The “culture wars” are heating up again, although the focus has shifted. In recent years, the controversy posed “secular coastal elites” against wholesome heartland common folks. Now we see a return to an earlier version that features the “culture of poverty” or the “culture of failure,” tied to an ethnic group.
This may have started about 40 years ago, when Daniel Patrick Moynihan, later to be come a Democratic senator from New York, saw a rising rate of single-parent households among African-Americans, and predicted social and economic problems.
It popped up last week when Bob Beauprez, Republican candidate for governor, told a radio audience that “in some of our ethnic communities we’re seeing very, very high percentages of babies, children, pregnancies end in abortion.”
If the pregnancies are not terminated, then the children may grow up in single-parent households with no father. Rick O’Donnell, GOP candidate for congress from Colorado’s 7th District, wrote about that in these pages in 2004. He listed various social problems to which “the largest contributor is the epidemic of absent fathers.”
The cultural angle comes in when he writes: “It’s sad that for too many young men, sex, sports, and violence are all that is left as anchors of their souls, rather than family, faith and hard work.”
And former Democratic Gov. Dick Lamm has been making waves all summer with his book “One Wand, Two Nations,” wherein he argues that certain ethic cultures raise under-performing children, which means “America is not producing the skills, talents and educational achievements in its young people to keep us competitive in a global world.”
But sometimes this attitude is short-sighted. Go back to pioneer times in Colorado. Chinese immigrants were willing to work harder and longer on marginal placer gold claims, and for lower wages, than white miners. Instead of being lauded for their work ethic, they were lynched or run out of town.
In the early years of the 20th century, Italian immigrants pointed out that they would work harder than the Chinese or African-Americans in Colorado. Some of the Italian immigrants were lynched, and meanwhile many white Protestant Coloradans supported the Ku Klux Klan.
There are other cultural barriers to success. For instance, I was raised in a moral culture that disparaged ostentation. That may explain why I find the whole gangsta rap culture disgusting – its degradation of women, its strut and swagger, its focus on bling-bling and conspicuous consumption.
Yet who can deny that it’s a success, with its effects on American music, clothing and language? Nothing I write will ever have a tenth of the influence of a 50 Cent release.
So you could argue that some puritanism derived from culture is an impediment to success, rather than an incentive.
Indeed, you can look at the alleged virtues that many of us try to instill in our children, and see that they stand in the way of success.
Teach your son not to be aggressive, and he will never reach the heights of Bill Gates or Dick Cheney. Teach your daughter to respect herself, and she will never enjoy the prominence of Paris Hilton.
Practice “family values” too strongly if you own a business, and you’ll be expected to employ lots of relatives – some of them incompetent and a drain on the bottom line.
Work consistently and loyally for years, and see your pension and retirement portfolio disappear overnight. That’s no success.
Assuming we could go around shopping for a culture, which one would provide the best chance of success in America?
I’d go with the trust-fund culture. It imparts vital American social skills, like snobbery, flattery and hypocrisy. It respects education, especially in the form of legacy admissions to Ivy League schools. It esteems hard work – when performed by other people at the lowest possible wages.
In short, this culture provides just about everything it takes to succeed in America, although it might not keep us competitive in a global world. Critics are right to be worried about culture and the future of America. But the focus seems misplaced, when they point at the problems of the powerless while ignoring the flaws of the dominant.
Ed Quillen of Salida (ed@cozine.com) is a former newspaper editor whose column appears Tuesday and Sunday.
