Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America (Great Questions in Politics Series)

Rating:
Summary: Interesting little book - serious and informative
Review: This is a short book written by a serious scholar who shares the ample statistical evidence that most of the American people is still moderate when it comes to political, economical and social issues. The findings of the book have been common sense for a long time, but it is contrary to the much-hyped "culture war" ideas that have been trumpeted by the media and partisan radicals. In fact, the book proves how stable and moderate the public opinion has been in the last 30 years regarding almost every controversial issue. Radical ideas, both to the left and the right, have not gained much ground at all, despite what you might think by reading the newspapers and watching TV. One of the useful passages of this book is when the author shows examples of how the media has consistently distorted the real picture with simplistic articles that promote the "culture war" and "the great divide". According to the author, most of the motivation for hyping this "war" is simply because dramatic news sells - and I agree. Moreover, the "culture war" talk is used by the political parties to mobilize their " base" (which, by the way, is already much more radical than the typical electorate)to vote in elections - particularly useful in a political scene that alienates more and more the moderate majority ("half of the citizens do not bother to vote!" Now that should be a headline...)
Perhaps the most interesting and revealing point of the book is how similar are the political views of both Red and Blue states -the author contests the validity of this classification (and he introduces the example of "flip-flop" California to drive his point).
The charts and tables in the book are VERY USER-FRIENDLY and INSIGHTFUL - you definitely do not have to be a scientist or an economist to follow them.
This is a NON-PARTISAN book that I recommend for political studies students and all people interested in politics, particularly moderate citizens who try to understand what is really going on in American politics.

Rating:
Summary: Political class is polarized, but the rest of us can think!
Review: This is a very brief and tightly argued book of enormous relevance to us in 2004. It makes the following remarkable points:

1. On close inspection of individual opinions, the vast majority of the electorate in the U.S. are *moderate*, not radically polarized into liberals and conservatives. That is, most of us are, as we would like to believe, capable of thinking independently for ourselves rather than strictly along party ideological lines.

We are a _closely_divided_ nation, as reflected in the very close recent elections, however we are NOT a _*deeply*_divided_ nation. That is, we are not really a nation of two distinct warring camps and a couple of swing states as the media sometimes present it for dramatic purposes. Fiorina sugests that we are actually something close to an ambivalent nation which divides itself in poltitical matters because we have no choice when presented with highly divided options.

2. The American public has *not* become dramatically polarized even over such hot topics as abortion. Rather, relatively small differences among us have been magnified by the rhetoric used to present the issues to us.

3. The political choices we have are determined by a distinct class of politicians, party activists, and interest group leaders, who *have* become increasingly polarized over moral and religious ideology as well as economic ideology.

4. A large part of the polarization of the political class has been the result of the realignment of the South, such that republicans aligned aggressive foreign policy with hostility to the welfare state, and democrats aligned antiwar sentiment with support of those at risk. This is represented particular well by the "gender gap" which widened at the same time this realignment or tuning of the ideologies of the parties was taking place.

Fiorina suggests that when Bill Clinton once said early in his presidency that he was Pro-Choice, but against abortion, most Americans knew what he meant, that most of us, liberal or conservative, do not want to legislate morality for others, even though we have a clear sense of what is right and wrong. Fiorina also points out for example that most 80% of us believe that abortion should be legal under some conditions (even if wrong), and illegal under others. The extremes at each end which promote unconditional rights for unborn babies or for mothers are roughly the 10% tail at either side of a normal curve.

Finally, he also provides data showing that the averaged opinions of self-identified liberals and conservatives regarding abortion differ only regarding under what specific conditions they think abortion should be legal, not the legality of abortion in general.

The result is that the supposed "culture war" is really a war between increasingly ideologically polarized political parties and their activists who arent really even aware of each others reasoning, with most of us in the middle getting hit by friendly fire from both sides, but being forced to choose between them.

The bottom line for Fiorina's argument here is that we are a nation currently creating unneccessary internal conflicts and indulging in "culture war" polarized issues like gay marriage or unconditional rights of various kinds that are really of concern to a relatively small and unrepresentative number of us. They are sold to us by political parties and the media because of their drama rather than their relative importance. It's hard for me to look at the political ads for either of the current candidates in 2004 without nodding agreement on this.

Our political system provides us with ideological extremism on both sides, and seems to have no desire or ability to change itself, whereas most of us caught in it would usually prefer pragmatic and non-ideological solutions to issues that address larger numbers of us.

I read this at the same time at Juergensmeyer's book "Terror in the Mind of God," and it is chilling how much the "culture war" among the political elites comes to resemble the "cosmic war" of good and evil that Juergensmeyer theorizes leads to real violence under some conditions. If Fiorina is right, we may not really have a (popular) culture war at all, but we could create one if it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as we come to accept it uncritically.

If Fiornia had a solution for this centrally important problem, this book would merit 6 or 7 stars. However, just by pointing it out so clearly, it merits the highest rating I can give it.

Please read this important and timely book.