Editing Culture war (section)

===Criticism and evaluation===

Since the time that James Davison Hunter first applied the concept of culture wars to American life, the idea has been subject to questions about whether "culture wars" names a real phenomenon, and if so, whether the phenomenon it describes is a cause of, or merely a result of, membership in groups like political parties and religions. Culture wars have also been subject to the criticism of being artificial, imposed, or asymmetric conflicts, rather than a result of authentic differences between cultures. Researchers have differed about the [[Validity (statistics)|scientific validity]] of the notion of culture war. Some claim it does not describe real behavior, or that it describes only the behavior of a small political elite. Others claim culture war is real and widespread, and even that it is fundamental to explaining Americans' political behavior and beliefs. A 2023 study on the circulation of conspiracy theories on social media noted that disinformation actors insert polarizing claims in culture wars by taking one side or the other, thus making the adherents circulate and parrot disinformation as a rhetorical ammunition against their perceived opponents.<ref name=":1" />

Political scientist [[Alan Wolfe]] participated in a series of scholarly debates in the 1990s and 2000s against Hunter, claiming that Hunter's concept of culture wars did not accurately describe the opinions or behavior of Americans, which Wolfe claimed were more united than polarized.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hunter |first1=James Davison |last2=Wolfe |first2=Alan |date= 2006 |title=Is There a Culture War? : A Dialogue on Values and American Public Life |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=Brookings Institution Press |oclc=76966750}}</ref> A [[meta-analysis]] of opinion data from 1992 to 2012 published in the ''[[American Political Science Review]]'' concluded that, in contrast to a common belief that political party and religious membership shape opinion on culture war topics, instead opinions on culture war topics lead people to revise their political party and religious orientations. The researchers view culture war attitudes as "foundational elements in the political and religious belief systems of ordinary citizens."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Goren |first1=Paul |last2=Chapp |first2=Christopher |date=February 24, 2017 |title=Moral Power: How Public Opinion on Culture War Issues Shapes Partisan Predispositions and Religious Orientations |journal=American Political Science Review |volume=111 |issue=1 |pages=110–128 |doi=10.1017/S0003055416000435 |s2cid=151573922 }}</ref>

====Artificiality or asymmetry====

Some writers and scholars have said that culture wars are created or perpetuated by political special interest groups, by reactionary social movements, by party dynamics, or by electoral politics as a whole. These authors view culture war not as an unavoidable result of widespread cultural differences, but as a technique used to create [[In-group and out-group|in-groups and out-groups]] for a political purpose. Political commentator E. J. Dionne has written that culture war is an electoral technique to exploit differences and grievances, remarking that the real cultural division is "between those who want to have a culture war and those who don't."<ref name="Dionne2006" />

Sociologist Scott Melzer says that culture wars are created by conservative, reactive organizations and movements. Members of these movements possess a "sense of victimization at the hands of a liberal culture run amok. In their eyes, immigrants, gays, women, the poor, and other groups are (undeservedly) granted special rights and privileges." Melzer writes about the example of the [[National Rifle Association of America]], which he says intentionally created a culture war in order to unite conservative groups, particularly groups of white men, against a common perceived threat.<ref>{{cite book |last=Melzer |first=Scott |date=October 1, 2009 |title=Gun Crusaders: The NRA's Culture War |url=https://nyupress.org/9780814795507/gun-crusaders/ |publisher=New York University Press |page=59 |isbn=978-0814764503 |access-date=May 25, 2020 |archive-date=April 6, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230406001357/https://nyupress.org/9780814795507/gun-crusaders/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Similarly, religion scholar Susan B. Ridgely has written that culture wars were made possible by [[Focus on the Family]]. This organization produced conservative Christian "[[alternative news]]" that began to bifurcate American media consumption, promoting a particular "traditional family" archetype to one part of the population, particularly conservative religious women. Ridgely says that this tradition was depicted as under liberal attack, seeming to necessitate a culture war to defend the tradition.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Ridgely |first=Susan B. |date=March 2020 |title=Conservative Christianity and the Creation of Alternative News: An Analysis of Focus on the Family's Multimedia Empire |journal=Religion and American Culture |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=1–25 |doi=10.1017/rac.2020.1|doi-access=free }}</ref>

Political scientists Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins have written about an asymmetry between the US's two major political parties, saying the Republican party should be understood as an ideological movement built to wage political conflict, and the Democratic party as a coalition of social groups with less ability to impose ideological discipline on members.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Grossmann |first1=Matt |last2=Hopkins |first2=David A. |date=March 2015 |title=Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats: The Asymmetry of American Party Politics |journal=Perspectives on Politics |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=119–139 |doi=10.1017/S1537592714003168 |s2cid=144639776}}</ref> This encourages Republicans to perpetuate and to draw new issues into culture wars, because Republicans are well equipped to fight such wars.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.honestgraft.com/2020/04/solving-covid-crisis-requires.html |title=Solving the COVID Crisis Requires Bipartisanship, But the Modern GOP Isn't Built for It |last=Hopkins |first=David A. |date=April 15, 2020 |website=Honest Graft |access-date=May 24, 2020 |archive-date=May 18, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200518135152/http://www.honestgraft.com/2020/04/solving-covid-crisis-requires.html |url-status=live }}</ref> According to ''[[The Guardian]]'', "many on the left have argued that such [culture war] battles [a]re 'distractions' from the real fight over class and economic issues."<ref>{{Cite web |last=O. Taiwo |first=Olufemi |date=2022-05-16 |title=Are culture wars really a distraction? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/16/are-culture-wars-distraction-critical-race-theory |access-date=2022-07-17 |website=[[The Guardian]] |language=en |archive-date=July 17, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220717045600/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/16/are-culture-wars-distraction-critical-race-theory |url-status=live }}</ref>