“CULTURE WARS” OR STATUS GROUP IDEOLOGY AS THE BASIS OF US MORAL POLITICS Available to Purchase

Debates in US politics over abortion, homosexuality and other socio‐moral issues are increasingly explained by sociologists, politicians, policy advocates and the media as the result of a “culture war” in American society. Contained in this explanation is a theory that explains the moral value attitudes driving these debates as the product of conflicting worldviews. Since the worldviews that ultimately drive these debates cannot be compromised, the debates are said to be insoluble using normal democratic processes. The widespread dissemination of the hopeless aspect of this theory generates concern of self‐fulfilling prophesies. In this paper I outline the “culture war” and traditional “status group” theories and offer a critique. I conclude with an explanation of how the traditional “status group” explanations of these conflicts offers a more accurate — and more hopeful — vision of US society that avoids potentially self‐fulfilling prophesies of war.