V-Day in the Culture Wars

The culture wars are over, and we’ve won. We should learn to celebrate that—and move on to the next battle that demands our attention.

His left arm trembling, his back stiff, and his gait still nearly regal, The Greatest held the torch aloft and lit the flame. Millions–several hundred million, in fact–watched, and many cheered. Here was Muhammad Ali, representing America on the highest world stage. This was Atlanta, 1996, at the opening of the Olympic Games; 25 years had passed since his last match, and the wounds he used to delight in opening appeared to have healed. In his prime, Ali stood for all that divided America. Now, he was its appointed representative to the world. Ali’s ascent to mainstream respectability would be completed nine years later, as George W. Bush draped the Presidential Medal of Freedom around his neck.

One could view this tale skeptically: As they age–and few have aged as visibly as Ali–our rebels are robbed of their edge and repackaged as benign role models. But one could also view Ali’s path as emblematic of a broader shift in our culture. Ali was, of course, at the center of the paroxysms of the 1960s. His refusal to fight in Vietnam–“I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong”–his alliance with the Nation of Islam, and his denigration of Joe Frazier as an Uncle Tom sealed his status as perhaps the counterculture’s most famous torchbearer. How is it, then, that later in his life, he would come literally to bear the torch for the culture at large?

Ali’s grand trajectory, from defiant foe of America on matters foreign and domestic to knighted symbol of the same nation, bespeaks a largely unheralded verdict in the “culture war,” a phrase that pundits and politicians use incessantly. And on matters of race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation, the brawls of the past half-century might be best understood as one continuous war. But what the about-face in Ali’s status indicated, Barack Obama’s presidential election only confirmed. The left has won the culture war. We would do well to acknowledge and celebrate this victory, however belatedly; and then we should consider what it portends for the future of politics on the left.

Broadly speaking, there were two central planks to the conservative cultural philosophy that dominated belief in this country well into Ali’s time: an allegiance to traditional institutions, primarily marriage and the church, and an allergy to legally enforced egalitarianism. This conservatism was advanced by proclamations like Barry Goldwater’s: “It may be just or wise or expedient for Negro children to attend the same schools as white children, but they do not have a civil right to do so.” William F. Buckley’s voice was also essential.

The left, on the other hand, was predicated–and still is–on the suppositions that, while institutions have their role, they must evolve with the times, and they must not undermine the individual’s right to self-expression; and that egalitarianism must be encouraged by law if necessary, and that the diversity egalitarianism produces is something to find joy in. (There are tensions here, quite clearly, between the left’s admiration for the individual with its support of government programs; these tensions are serious but do not undermine the point that, for the left, individualism remains a principle of first priority.)

Judging by the evidence, there can be little doubt that the second philosophy has prevailed. Even if Obama had not been elected, the progress witnessed in the fight for racial equality has been astonishing. As civil rights activist Mary Frances Berry put it once in these pages: “Racial discrimination—in our laws, if not in our hearts and minds—has been eradicated.” Repairing our hearts and minds is not easy, and will take generations; but it is a far cry from the legalized racism that prevailed only a half century ago. Meanwhile, affirmative action, a bugaboo to so many so recently, has become a virtual non-issue. The women’s struggle has unfolded similarly: In 2006, the Census Bureau reported that the majority of students in both undergraduate and graduate programs were women. Marriage is occurring later than ever before, indicating it is more of a choice than a social obligation. Attendance at houses of worship has also declined–religion, too, is now simply one option among many. When queried, the vast majority of Americans–71 percent, to be precise–support the right of gays to serve in the military, and thus openly join civic life. Gay marriage, inconceivable as recently as the Clinton Administration, is steadily advancing as well. And consider that the Supreme Court, the pinnacle of elite success, once impenetrable to those not in the Protestant aristocracy, now stands a chance of being populated entirely by Jews and Catholics. Imagine! My great-grandparents probably could not.

We have come a long way. The American mainstream is more diverse–and more eager to embrace difference–than ever before. Egalitarianism is now standard practice, having swung the door open to our most elite universities, our top corporations, and even the White House. The values of the left-wing counterculture, in other words, have become the values of the culture, period. (There will be those who point to the more inflammatory values of the left–think of the Weather Underground and free love–as evidence that, in fact, the left has not triumphed. But that part of the left simply never defined the movement or represented much of it.)

As with anything regarding a subject as amorphous as culture, not every sign is positive. One need only look at the recent immigration law in Arizona to find an example of the defeated conservative culture still breathing–and breathing fire at that. Yet the outpouring of opposition on both sides, including by conservatives Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, only goes to show that, on the whole, this kind of thing may work as short-term politics but will only marginalize the right in the future, as America becomes ever more diverse. Vigiliance in these battles will remain necessary, but a sense of defeat would be inaccurate and unhelpful.

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