Conservatives, on the other hand, are angry and frustrated by Reason, Progress, Enlightenment and Science. They should have sense enough to stay in their trailer parks and let their educated and enlightened betters rule over them. But when they get surly and restless and actually attempt to debate the great issue of life and death, family and society, reason and faith, then they must be slapped down and put in their place. And one way this is done is by dark ruminations about the "culture wars." The phrase seems to evoke an image of the barbarians looting Rome.
More than ever, it seems to me that the way the phrase "the culture wars" is used reflects little more than class bias. As I ruminate on the illogical positions of liberal elites and the generally low level of rational argument they offer against conservative positions, I become more and more convinced that the heart of it all is nothing more intellectually sophisticated than class snobbery.
(...)
My suspicion is that [liberals] believe what they believe because they think that all the "right sort" of people believe it. It seems right to them because it is a defining belief of their social class - a ticket of admission to the right parties and the right circles. The only people who don't believe it are the sort who, well you know, promote "culture wars."
At bottom, the sting of the phrase "culture wars" derives from the unspoken implication that they originate from a rebellion against the natural order of the rule of liberal elites. There is something faintly unsavory about rural people from Texas or Ohio having an equal vote to sophisticated urbanites from Los Angeles or New York, but there is something downright offensive about them actually using it to effect democratic change.
(There was so much that was good in that blogpost, it was hard not to republish the whole thing!)
