Synopsis
From “the nation’s leading cultural historian” (David Brooks, New York Times), the long-developing cultural divisions beneath our present political crisis
Liberal democracy in America has always contained contradictions—most notably, a noble but abstract commitment to freedom, justice, and equality that, tragically, has seldom been realized in practice. While these contradictions have caused dissent and even violence, there was always an underlying and evolving solidarity drawn from the cultural resources of America’s “hybrid Enlightenment.”
James Davison Hunter, who introduced the concept of “culture wars” thirty years ago, tells us in this new book that those historic sources of national solidarity have now largely dissolved. While a deepening political polarization is the most obvious sign of this, the true problem is not polarization per se but the absence of cultural resources to work through what divides us. The destructive logic that has filled the void only makes bridging our differences more challenging. In the end, all political regimes require some level of unity. If it cannot be generated organically, it will be imposed by force.
Can America’s political crisis be fixed? Can an Enlightenment-era institution—liberal democracy—survive and thrive in a post-Enlightenment world? If, for some, salvaging the older sources of national solidarity is neither possible sociologically, nor desirable politically or ethically, what cultural resources will support liberal democracy in the future?
Author Bio
James Davison Hunter is LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture and Social Theory at the University of Virginia. Hunter has written nine books, edited four books, and published a wide range of essays, articles, and reviews—all variously concerned with the problem of meaning and moral order in a time of political and cultural change in American life. His newest book is Democracy and Solidarity. In recent years, he published Science and the Good: The Tragic Quest for the Foundations of Morality (Yale, 2018), The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age without Good or Evil (2000), Is There A Culture War? A Dialogue on Values and American Public Life (with Alan Wolfe, 2006), and To Change the World (2010). These works have earned him national recognition and numerous literary awards. In 2004, he was appointed by the White House to a six-year term to the National Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Since 1995, Hunter has served as the Executive Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. He also is the Principal Investigator for the research project Character and Citizenship in 21st Century America: Studies in the Moral Ecology of Formation. Over the years, his research findings have been presented to audiences on NPR and C-Span, at the National Endowment for the Arts, and at dozens of colleges and universities around the country including Columbia, Harvard, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, and the New School for Social Research. He also has been a consultant to the White House, the Bicentennial Commission for the U.S. Constitution, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the National Commission on Civic Renewal.
