culture war

I’ve recently received some e-mails with what I might characterize as political propaganda, unsubstantiated by facts. It is my belief that the people who circulate (fwd, fwd, fwd) such material have no idea of what the term “unsubstantiated by facts” really means. It has been reported that there is a culture war going on in the United States and in line with “all’s fair in love and war”, I’m going to assume that these e-mails are used to fire-up the troops.

Now the term “culture war” has always had me baffled. What exactly does it mean? Are there two separate set of lifestyles battling for the hearts and minds and traditions that comprise American culture? Is it that there is some entrenched mainstream culture that is being threatened by outside forces (the only constant in nature is change)? Some would say that the American culture is comprised of the traditions and beliefs that one conforms to to become part of the citizenry. I would posit that American culture is not comprised of a set of assumptions that people conform to, but rather that it is the mores and beliefs of the people who inhabit America that define the culture. If there is a defining element that sums up American culture it is that “We the People” are always at odds with one another over what constitutes an American culture.

In reading David O. Stewart’s The Summer of 1787 I came across several instances related to the creation of the constitution that might be topics for cable news, if it were around back then:

Three of the eight constitutional convention delegates from Pennsylvania were immigrants. (Could you be an illegal immigrant in the 1780’s?)

A delegate’s remark: “Manners and modes of thinking of the inhabitants (of different parts of the country) differ nearly as in different nations of Europe”.

After a suggestion by Benjamin Franklin that each session of the constitutional convention begin with a prayer, Alexander Hamilton answered that praying might give the public the idea that the delegates’ task was beyond their human abilities. Beside that, there was no money to pay a clergyman to conduct the prayers and the suggestion was scrapped.

I don’t know what this war is about. Seems as if this is a phantom war; people out to defend a culture that has never really stood still long enough to be defined.