West European Studies

Culture wars, (or cultural struggles) in the United States can be traced back to the 1960s and have taken dynamic forms since. They reflect on conflicting cultural values, specifically depicting a clash between conservative (traditional) and liberal (progressive) values. The re-alignment of American politics is best described by the phrase culture war (Claerbout). This paper will reflect on American politics in relation to the culture wars and the issues around it.

In literal terms, radical means roots. Radicalism is a political term which, according to Royle, dates back to the mid-nineteenth century, and was used by people who felt they were not included in the operations of political system and power as well as the traditional society. In general, radicalism advocates for political reforms and change in the social order either through violent or non-violent means (Claerbout).

Traditionally, liberalism is about openness to new ideas. It leans towards equality, liberty, and justice. It means each member of the society enjoys equal claims socially in the form of rights, liberty and so on. The idea is that every individual should enjoy equal rights and liberty just like any other, and on top of that, inequalities, both socially and economically, should be in such a manner that they favor all and sundry (Tomasi 108).

Reactionaryism is the opposite of liberalism. Reactionaries, also known as extreme conservatives, advocate for the status quo. A reactionarys political values are based backwards they vouch for the old order, parallel to liberals (Sartre).

Conservatism emphasizes on the preservation of traditional institutions and culture of a society. Conservatives argue that for a society to be stable, it must uphold past values and refrain from adopting new ideas foreign to its history. Further, they argue that a societys values should not be manipulated at will rather it should be nourished by cultural values (Sartre).
   
Lifestyle is dynamic it is bound to change at one time or another. Based on the four ideologies, liberalism is better owing to its liberal perspective towards life.

Liberals, irrespective of the religious background they are affiliated to, argue that morality should revolve around facts and the day to day life experiences. They believe that truth is what you perceive it to be and that morality is based on the times we live. Conservatives, on the other hand, irrespective of their religious affiliations argue that morality is defined within a framework, is unchanging and is transcendent just like it is explained in the bible, as opposed to morality defined by mortals.

According to a research by Gallup, Democrats are a liberal lot their support on issues like equal opportunity to all, same sex marriage, gun control and so on, just shows how liberal their ideologies are. Republicans on the other hand are made up of conservatives this is clearly depicted in their political stands and ideologies. The research indicates that 72 of Republicans are of the opinion that they are conservatives, while Democrats are almost the evenly split between liberals and moderates. Conservatism is more dominant among Republicans. This is clearly shown in the diagram below.

Source Saad
In the American political set-up, conservative Democrats and moderate or liberal Republicans are scarce (Newport). Views on critical policy issues clearly depict the differences of ideologies between the two parties. For instance, on abortion, Republicans feel that abortion is tantamount to murder and that no one has the right to murder. On the contrary, Democrats are of the opinion that fetus is not human life and that the government should keep off this issue, because it is a matter of personal choice, it is a womans decision regarding her own body.

On affirmative action, Republicans feel that race should not be used as a factor in employment considerations instead, employment should be based on ones ability. Democrats disagree on this their argument being that due to racial prejudice in the past, the minorities were under privileged with respect to education and employment opportunities. Based on this argument, Democrats support affirmative action on the belief that America is still a racist society. The arguments go on, from economy, to environment, to gun control, to health care, to same sex marriage, to war on terrorism and so on.