Tuesday, January 12, 1999
Partisan bickering detracts from issues, causes distrust
SOCIETY: Impeachment only part of larger war for cultural
dominance
By Solomon Matsas
Finally a new year has arrived, but the incessantly lurid and
emotionally wrenching political events of the year just passed
remain unresolved – and now they will likely promise to careen
toward some hurtful wreck of a conclusion. Nevertheless, for all of
their sensational and obsessive bravado, these seemingly unending
months of ugly, ignoble drama only portray different views of a
much larger design.
The investigation of President Clinton’s personal wrongdoing –
and the resulting political carnage we all have been unwillingly
dragged through – represents a battlefield upon which higher stakes
are in play: this country’s dominant culture’s claim to power.
Broadly viewed, 1998 saw the continuing struggles of two huge
and overriding cultural forces in late 20th century America: the
Moral Majority vs. the ’60s Generation.
In a basic sense, most of the current players in Washington,
D.C. and across the state capitols agree with the policy positions
of one side or the other. This is particularly true for those
money-dependent representatives who would disingenuously disclaim
being a part of either ideology. This great cultural war started
long ago, perhaps during the Civil War or even earlier, and has
everything to do with this past year’s contentious issues and
skirmishes.
The unprecedented and vehement partisanship on full display in
the so-called Clinton impeachment decision (I say "so-called"
because I believe our framers intended the process to be valid only
if bipartisan) represents only the current front lines in this war
of long-range cultural paradigms.
Each of these two sharply opinionated and uncompromisingly
opposing sides has both accurate and inaccurate perceptions about
the other.
The Moral Majority believes that the ’60s generation was all
about "If it feels good, do it. Love the one you’re with. Sex,
drugs, rock ‘n’ roll."
The ’60s Generation believes that members of the Moral Majority
are narrow-minded hypocrites and bigots intent on making others
live and think as they decree. Both groups are partly right and
partly wrong in their assumptions. Most generalizations contain
some small basis of diluted truth that attempts to make the larger
point.
For some , the ’60s were a time for irresponsible excess of
experience and narcissistic indulgence. Yet for others, the
messages of that era were vastly different, containing more
humanely healthy perceptions like, "God is love. Give peace a
chance. Different strokes for different folks."
I believe there is ample evidence to conclude that there are
large numbers of people among the Moral Majority who seem to hold
irrationally defined, religiously self-justified attitudes of
intolerance toward certain groups of people or their lifestyles.
Given the chance, many in this often puritanical and always
powerful group would readily dictate by law how everyone in our
culture must live and behave.
Nevertheless, most people who would count themselves as part of
the Moral Majority are at heart not raving zealots and inquisitors,
as characterized by many among the ’60s crowd.
These days, to at least a third of our population, President
Clinton seems to represent the allegedly lacking value systems of
the ’60s Generation. Kenneth Starr, Trent Lott and (the recently
departed but most likely soon to return) Newt Gingrich represent
the Moral Majority’s financially firm hold on our governmental
processes.
Together, they have attacked the executive branch ever since
this administration became something more than an ambitious
daydream back in Little Rock. The outcome of the current battles
will not decide the ultimate winners and losers of this larger
cultural war.
By the same token, nor will the election in 2000 significantly
change the tenaciously drawn boundaries in the duel between these
two opposing forces. The election will be a grueling,
energy-wasting process that permeates and may disproportionately
influence public opinion. Given the choice, most people seem to
shun purely partisan reasoning and instead reach instinctively for
a more common middle ground.
One of the strongest positives in favor of our republic is the
distinctly consistent disdain that many in both parties have for
their own leaders! Some may take small solace in that enduring
example of public sanity and healthy skepticism. However, the
public also knows with both pride and loathing that it always has
the best Congress and president money can buy.
Yet, it is not clear at this point in our nation’s history what
exactly will end these dangerously destructive elements within our
social structures, these incongruously locked forces that compete
for the mantle of public approval – and for power and influence at
the highest levels.
Perhaps only the natural demographics of aging will change the
poisoned chemistry of distrust that exists between these two great
cultural forces; no one knows with any certainty. However, we can
clearly witness the daily, ground-level result of the conflict in
the form of political paralysis, growing voter apathy or disgust,
and a vague but persistent fear from both sides that neither
group’s agenda will, in the final analysis, gain a lasting
advantage.
Perhaps only when the collective insight of the voting public
grows beyond the old stereotypes and inherited biases, beyond the
worn-out labels and historical grudges, will this cultural war,
through attrition, create a truce from its own exhausted passions.
But if the politicians themselves, from both the left and right
perspectives, ever sincerely embrace the most revolutionary policy
reform of all – campaign finance reform – a different quality of
public servant may then be attracted to the profession.
Then maybe this multi-generational battle of ideologies will
finally be deemed irrelevant and obsolete.
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