How the 1980s Culture Wars Were Fought—and Why They Differ from Today's
Anything Could Become a Battleground
Isaac Butler's new book, The Perfect Moment, examines the culture wars of the 1980s, focusing on battles over art, religion, and free expression. Butler, a former child actor, centers on controversies involving Scorsese, Serrano, and Mapplethorpe, and the political fights over the NEA. The book argues these conflicts were about competing visions of freedom, and Butler shows how they differed from today's culture wars, which are more fragmented and less centered on a single institution.
Regardless of what form they took, the real substance at stake in these fights was the nature, meaning, and limits of freedom in America.
- Frieren
> It’s the story of two sides.. American artists and the religious right
That is such a simplification that is just a lie. The two sides are capital and the working class. Because their interests are opposite of each other. There are religious people that are very progressive. There are artists that are far-right. Why create artificial groupings when the economic reality and power dynamics are there for everybody to see.
"Culture wars" is always about keeping people distracted and hide the class war. I have more in common with a right-wing religious working class man that with any progressive billionaire.
- storus
Isn't Polymarket essentially an instance of a battleground for anything?
- jauntywundrkind
Stinky smelly bad aggitable people can make a furor / fuhrer of anything or anyone. No triviality they won't explode like a bomb to tear society apart, to make things as bad brutal and beastly as they can. That is what the hounds of hell are here for: din bedlam mayhem. Anything but peace reason or harmony, their natural enemies.