The Myth Of A Culture War Summary

Myth of a Culture War A culture war is defined as a conflict between groups with different ideals, beliefs, and philosophies. At the 1992 Republican National Convention, Pat Buchanan said “There is a religious war going on in this country, a cultural war as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as the Cold War itself, for this waris for the soul of America.” Buchanan suggests there is a divide between groups of people. However, Morris P. Fiorina, PhD, a political scientist from Stanford University is in disagreement. He believes that the media outlets are magnifying the existence of a culture war. Fiorina has even wrote a book called Culture War? The Myth of A Polarized America. Americans’ believe in much of the same values rather than disagreeing on them. Fiorina has found that people in both red and blue states are centrists. Even though people from red states are a little more conservative and people from

Political elites are the ones who are the most polarized. They tend to be more extreme in their political views than the people who they represent. As Fiorina has stated, people tend to view themselves as centrists or people who have moderate political views. Since the 1960s, political officials have been increasing polarized. At the same time, the political views of average Americans are approaching the same ideals despite age, education, religion, and region. The divide between political positions is far greater than the divide between democrats and republicans in the general public. Even though, the people are not polarized in their ideas if their candidate is polarized then the choices the people make will seem polarized as well. The media has always confused position with choices, For example, people who voted for Bush voted for him because of his leadership and ideals on terrorism rather than his ideas on abortion and same sex marriage. The media likes to skew these positions and write about the latter to show that is where the people are