General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I believe the general purpose of the culture wars [View all]Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)a dramatic backlash - even the most positive of change. The abolition of slavery certainly had to be one of the most truly progressive changes in the history of the world - but the backlash lasted more than a hundred years and to some extent is still around to this day.
In 1960 very few people got divorced no matter how horrible and how abusive the marital relationship. Help wanted advertisements were always segregated by the sexes. And it was liberal to believe homosexuality was an illness to be treated as opposed to a crime that must be punished. Thank God things have changed since then. But it is no doubt a lot of change many people to swallow and it happened relatively fast. To have imagined in 1960 when it was doubt that the country was ready to elect a Catholic President that within the lifetime of many people the country would elect a black President who supported the right of gay people to legally marry each other - this would have seemed impossible for almost anyone in 1960 to have imagined.
For sure the culture war is an instrument used to by political and economic reactionaries to bamboozle many ordinary people. But they are able to do this because they are riding on a basic scientific principle that every action will produce an equal and opposite reaction.