"If hearing the word “culture” makes you think of Rossini, the latest translation of “Anna Karenina,” the Guggenheim Museum or “The Wire,” then you’re probably a liberal. But if the word culture means for you forms of courtship, or sexual preference, or the relationship between parents and children, or the set of rituals that revolve around the ownership and use of a gun, or, most passionately of all, ways of living, and believing, and rejoicing, and suffering, and dying that are hallowed by the religion you practice and embodied in the church you belong to — if for you, culture does not primarily signify opera or HBO, then you are probably celebrating Sarah Palin’s ragged, real-seeming life. In that case, you are what might be called either a heartland or a Bloomian conservative."
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Reading people’s thoughts on values and politics today, I’m reminded of this fantastic opinion piece from Lee Siegel, written leading up to the presidential election last September.
He explains that Reagan republicans were excellent in framing the fusion of one’s values with their politics. Liberals can seemingly keep culture, values, and politics separate, while for conservatives it’s all the same thing.
Siegel sums it up like this:
one stark distinction stands out among the differences between contemporary liberals and conservatives (the real differences, not the manufactured ones). Liberals always think that there is something broken in politics. Conservatives always think that there is something wrong with the culture.
