Posted by
Bill Crawford on Friday, April 03, 2009 3:00:53 PM
The great divide in this country is not about Democrat vs. Republican, or conservative vs. liberal (although that one is closer). It is about culture versus counter culture.
In Gertrude Himmelfarb's mighty tome on the subject, she showed how the advocates of culture were reduced to an opposing voice today. She called this "dissonant culture". This is because the core of the counter culture, the older Baby Boomers, owned the mainstream media and had the biggest mouths.
The great divide here is about personal values. It is a public and political projection about a series of personal decisions about issues like abortion, the environment, child rearing, gay issues, the use of military force, etc.
These issues comprise a host of unbridgeable gaps between Americans. Obama, like Clinton, campaigned on being able to connect the Hatfields and the McCoys, but they both proved to be too far on one side to even start.
Many are tired of the eternal bickering, but once you get a handle on what is causing all of it, you get an idea on how it will not end until one side wins.
In 1865, the abolitionists won, and wrote the history. In 1945, the internationalist New Dealers did the same.
Who will win the great culture war? The answer lies in the fantastic anomaly: counter culturists are very likely to raise their children in many of the same ways culturists do. I ask you, what are the implications of that?