OUR POLARIZED NATION

CULTURAL WARS: THE STRUGGLE TO DEFINE AMERICA

"Abortion, funding for the arts, women's rights, gay rights, court-packing—the list of controversies that divide our nation runs long and each one cuts deep. These issues are not isolated from one another but are, in fact, part of a fabric of conflict which constitutes nothing short of a struggle over the meaning of America. Unlike the religious and cultural conflict that historically divided the nation, the contemporary culture war is fought along new and, in many ways, unfamiliar lines. Its foundation is a profound realignment in American culture which cuts across established moral and religious communities."

So writes Professor James Davison Hunter of the University of Virginia in his influential book entitled: Cultural Wars, The Struggle to Define America. Subtitle: Making sense of the battles over the family, art, education, law, and politics.

We are a nation divided over what it means to be an American. A nation where two contending groups are in a battle for dominance, two groups that hold very different concepts of the values, the interests, the assumptions of our world. It is a "no holds barred" culture war where compromise and the common good are not thought possible to achieve.