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Unit Two: History

1.Throughout American history there have been many movements, such as the Temperance Movement, Anti-slavery Movement, Progressive Movement, Civil Rights Movement, and Feminist Movement. Pick one of them and discuss its significance in U.S. history.

Key Points: (answers can be found on the Internet easily)

Specific goals included: The desire to remove corruption and undue influence from government through the taming of bosses and political machines; the effort to include more people more directly in the political process; the conviction that government must play a role to solve social problems and establish fairness in economic matters.

The success of Progressivism owed much to publicity generated by the muckrakers writers who detailed the horrors of poverty, urban slums, dangerous factory conditions, and child labor, among a host of other ills. The successes were many, beginning with the Interstate Commerce Act (1887) and the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890). Progressives never spoke with one mind and differed sharply over the most effective means to deal with the ills generated by the trusts; some favored an activist approach to trust-busting, others preferred a regulatory approach. The Progressive spirit also was evident in new amendments added to the Constitution, which provided for a new means to elect senators, protect society through prohibition and extend suffrage to women. Urban problems were addressed by professional social workers who operated settlement houses as a means to protect and improve the prospects of the poor. However, efforts to place limitations on child labor were routinely thwarted by the courts. The needs of blacks s and Native Americans were poorly served or served not at all — a major shortcoming of the Progressive Movement.

Progressive reforms were carried out not only on the national level, but in the states and municipalities of the country as well. Prominent governors devoted to change included Robert M. LaFollette of Wisconsin and Hiram Johnson of California.

Such reforms as the direct primary, secret ballot, and the initiative referendum, and recall were effected. Local governments were strengthened by the widespread use of trained professionals, particularly with the city manager system replacing the all-too-frequently corrupt mayoral system.

2.Over the past quarter of a century, the United States is said to be engaged in a “Culture War”. What are the issues this war is about? What does the war say to us about contemporary American society?

Key Points (answer can be easily found on the Internet)

The expression came into use in 1991 in the United States with the publication of Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America by James Davison Hunter, a sociologist at the University of Virginia. In it, Hunter described what he saw as a

dramatic realignment and polarization that had transformed American politics and culture..

He argued that on an increasing number of "hot-button" defining issues —abortion, gun politics, separation of church and state, privacy, recreational drug use, homosexuality, censorship issues —there had come to be two definable polarities. Furthermore, it was not just that there were a number of divisive issues, but that society had divided along essentially the same lines on each of these issues, so as to constitute two warring groups, defined primarily not by nominal religion, ethnicity, social class, or even political affiliation, but rather by ideological world views..

Hunter characterized this polarity as stemming from opposite impulses, toward what he refers to as Progressivism and Orthodoxy. The dichotomy has been adopted with varying labels, including, for example, by FOX News commentator Bill O’Reilly who emphasizes differences between "Secular-Progressives" and "Traditionalists".

In 1990 paleoconservative commentator Pat Buchanan mounted a campaign for the Republican nomination for President of the United States against incumbent George H. W. Bush in 1992. He received a prime time speech slot at the 1992 Republican National Convention, which is sometimes dubbed the "'culture war' speech".

During his speech, he said: "There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself." In addition to criticizing "environmental extremists" and "radical feminism," he said public morality was a defining issue: The agenda [Bill] Clinton and [Hillary] Clinton would impose on America —abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat — that's change, all right. But it is not the kind of change America wants. It is not the kind of change America needs. And it is not the kind of change we can tolerate in a nation that we still call God's country.

A month later, Buchanan elaborated that this conflict was about power over society's definition of right and wrong. He named abortion, sexual orientation and popular culture as major fronts – and mentioned other controversies, including clashes over the Confederate Flag, Christmas and taxpayer-funded art. He also said that the negative attention his talk of a culture war received was itself evidence of America’s polarization.

When Buchanan ran for President in 1996, he promised to fight for the conservative side of the culture war:

I will use the bully pulpit of the Presidency of the United States, to the full extent of my power and ability, to defend American traditions and the values of faith, family, and country, from any and all directions. And, together, we will chase the purveyors of sex and violence back beneath the rocks whence they came.

In a 2004 column, Pat Buchanan said the culture war had reignited and that Americans no longer inhabited the same moral universe. He gave such examples as gay civil unions, the "crudity of the MTV crowd," and the controversy surrounding Mel Gilbson’s film, The Passion of the Christ.

The culture war demonstrates that over such issues as abortion, sexual orientation, gun control, privacy, affirmative action, separation of church and sate, censorship, and drug abuse there are two cultural-value-based groups pitting one against the other. One represents the traditional value system, especially WASP culture, the other, more liberal value system, particularly multiculturalism.