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A few weeks ago, I participated in a panel sponsored by the Cherokee County Republican Assembly. The question was: Did the Conservatives lose the culture war? According to businessman Alex Gimenez, they did. Given that liberals have captured the media and schools, he identified these folks as setting our cultural agenda.

Matthew Perdie, a documentary moviemaker, disagreed. He argued that Donald Trumps electoral victory demonstrates that political correctness is on the wane. As for Catherine Bernard, a lawyer, she was more equivocal. She suggested that conservatives should be more tolerant of minorities.

In my opinion, however, nobody won the culture wars. Liberals, conservatives and libertarians alike were losers. Each faction promoted a program that is now in tatters. All made promises that were not kept. The result is a stalemate in which each side still expects to claim victory.

The reason that none will is because they are out of date. All three endorse ideas created hundreds or thousands of years ago. None was specifically designed to address the problems we currently experience.

Thus, many conservatives urge us to embrace religious verities. They tell us that if we recommit to laws handed down by a merciful God, we will regain his favor. We must therefore love one another. We are to treat each other essentially as siblings so as to safeguard our collective welfare.

This strategy will not work because too many Americans are secular. They refuse to embrace the old-time religion. Nor can three hundred and thirty million people truly love one another. Although they may behave decently toward strangers, they are not, and never will be, kin.

As for the libertarians, they advise us to become entrepreneurs. If we are free to pursue our private interests in an unfettered marketplace, we will all be better off. The problem with this approach is twofold. First, we are not equally talented or aggressive. Second, this leaves love entirely out of the equation.

Although the liberals have been dominant for about a century, they too aspire to the untenable. They tell us to turn to the government for salvation. If we allow its experts to make decisions we are incapable of making for ourselves, we will prosper as never before.

The liberals call this social justice and explain that a fully democratic regime will create complete equality. Once it controls the means of production, it will ensure that everyone receives a fair share. With greed having been suppressed by a myriad of regulations and affirmative action empowering the least formidable among us, the playing field will finally be level.

Except that we have now had some experience with residing under a bureaucratic yoke. Government experts turn out to be at least as corrupt as the industrial moguls who preceded them. Their version of political correctness pits minority groups against one another such that it is the politicians who enrich themselves.

No one is happy with the current situation because no one has obtained the alleged benefits. As it happens, we have developed into a mass techno-commercial society. This ushered in undreamt of wealth and a myriad of choices. But it also introduced unprecedented insecurities.

With so much power at our disposal, we are today capable of big mistakes. The traditional ideologies guarded against these. Religion gave us divinely inspired answers. The marketplace stimulated a multitude of technical and political innovations. As for the progressives, they offered relief from frightening choices by making these for us.

The alternative to these failed worldviews is for us to take care of ourselves. If we become emotionally mature grown-ups who understand the problems before us, we can individually determine what is best for us personally and collectively. As self-motivated experts, we ought to learn from the traditional philosophies so as to take charge of our destinies.

The problem with this option, however, is that it thrusts the responsibility upon us. Aside from the hard work it takes to master contemporary complexities, if things go wrong, we will be to blame. This prospect has already stimulated a flight from freedom and reanimated cultural solutions that have hitherto demonstrated major limitations.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D. is a professor of sociology

at Kennesaw State University.

Originally posted here:
MELVYN FEIN: Who won the culture wars? - MDJOnline.com

A lecture given at the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage at Brown University, October 4, 2016.

I was curator of Performing Arts at Walker Art Center in Minneapolis from 1988 through 1996. Our mission was to be a catalyst for the creative expression of artists and the active engagement of audiences. We presented 100 performances each season in theatres ranging from 100 to 4,800 seats. Given the mission, I at times produced identity-based performance work; some of which became entangled in the Culture Wars of the 1990s.

First some context: in 1989, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awarded $8.4 million in artists fellowships. This represented the apex of these awards. It was also the year photographer Robert Mapplethorpe died of AIDS and Senator Jesse Helms eliminated New York Gay Mens Health Crisis grant of $600,000, objecting to queer content in sex education material.

In 1989, two NEA grants came under political fire. The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania used a NEA grant to mount a retrospective of Robert Mapplethorpes work, entitled "The Perfect Moment," that included homoerotic photographs that some in Congress deemed pornographic. The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC canceled this exhibition anticipating the content would trigger a political storm on Capitol Hill. Members of Congress also objected to The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Arts in Winston-Salem re-granting NEA dollars to Andres Serrano because of his Piss Christ photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine.

Cultural Infidels To mark the start of the 90s, the Walker put together a multidisciplinary festival, Cultural Infidels. Historical films by iconoclasts Andy Warhol and Jack Smith were juxtaposed with John Greysons Urinal and Isaac Juliens Looking for Langston. Kathy Acker read from her latest writing, and we exhibited one of David Wojnarowiczs lithographs. Art and culture were politicized; this is nothing new, and we were eager to support the present day provocateurs.

Karen Finley performed her profoundly moving We Keep Our Victims Ready. The first night was sold out. Two plainclothes police officers introduced themselves, telling me they were sent to determine if the performance should be closed down. Since this was the first night, I wondered why someone had complained to the police without having seen the work. The vice squad left midway through; there was nothingpornographic.

Critical and audience reaction was rapturous. However, syndicated columnists Evans and Novak wrote about the vice squad visit in The Washington Post, catching the attention of Jesse Helms staff. No mention was made of the quality of the performance, only that the vice squad visited the museum in Minneapolis.

Two months later, Holly Hughes made her Walker debut reading an excerpt of Raw Meat as part of P.S. 122s Field Trips. She returned twice more performing World Without End and No Trace of the Blonde.

Culture Wars Later that year, still in 1990, choreographer Bill T. Jones spoke to me about a new dance he wanted to create. His partner Arnie Zane had given the title on his deathbed: Last Supper at Uncle Toms Cabin. I invited Bill to be in residence in partnership with the University ofMinnesota.

Still grieving Arnies death from AIDS, Jones wanted to find hope as a gay black man in America. He envisioned a final resolving tableau of fifty-two nude bodies of all shapes, sizes, ethnicities, ages, and genders. Local dancers, including students from the University of Minnesota dance department, augmented his company.

Before the performance at Northrop Auditorium, word came down that the university did not want students to be nude. Despite the warning, they all dancednude.

Some months later, Rev. Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church crowd protested Last Supper At Uncle Toms Cabin when it was performed in their home state at the University of Kansas.

Also in 1990: Keith Haring, who designed Bill T. Jones Secret Pastures, died of AIDS, and Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Centers Dennis Barrie was charged with obscenity for exhibiting Robert Mapplethorpes photographsthough after a ten-day trial, all charges weredropped.

Senator Jesse Helms pressured the NEA, and individual artist grants to Karen Finley, John Fleck, Tim Miller, and Holly Hughes were denied after being recommended by a peer panel. In a lawsuit, the defendants alleged that the NEA and NEA Chairperson John E. Frohnmayer violated their constitutional rights by wrongly turning down their applications for grants. (The Supreme Court eventually ruled in the artists favor in 1998.)

In 1990, Decency Amendment language was added to reauthorization language for the agency. All NEA recipients were required to sign a decency form. The Walker signed it. There was nothing indecent in what wepresented.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival, New Yorks Public Theater, Bella Lewitzky, Elisabeth Streb, and a few other artists refused. I spoke to Bella about it later. During the McCarthy hearings in the 50s, she was subpoenaed to appear before his committee, but slammed the door on the agent telling him, My dear, I am a dancer, not an opera singer. She was not going to capitulate forty years later.

The following year, 1991, on Easter Sunday, I presented Diamanda Gals Plague Mass at The Guthrie Theatre. The Goth kids loved their high priestess depiction of unbearable grief from the AIDS pandemic.

1992 saw Walker presentations of Ron Vawters brilliant Roy Cohn/Jack Smith juxtaposing the closet conservative lawyer with the flamboyant performance artist, as well as Reza Abdohs visceral treatise on serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, The Law of Remains. Abdohs piece was performed in an empty warehouse. The audiences followed deconstructed tableaus of violence, madness, and mayhem, moving through the building and sitting on the raw floor.

Tim Miller performed My Queer Body that spring. On World AIDS Day, Will Parker sang from the AIDS Quilt Songbook; his last concert before he died of AIDS. Two years later, Minnesota Composers Forum, Arts Over AIDS, and the Walker produced a Minnesota AIDS Quilt Songbook entitled Heartbeats.

Ben Cameron, then head of the NEAs Theater Program, asked me to be on the Individual Artists panel that year. Given whom I had presented, I wondered if he knew who I was. Of course I do, thats why I want you on the panel, he assured me. Holly Hughes and Tim Miller received grants.

David Wojnarowicz died of AIDS at age thirty-seven in 1992, two years after he won a historic Supreme Court Case over an incident in which Donald Wildmon and his American Family Association distorted his visual art in a conservative fund-raising campaign.

In 1993, Huck Snyder, designer for Bill T. Jones Last Supper at Uncle Toms Cabin, died of AIDS. The Walker showed Derek Jarmans film Blue. The screen was filled with Yves Klein blue, devoid of moving images, with voice-over narration from Jarmans diaries. This blue was the color Jarman had experienced while being administered eye drops to fend off blindness from AIDS. A year later, Jarman wasdead.

Actor Ron Vawter died of AIDS in 1994, as did the fierce Marlon Riggs, who became another flashpoint in the NEA funding controversy when his Tongues Untied was broadcast on the PBS series P.O.V. His black queer reel-ness became a lightning rod for malicious conservativeoutrage.

Bill T. Jones brought Still/Here to Northrop Auditorium in 1994. To develop the piece, he held workshops across the country with people facing terminal illnesses. Newsweek called it a work so original and profound that its place among the landmarks of twentieth-century dance seems ensured. Arlene Croce refused to see it but wrote about it in The New Yorker, dismissing it as victimart.

Ron Athey In 1994, I presented Ron Atheys Four Scenes in a Harsh Life. The work opened with a campy burlesque dance by an African-American man, Divinity Fudge, covered in balloons. Ron burst the balloons with a cigar, and then transitioned to a scene in which he raised the tattoos on Divinitys back by cutting stylized marks, patting with paper towels and sending these blood-marked prints along pulleys toward the audience. Operative words to note: blood-marked prints and toward the audience.

In another section, Ron inserted needles into his own arm as his voice-over talked about overcoming addiction and suicide attempts. The iconography of Jesus Passion was then evoked with a crown of thorns pierced into Rons scalp with acupuncture-like needles. The evening culminated with two women being pierced and ecstatically dancing in a queer wedding ceremony officiated by Ron, now clothed in a business suit, exhorting in a booming revivalist voice, There are so many ways to say Hallelujah!

The sold-out performance was well received by an audience of about 100. Post-show discussions with the artist, attended by eighty people, were thoughtful and engaging. Theatre and dance critics had been invitednone chose to attend.

Three weeks after the event, a visual art critic from the Minneapolis StarTribune called, wanting to verify someones distorted, fantastical version of the performance. She did not want to meet in person, and warned me to look for her lead story on the front page the next morning. Here are some choice quotes from that initial article: Knife-wielding performer is known to be HIV-positive and that the audience knocked over the chairs to get out from under the clotheslines.

This was the first of more than twenty articles the newspaper published about a performance its critic had not seen. Vituperative argument about Atheys work escalated into that summers fodder in the NEAs reapropriation battle, since the Walker had received a grant to subsidize the full season of performances, including Atheys.

When Jane Alexander, the head of the NEA at that time, defended the Walker from the erroneously reported and inaccurate coverage, the disgruntled local critic fueled the fires by writing directly to Alexander and to Congress, Your attempts to blame the press for criticism of your agency merely trivializes the issue and obscures the facts. By advocating directly to Congress, she inserted herself into the narrative, and still the newspaper let her continue her coverage.

That local critic also wrote an op-ed piece. Admitting State health officials agreed there was little risk of audience members contracting the AIDS virus from the performance, she fired off that presenting this work was akin to adding blowfish to the buffet of a Japanese restaurant without warning the clientelepotentially poisonous fish whose flesh is said to deliver a peculiar high An eventraises thorny questions. As someone who headed the Walkers public-information office ten years ago, Im glad I dont have to answer them on the institutions behalf.

Walker Director Kathy Halbreich was quoted, I find the negative responses to this troubling, not because of the artistic issues, but because theyre suggestive of the fear we have of people with AIDS. The critics response was, Given the complexity of the issues thats a disturbingly facile response. Somewhere in the background I hear an echo of Clarence Thomas accusing his critics of racism.

Even after this incendiary commentary, the writer continued her reporting for the Minneapolis StarTribune.

Sen. Jesse Helms called Athey a cockroach on the Senate floor. Rep. Bob Dornan termed him a porno jerk and Sen. Clifford Stearns ranted about how Athey endangered the audiences life by the slopping around of AIDS-infected blood.

Minnesotas Sen. Paul Wellstone supported the Walker, as did Congressman Martin Sabo inthe House, and Sen. David Durenberger criticized the highly inflammatory reportingless to do with the Walkeror any single performancethan with the fundamental differences over whether and how the Federal Government should be funding the arts.

Televangelist Pat Robertson tarnished the Walkers good name, and the American Family Associations fundraising exploited Athey for financial gain. But the strangest solicitation came from the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, asking for contributions to defend artists such as Athey. To my amazement, they used the same decontextualized and demonized descriptions of his work the right was usingperpetuating lies and misrepresentations. Good intentions had unintendedconsequences.

National arts service organizations in Washington, DC went into overdrive, trying to save the NEA. However, none called me to discuss what had actually happened. Instead they only talked to themselves within the confines of the beltway, reacting to exploitive and explosive press accounts.

My mother telephoned after watching Rush Limbaugh. Buckets of AIDS-tainted blood were intentionally thrown at the audience, he snidely commented and the audience ran for their lives. When I told my mother Limbaugh was a liar, she responded, But it was on television.

The amount of hate mail and hostile phone messages I received was astounding. Example: We got the abortion doctor, youre next. Blood-red graffiti was painted on the glass doors of the Walker. The police included my house in their regular drive-bys. Any time I left the house, I would hesitate and look out the windows.

Through it all, Walker director Kathy Halbreich was extraordinary. Leaders do not always get to choose their battles. Halbreich was gracious and supportive under intense pressure, as were the Walker board and staff. Local artists, too, rallied around the Walker and me. One, Malka Michelson, created a campaign button: Safe Sex, Not ArtBe a John.

In 1995, Reza Abdoh, the Artaud of our day, died of AIDS. This was the last year grants to individual artists were awarded by the NEA, with the exception of literature fellowships and honorifics in jazz and folk arts. Art, love, and politics collapsedan extraordinary epoch wasover.

For many artists, validation does not come originally from the market place, but had come from the federal government, often leveraging other local and regional support. Ending these fellowships had dire consequences, signaling artists were no longer valued on a national level. Many state agencies followed suit. We have been living with the detrimental impact ever since.

Reflections During the entire summer of the Athey media swirl, not one museum director called Kathy Halbreich to offer support or empathy. Peter Zeisler, then head of Theatre Communications Group, called me irresponsible for presenting Ron Athey, although he had never seen him perform.

Other arts organizations facing controversy experienced the same. Few museums supported each other for controversies surrounding Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, Joel-Peter Witkin, and Chris Ofili. Directors and boards ran for cover when colleagues came under fire; burying their heads in sand until they, too, were challenged.

Regional theatres didnt support performance artists under fireKaren Finley, Holly Hughes, John Fleck, and Tim Milleruntil the Manhattan Theatre Clubs Corpus Christi firestorm or the various protests accompanying Angels in America and The Laramie Project sprung up across the country.

The art world got tripped up and confused, supporting only work we liked, but like should be criteria at home for above the couch. Freedom of expression is a more precious commodity than taste. Conservative critics were very clear about their moral imperative as they vilified artists and terrorized institutions. No one won the culture war; we lost it.

Ten years ago, at the World Trade Center site, The Drawing Center and International Freedom Center had to defend themselves against misrepresentative media, when then Governor Pataki demanded both institutions guarantee that neither would do anything to denigrate America or violate the sanctity of the site. The Drawing Center walked away and Pataki eliminated the Freedom Center from Ground Zero plans.

In 2010, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery included David Wojnarowiczs A Fire in My Belly video excerpt in its Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture exhibition featuring painting, drawing, photography, installation, and media images of lesbian and gay identity.

Museum director Martin Sullivan pulled Wojnarowiczs video when assailed by the Catholic League and conservative Republican Representatives John Boehner and Eric Cantor. They deemed it inappropriate for a federal institution, although none had seen the show.

Thankfully, the Association of Art Museum Directors lambasted the removal of his video:

The AAMD believes that freedom of expression is essential to the health and welfare of our communities and our nation. In this case, that takes the form of the rights and opportunities of art museums to present works of art that express different points of view. Discouraging the exchange of ideas undermines the principles of freedom of expression, plurality and tolerance on which our nation was founded. This includes the forcible withdrawal of a work of art from within an exhibitionand the threatening of an institutions funding sources.

Present Day More than two decades later, some of the cultural infidels are being embraced by the museum world. I wonder: Are the body fluids dry enough? Is the blood pure enough after all this time?

In 2013, The NEA Four, Karen Finley, Holly Hughes, John Fleck, and Tim Miller, were in residence at the New Museum.

In 2014, the Hammer Museum invited Ron Athey to perform in connection with the publication of Pleading in the Blood: The Art and Performances of Ron Athey, a beautifully illustrated catalogue in which Atheys extensive work is analyzed, placing him alongside Jean Genet, Antonin Artaud, and Yukio Mishima, as well as contemporary art-world figures Chris Burden and Bob Flanagan. The Hammer was the first American museum to present Rons performance since the Walker twenty years ago. I was asked to do an overview of the controversy in his career and lead a post-performance dialogue and question and answer session with the artist.

Last year, Walker Art Center included video excerpts of Rons historic performance and clips from the media coverage in a gallery highlighting work from the 1990s as part of the organizations seventy-fifth anniversary celebration. Both Ron and I spoke at a symposium. It was surreal to watch myself defending Athey on a television monitor in the gallery with Ron standing beside me.

And currently, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is showing Robert Mapplethorpes work in an exhibition entitled Focus Perfection, which had already been seen in Los Angeles and will then travel to Sydney.

However, the Culture Wars arent over. Here at Brown University, you are engaged in present day battles around freedom of expression and academic freedom. Your president, Christina Paxson, in an opinion piece last month in The Washington Post wrote,

Suppressing ideas at a university is akin to turning off the power at a factory. As scholars and students, our responsibility is to subject old truths to scrutiny and put forward new ideas to improve them.

At universities, we also advance understanding about issues of justice and fairness, and these discussions can be equally, if not more, difficult. From the earliest days of this country, college campuses have been the sites of fierce debates about slavery, war, womens rights and racial justice. These discussions create rocky moments, and they should. If we dont have these debatesif we limit the flow of ideasthen in fifty years we will be no better than we are today.

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Inside the Culture Wars Maelstrom of the 1990s | HowlRound

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On Wednesdays broadcast of CNNs New Day, journalist, author, and CNN Commentator Carl Bernstein stated that the 2016 presidential election election is really the Gettysburg of the culture wars of the last 30 years, and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Clintons email conduct is indefensible. It was reckless. She has lied about it.

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Bernstein said, [T]his election is really the Gettysburg of the culture wars of the last 30 years, and whoever wins this election, the culture wars are going to move, or be decided in a definitive way.

He further stated,that while Trumps lying is pathological, in many regards, this convention has been surprisingly effective in terms of fighting that war, including the kids, the way that the Trump people want it fought. Bernstein also criticized Dr. Ben Carsons statement regarding Hillary Clintons admiration of Saul Alinsky and his books dedication to Lucifer as ridiculous, and could ruin the partys message.

After the discussion turned to Clintons email conduct, Bernstein said, What she did is indefensible. It was reckless. She has lied about it. And that is why, especially after Comey, she is now baked in this perception among too many people in this country for her comfort, as a liar, as distrusted, and so we now havean election between these two people who are disdained by most Americans. Weve never had a situation like this before. And thats why were in this scorched earth civil war, Gettysburg, whatever the analogy is. Were in a place weve never been before, but what happens at the end of it is going to change our country irrevocably.

Bernstein added that Trumphas a record of fraudulent dealings. He wont release his taxes, unheard of for a presidential candidate, and the terrible thing is, Hillary Clinton cant effectively go after him on his taxes, because she wont release her damn speeches that she was paid for in the Goldman Sachs instances. It is a terrible bind she is. Her people know this election is up for grabs. some of them are horrified. And what theyre horrified at, particularly old friends and supporters of Hillary Clinton who believe in her, is that she has made it possible, perhaps, for Donald Trump to become the president of the United States.

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

More here:
Gettysburg of the Culture War - breitbart.com

The popes decision to make two American archbishops cardinals is a message to other U.S. prelates that the church needs leaders less concerned with culture war issues and who are instead focused on building bridges and making the church a more welcoming place.

In a move that will further shake up how the American hierarchy operates, Pope Francis on Sunday announced the creation of new 17 new cardinals, including three American bishops: Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago, Archbishop Joseph Tobin of Indianapolis and Bishop Kevin Farrell, the former bishop of Dallas who was appointed by the pope to lead a new Vatican department on family life earlier this year.

The impact on how the church operates in the United States could be immense.

Archbishop Cupich is a key Francis ally on proposed reforms that supporters say could make the church more welcoming to disaffected Catholics. Archbishop Tobins openness toward expanded opportunities for women in the church and his support for resettling Syrian refugees, even over objections from G.O.P. vice presidential hopeful Gov. Mike Pence, put him squarely in line with the popes agenda.

Elevating Archbishop Cupich to a cardinal was largely seen as a matter of when, not if.

Pope Francis, after all, handpicked the Chicago archbishop in 2014, passing over the slate of candidates prepared for him by advisors. The pick to lead one of the U.S. churchs most storied and influential archdioceses caught some church leaders off guard. Before taking the helm in Chicago, Archbishop Cupich led the small dioceses of Spokane, Wash., and Rapid City, S.D.

But since his installation, Archbishop Cupich has emerged as a key Francis ally in the United States. He was present in Rome at the second part of the Vatican meeting of bishops about family life, where he urged delegates to consider ways to makes Catholics living in irregular family situations feel more welcome in the church, including the possibility of divorced and remarried Catholics being able to receive communion.

On the domestic front, Archbishop Cupich has publicly urged his brother bishops to spend more time on issues such as immigration reform and workers rights. At the meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops last year, for example, the archbishop took to the floor to ask that immigration be included on the bodys list of key priorities that guide their work. His suggestion was rejected.

Whereas Archbishop Cupichs appointment was expected, the nod to Archbishop Tobin comes as something of a surprise.

Indianapolis is certainly not an archdiocese used to housing a cardinal, but Pope Francis was aware of how Archbishop Tobin managed the controversial oversight of Catholic sisters in the United States ordered by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.

Prior to his assignment in Indianapolis, the archbishop had served in Rome in the Vatican department overseeing religious life. He angered church hardliners in the United States and Rome for urging greater restraint when it came to investigating U.S. sisters over doctrinal concerns.

The archbishop was later praised by women religious for his sensitivity and compassion in listening to their concerns and he was credited with helping to wrap up the investigation two years earlier than anticipated, with as little fall out as possible for either side.

Just this week, Archbishop Tobin expressed support for the idea of women serving as deacons in the Catholic Church, and with it the possibility that they could preach at Mass.

According to the National Catholic Reporter, the archbishop said he was hopeful about the possibility during a question and answer session at a Catholic conference for women.

I'm praying Pope Francis can make good on his promise to find more incisive and visible roles for women in the church, Tobin said, according to N.C.R.

On the political front, Archbishop Tobin made headlines late last year when he clashed with Gov. Mike Pence, now Donald Trumps running mate. Pence had joined many other governors across the nation in announcing that Syrian refugees would not be welcome in his state, citing concerns about terrorism.

The Catholic Charities agency in Indianapolis had been working to resettle a Syrian family for several months at the time of the announcement, and Pence asked that they put plans on hold. After a meeting between the two men, Archbishop Tobin announced that he would direct the agency to move forward with the resettlement regardless.

Bishop Farrells elevation to cardinal will have less of an impact on how the church operates in the United States, but the move means he is suddenly the top American working in Rome.

The Irish-born bishop spent much of his career working in Washington, D.C., before being named leader of the church in Dallas in 2007. In recent years, the social media-savvy bishop blogged frequently about the need for greater gun control laws, especially after the violence that erupted this summer in which five police officers were shot dead during otherwise peaceful protests over the killing of unarmed African American men at the hand of police officers.

Just as notable in the popes announcement are three omissions: Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore and Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles. The three archdioceses are traditionally led by cardinals, but Francis has shown that geography alone is no longer the most important component when it comes to bestowing the honor.

Archbishop Chaput has resisted some of the popes efforts at reform, writing that opening up communion to divorced and remarried Catholics is a no go, despite the popes seeming to endorse the possibility. And Archbishop Lori has been vocal on one the nations most heated culture war issues, serving on the frontlines of the churchs battles with the Obama administration over contraception as head of the U.S.C.C.B.s religious liberty committee.

Passing over Archbishop Gomez, who was ordained a priest as a member of Opus Dei, comes as a surprise. He was seen as a possible pick in this round in part because of his Hispanic heritage, the fastest growing demographic the U.S. church, and his frequent appeals for public policy more favorable to undocumented immigrants are in line with the pope.

The omissions mean that three of the nations largest archdioceses would not be represented in a papal conclave were one to be held in the near future.

When they are made cardinals at a Vatican ceremony coinciding with the end of the Year of Mercy, Archbishops Cupich and Tobin will become two of the most powerful Catholic voices in the United States. Practically speaking, that means they will be asked to spend more time away from their archdioceses in Rome helping the pope govern the universal church and, when the time comes, electing a new pope.

The main effect at home will be their increased influence. Their words and agendas will carry significantly more weight with their brother bishops and perhaps even with everyday Catholics. When a cardinal speaks, certain Catholics listen. But how they exert that influence will be key to the amount of impact they can have on the church here. American prelates will recognize that they are the kinds of leaders the pope wants.

The picks show Francis wants the church in America to be more focused on issues like immigration, the role of women in the church and the need to bypass traditional centers of power in order to find leaders who smell of the sheep, as the pope has put it.

The moves are further cues to American bishops about how the pope wants the church to be run. The big question now is whether the two new American cardinals will be able to use their papal nod of approval to steer a new course for the U.S. church.

Michael OLoughlin is the national correspondent for America and author of The Tweetable Pope: A Spiritual Revolution in 140 Characters. Follow him on Twitter at @mikeoloughlin.

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New Cardinals Signal a Shift Away from the U.S. Culture Wars

Culture war refers to a conflict between traditionalist or conservative values and progressive or liberal values. Beginning in the 1990s, culture wars have influenced the debate over public school history and science curricula in the United States, along with many other issues.

The expression culture war entered the vocabulary of United States politics with the publication of Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America by James Davison Hunter in 1991. Hunter perceived a dramatic realignment and polarization that had transformed United States politics and culture, including the issues of abortion, federal and state gun laws, global warming, immigration, separation of church and state, privacy, recreational drug use, homosexuality, and censorship.

In Canada, culture war refers to differing values between Western versus Eastern Canada, urban versus rural Canada, as well as conservatism versus liberalism.[1]

The phrase "culture war" represents a loan translation (calque) from the German Kulturkampf. The German word Kulturkampf (culture struggle), refers to the clash between cultural and religious groups in the campaign from 1871 to 1878 under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck of the German Empire against the influence of the Roman Catholic Church.[2]

In American usage the term culture war may imply a conflict between those values considered traditionalist or conservative and those considered progressive or liberal. It originated in the 1920s when urban and rural American values came into clear conflict.[3] This followed several decades of immigration to the States by people who earlier European immigrants considered "alien". It was also a result of the cultural shifts and modernizing trends of the Roaring 20s, culminating in the presidential campaign of Al Smith[4] in 1928. However, James Davison Hunter's 1991 book Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America redefined the "culture war" in the United States of America. Hunter traces the concept to the 1960s.[5] The perceived focus of the American culture war and its definition have taken various forms since then.[6]

James Davison Hunter, a sociologist at the University of Virginia, introduced the expression again in his 1991 publication, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America. Hunter described what he saw as a dramatic realignment and polarization that had transformed American politics and culture.

He argued that on an increasing number of "hot-button" defining issuesabortion, gun politics, separation of church and state, privacy, recreational drug use, homosexuality, censorshipthere existed two definable polarities. Furthermore, not only were there a number of divisive issues, but society had divided along essentially the same lines on these issues, so as to constitute two warring groups, defined primarily not by nominal religion, ethnicity, social class, or even political affiliation, but rather by ideological world-views.

Hunter characterized this polarity as stemming from opposite impulses, toward what he referred to as Progressivism and as Orthodoxy. Others have adopted the dichotomy with varying labels. For example, Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly emphasizes differences between "Secular-Progressives" and "Traditionalists".

In 1990, commentator Pat Buchanan mounted a campaign for the Republican nomination for President against incumbent George H. W. Bush in 1992. He received a prime-time speech-slot at the 1992 Republican National Convention, to give his speech on the culture war.[7] He argued: "There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself."[8] In addition to criticizing environmentalists and feminism, he portrayed public morality as a defining issue:

The agenda [Bill] Clinton and [Hillary] Clinton would impose on Americaabortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat unitsthat's change, all right. But it is not the kind of change America wants. It is not the kind of change America needs. And it is not the kind of change we can tolerate in a nation that we still call God's country.[8]

A month later, Buchanan characterized the conflict as about power over society's definition of right and wrong. He named abortion, sexual orientation and popular culture as major frontsand mentioned other controversies, including clashes over the Confederate Flag, Christmas and taxpayer-funded art. He also said that the negative attention his "culture war" speech received was itself evidence of America's polarization.[9]

The Culture war had significant impact on national politics in the 1990s.[6] The rhetoric of the Christian Coalition of America may have weakened president George H.W. Bush's chances for reelection in 1992 and helped his successor, Bill Clinton, win reelection in 1996.[10] On the other hand, the rhetoric of conservative cultural warriors helped Republicans gain control of Congress in 1994.[11]

The culture wars influenced the debate over public-school history curricula in the United States in the 1990s. In particular, debates over the development of national educational standards in 1994 revolved around whether the study of American history should be a "celebratory" or "critical" undertaking and involved such prominent public figures as Lynne Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, and historian Gary Nash.[12][13]

The liberal tide that marked the 1990s briefly died down in the early 2000s, with the 9/11 attacks changing priorities towards more social cohesion, but resurfaced once the Iraq War began. Peter Beinart in January 2009 said that the election of Barack Obama as President could be the beginning of the end for the American culture war. He wrote:

When it comes to culture, Obama doesn't have a public agenda; he has a public anti-agenda. He wants to remove culture from the political debate. He wants to cut our three-sided political game back down to two... Barack Obama was more successful than John Kerry in reaching out to moderate white evangelicals in part because he struck them as more authentically Christian. That's the foundation on which Obama now seeks to build. He seems to think there are large numbers of conservative white Protestants and Catholics who will look beyond culture when they enter the voting booth as long as he and other Democrats don't ram cultural liberalism down their throats.[14]

In response, author and writer Rod Dreher stated that the rhetoric of a culture war disguises the fact that American society truly is deeply divided on some moral issues, which is not an artificial creation of political parties seeking to drum up support. He wrote that the economic positions of the Democratic Party are generally popular enough that, if it chose to drop polarizing social issues, it would become a majority party in ongoing control. He describes the culture war as "inevitable".[15] Columnist Ross Douthat, then with The Atlantic, wrote that he had "a lot to agree with" Beinart, but depicted Obama and his supporters as apparently striving at "winning" the culture wars for their side rather than coming to some kind of compromise.[16]

In a February 2009 column in The New York Times, William Saletan stated that a holistic mix of left-wing and right-wing ideas would come out of the culture war. He wrote: "morality has to be practical, and that practicality requires morals". He concluded that conservatives should embrace family planning as a way to reduce abortion and government assistance while liberals should embrace personal responsibility, which means that unprotected sex is criticized "bluntly". He also advocated same-sex marriage as a way to lead LGBT Americans to an "ethic of mutual support and sacrifice" involving stricter personal responsibility.[17]

"Culture war" (or "culture wars") in Canada describes the polarization between the different values of Canadians. This can be West versus East, rural versus urban, or traditional values versus progressive values.[18] "Culture war" is a relatively new phrase in Canadian political commentary. It can still be used to describe historical events in Canada, such as the Rebellions of 1837, Western Alienation, Quebec sovereignty movement, and any Aboriginal conflicts in Canada, but is more relevant to current events such as the Caledonia conflict with Natives and the increasing hostility between conservative and liberal Canadians. Controversy erupted in 2010 when pollster Frank Graves suggested that the Liberal Party launch a "culture war" against the Conservative Party. "I told them that they should invoke a culture war. Cosmopolitanism versus parochialism, secularism versus moralism, Obama versus Palin, tolerance versus racism and homophobia, democracy versus autocracy. If the cranky old men in Alberta don't like it, too bad. Go south and vote for Palin."[19] The culture wars has also been used to describe the Harper government's attitude towards the arts community. Andrew Coyne termed this negative policy towards the arts community as 'class warfare'.[20] Its use has increased considerably recently on account of prorogation rallies, abortion, and the gun registry.[21]

Interpretations of Aboriginal history became part of the wider political debate sometimes called the 'culture wars' during the tenure of the Coalition government from 19962007, with the Prime Minister of Australia John Howard publicly championing the views of some of those associated with Quadrant.[22] This debate extended into a controversy over the way history was presented in the National Museum of Australia and in high school history curricula.[23][24] It also migrated into the general Australian media, with regular opinion pieces being published in major broadsheets such as The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Marcia Langton has referred to much of this wider debate as 'war porn'[25] and an 'intellectual dead end'[26]

Two Australian Prime Ministers, Paul Keating and John Howard, were major participants in the "wars". According to the analysis for the Australian Parliamentary Library of Dr Mark McKenna,[27]Paul Keating (19911996) was believed by John Howard (19962007) to portray Australia pre-Whitlam in an unduly negative light; while Keating sought to distance the modern Labor movement from its historical support for the Monarchy and the White Australia policy by arguing that it was the Conservative Australian Parties who had been barriers to national progress and excessively loyal to the British Empire. He accused Britain of having abandoned Australia during World War II. Keating was a staunch advocate of a symbolic apology to indigenous people for the misdeeds of past governments, and outlined his view of the origins and potential solutions to contemporary Aboriginal disadvantage in his Redfern Park Speech (drafted with the assistance of historian Don Watson). In 1999, following the release of the 1998 Bringing Them Home Report, Howard passed a Parliamentary Motion of Reconciliation describing treatment of Aborigines as the "most blemished chapter" in Australian history, but he did not make a Parliamentary apology.[28] Howard argued that an apology was inappropriate as it would imply "intergeneration guilt" and said that "practical" measures were a better response to contemporary Aboriginal disadvantage. Keating has argued for the eradication of remaining symbols linked to British origins: including deference for ANZAC Day, the Australian Flag and the Monarchy in Australia, while Howard was a supporter of these institutions. Unlike fellow Labor leaders and contemporaries, Bob Hawke and Kim Beazley, Keating never traveled to Gallipoli for ANZAC Day ceremonies. In 2008 he described those who gathered there as "misguided".[29]

In 2006, John Howard said in a speech to mark the 50th anniversary of Quadrant that "Political Correctness" was dead in Australia but: "we should not underestimate the degree to which the soft-left still holds sway, even dominance, especially in Australia's universities"; and in 2006, Sydney Morning Herald Political Editor Peter Hartcher reported that Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd was entering the philosophical debate by arguing in response that "John Howard, is guilty of perpetrating 'a fraud' in his so-called culture wars... designed not to make real change but to mask the damage inflicted by the Government's economic policies".[30]

The defeat of the Howard government in the Australian Federal election of 2007, and its replacement by the Rudd Labor government has altered the dynamic of the debate. Rudd made an official apology to the Stolen Generation[31] with bi-partisan support.[32] Like Keating, Rudd supports an Australian Republic, but in contrast to Keating, Rudd has declared support for the Australian flag and supports the commemoration of ANZAC Day and expressed admiration for Liberal Party founder Robert Menzies.[33][34]

Since the change of government, and the passage, with support from all parties, of a Parliamentary apology to indigenous Australians, Professor of Australian Studies Richard Nile has argued: "the culture and history wars are over and with them should also go the adversarial nature of intellectual debate",[35] a view contested by others, including conservative commentator Janet Albrechtsen.[36] An intention to reengage in the history wars has been indicated by the Federal Opposition's Christopher Pyne.[37]

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