Tocquevillians and Gramscians clash on
almost everything that matters," he says, citing legislative and Supreme
Court arguments over the Gender Equity in Education Act (1993), the
Violence Against Women Act (1994), and last summer's Supreme Court ruling
that the Boy Scouts did not have to employ an openly gay scoutmaster. The
triumph of Gramscianism, he says, would lead to a more European America:
thoroughly secular, post-patriotic, and concerned with group hierarchies
and group rights. Writes Mr. Fonte: "Beneath the surface of our seemingly
placid times, the ideological, political, and historical stakes are
enormous."

The article is not online, but information about the magazine may be found
at:

<http://www.policyreview.com/>

F. Leon