John Quiggin, reflecting on the fact that John Howard's defeat and its contretemps have left the Australian right effectively without representation in government, observes that the erstwhile parties to culture war debates in Oz have taken to arguing about whether to argue about culture war issues:
The broadly unanimous centre/left position, (examples here and here) is “it’s over, no one cares any more, let’s get on with serious business”.
By contrast, the right is united on the view that it’s vitally important to keep on fighting the culture wars, but deeply divided as to the reason. As with Iraq, some say they’re winning and shouldn’t be tricked out of the victory that is rightly theirs, while others say the situation is so dire that only continued struggle will hold back the flood of leftist oppression.
Quiggin frames these circumstances as a contrast with the American version of the culture war, which he assumes is waged on a first-order battlefield. That's true in the sense that culture war issues — abortion, gay marriage, etc. — are debated directly, with candidates and pundits from either side staking a position for or against all of them. On the other hand, while one might occasionally come across fire-and-brimstone speeches from Christian preachers, or strident liberationist rhetoric from lefty academics, mainstream political discussion of culture war issues in the US is almost universally conducted in consequentialist terms, with at least one degree of separation from the ethical and theological premises motivating each sides' views.
In other words, culture war debates over privacy, personal freedom and sexual morality tend to focus on the dire social consequences of not adopting the policies favored by the various parties to the debate. You know the sort of thing: "Look at what will happen if x is allowed/banned…" followed by a speculative proposition about some disaster. On the right, witness Stanley Kurtz's sisyphian efforts to prove that legalizing gay marriage will cause the breakdown of civil society. On the left, witness the widespread concern that outlawing abortion will cause many women to die obtaining back-alley abortions (which is true, but wouldn't affect the right to an abortion if it weren't true). Debating the utilitarian balance sheet of policies designed to augment or constrain personal and sexual freedom is a sideshow. The real issue is what's right and what’s wrong (or at least neutral), and that's an issue that is impervious to sociological forecasting. Social conservatives who believe premarital sex and gay sex are intrinsically wrong should not abandon their views just in case it’s proven that there are no negative externalities associated with unrestricted personal and sexual choice (there may well not be).
Likewise, if somehow a universal ban on abortion reduced abortions to zero and had no adverse consequences for women's health and well-being, I would still oppose it — because women have a right to have an abortion for any reason they choose. (My position here is motivated by Judith Jarvis Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion", if anybody cares to know.)
It’s the little things that matter, that’s what I believe.
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