There’s a ‘culture war’ in America, right?

August 4, 2006

I follow culture-war issues fairly closely, but the Pew Research Center conducted a survey with an interesting perspective on the hot-button issues. As the researchers see it, there can’t be a “war” because there aren’t two distinct sides.

The so-called [tag]culture war[/tag]s rending America over such issues as abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research may be overblown, based on a U.S. poll released on Thursday.

“Despite talk of ‘culture wars’ and the high visibility of activist groups on both sides of the cultural divide, there has been no polarization of the public into liberal and conservative camps,” the Pew Research Center said, commenting on its poll of 2,003 American adults.

The point isn’t that the culture-war issues don’t matter or aren’t polarizing. Indeed, Pew found the country split fairly evenly on nearly all the issues (stem-cell research, with broad support, was the exception).

Instead, Pew emphasized the fact that there aren’t two stark ideological camps. The study looked at five prominent social issues — abortion rights, stem cell research, gay marriage, adoption of children by gay couples, and availability of the “morning-after” pill. Only 12% of poll respondents took the conservative position on all five issues, while 22% took a progressive approach to all five.

I’m not sure if this is a sign of flexibility on the part of most Americans or ideological inconsistency. Either way, I would have expected a lot more than 12% of the population to take a hard line against those five issues.

Unfortunately, those 12% are more motivated to vote.

  • I think it just goes to show a few things:

    1. That the NeoCons don’t have the backing they think they do.
    2. That the NeoCons hide their true nature in order to win votes.
    3. That Americans don’t dig enough to find out who the hell they’re voting for — they just vote for the guy who seems likeable or some other crap.

    Granted, some on the left play the same game as the NeoCons, but I think the 12%/22% figures really show that most American truly are moderate.

  • My guess is that if you took stem cell research out of the five, that 12% would jump a considerable amount.

  • Very interesting numbers. They may also indicate that right-wing extremists are simply better at projecting the *perception* of large public support than the progressive side.

    I don’t know, though. Seems like there’s a puzzle piece missing here somewhere.

  • The right’s noise machine and the press have a way of distorting our perception of the real importance of issues among the public. Anyone remember the war on Christmas? Or the girl in Aruba?

  • An interesting cross reference would be to determine what percentage of America’s resources (including information resources) this 12% control. Such info may allow us to accept that 12% of our nation’s varient persuasions is truly capable of holding our bodypolitick hostage. -Kevo

  • The rightwing culturenuts might seem more numerous than they are because everyone who runs the government is pandering to them in word if not in deed.

  • If you look at the breakdown, that poll may indicate “there aren’t two stark ideological camps”, but it also indicates that the overwhelming majority are in favor of some form of nanny state. I’d take an ideological divisive populace, over one that wants their hands held by government, any day.

  • Mark Schmidt says it is not what you say about the issues, it is what the issues say about you.

    This is a representative democracy. None of these issues is a simple binary choice, and everyone, who thinks about any of them for more than a few seconds realizes that.

    Ideology is about how you get from first principles of some kind to some kind of general approach to these questions. But, no sensible ideology is going to get anyone to an absolute binary on any of these issues.

    If this survey has any implications, it is to point up the value of Clintonian formulations, which respect, broadly, values and concerns, and, then, move directly to carefully balanced policies. Politicians should find ways to be anti-abortion AND pro-choice, for example. Or, they should count noses, and oppose a caricature of the opposition, which is recognizable, but likely to offend only 12% or so of the electorate.

  • I think I said sometime recently that nothing’s black-and-white. We’re a mix of issues, most of them expressed through TeeVee in black-and-white terms. Beyond that, most Americans neither know nor care about the issues until pressed. That means a lot of what statisticians call “noise”. No matter what the specific issues, and no matter how consistently (or inconsistently) they’re expressed, most Americans do finally seem to be drifting away from the Regal Moron (who’s spent 381 days on vacation in Crawford, let alone in front the TeeVee in the White House) and his Bush Crime Family.

    We’re going to win big in November. Those who know how to rig elections also know which way the wind blows and where their bread gets buttered.

  • “This is a representative democracy. None of these issues is a simple binary choice, and everyone, who thinks about any of them for more than a few seconds realizes that.” – Bruce Wilder

    I rather think allowing or denying Gay couples the opportunity to adopt is pretty binary. About the only grey area would be allowing the couple to adopt a child who is the biological child of one of the two potential parents but not allow adoption of completely unrelated children.

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