The Culture War A Stduy Of American Social And Cultural Polarization In The Late 20th-Century

The American culture war was a 20th century phenomenon which refers to a set of controversial social conflicts in contemporary American life, such as abortion, gay rights, affirmative action, multiculturalism, censorship of art, and separation of church and state. Over the endless array of the conflict, the cultural conservatives and the cultural liberals go tit for tat in their debates and even resort to violence and murder from time to time.The thesis studies the historical background of the culture war and analyses the opposing moral values of the conservatives and the liberals behind the various culture war fronts, intending to unveil the essence of the culture war, and explain the impact of the culture war on the formation of American identity.For the conservatives, America is essentially a Christian nation and American people shoulder the responsibility to observe the traditional moral criteria that was ordained by God in the Bible. The liberals base their moral judgementation on secular humanism and insist that the human good should be the highest measure for the human conducts.Although broad in scope and complicated in nature, the culture war is, in essence, a clash of values between two different moral systems. The two opposing moral systems represent two different ways to interpret the past, the present and the future of America. Each side of the cultural divide holds its perception about reality as truthful and its standards of morality as the only legitimate ones for people to live up to.By analyzing and examining the ideologies of these two camps over some of the most contentious issues in contemporary America in recent decades, the thesis tries to reveal not only the social and cultural transformations America has undergone over the past half a century, but also the new political map that has been being drawn along the line of moral beliefs and religious convictions. The thesis concludes that the culture war, in the final analysis, is the combat between two opposing moral forces that are trying to win the dominating position in defining American life and setting up moral standards.