Question

What main issues gave rise to the 1990’s Culture Wars?

Answer 1

During the 1990’s one of the most upcoming events was the cultural war. There was a struggle to define America and there were a huge polarization for American politics and culture. Some “hot” issues that came up and were heatedly debated were abortion, gun policies, separation of church and state, privacy, recreational drugs, censorship and homosexuality there 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. The views on these issues usually weren’t even divided by origin, race, ethnicity, social class or political view, but rather it was more of the individual world view. This was a defining change as America evolves. People took sides for their views and often argued or protest their position of some of these issues. Sociologist Mr. Patrick Hunter who argued that "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." In addition to criticizing environmentalists and feminism, he portrayed public morality as a defining issue:

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 fronts—and 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.

The culture war had significant impact on national politics in the 1990s.

With the lack of jobs to support the population, there were many people who turned to crime to support themselves and their families. There was an increase in the prison population and a lot of money was spent in order to maintain the costs to keep the prisons running. Debates over ethnic identity emerged and were heated. Traditional republicans pushed for family values to be recognized while many new ethnic groups did not see the need to follow these values. Democrats wanted to solve the racial issues of the time and spent much of their time combatting these. Because of so many different opinions, many divisions were created amongst the American populous. These divisions still cause debate today. There were shift in immigration, Growing in visibility in diversity, The spread of Imprisonment & criminalization.