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A Moral Cold War: The Family in Conflict
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18167 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1990 |
9,444 Words |
| Author
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Helen Hull Hitchcock
Helen Hull Hitchcock is founding director of Women for Faith &
Family, a U.S.-based movement of Catholic women. She is the
wife of historian James Hitchcock and the mother of four
daughters. |
American society is currently experiencing a moral “Cold War.” Like the other Cold War, this one is unofficial, undeclared (except by militant radicals on either the “liberal” or “conservative” side), and like the other, it is exhausting; it is siphoning off the vigor, the stamina, the strength, and the willpower of the entire nation. Unlike the other Cold War, there are no signs that any great thaw is likely to occur soon.
It is overwhelmingly obvious to everyone that during the past quarter-century, America has lost its unity. There are fewer and fewer generally accepted cultural “givens”; there is no longer a consensus about even the most fundamental concepts that undergird a society and that give it all its energy, as our divided Supreme Court demonstrates almost weekly. Americans are becoming actually conscious of their failure to maintain a universal tolerance for diversity - E Pluribus - without sacrificing the commonality of essential beliefs and principles necessary to fulfill the requirements of establishing a viable society - Unum. The very motto of our unique nation has, in effect, been torn asunder. The recent controversy over flag burning ironically poignantly symbolizes this perilous polarization.
The result of this rent in the social fabric has led social theorists, political commentators, and the entire community of intellectuals and experts to acquiesce in what amounts to dividing the nation into two contending camps: liberal and conservative. The battle lines for virtually every issue of controversy - from sex to politics - are drawn between these two camps as radically, and, arguably, with even more human misery and loss of life than that which divided the nation during the Civil War.
Conflict Over The Family
At the very heart of this conflict is the family. The reason for this is fairly obvious, and generally conceded by all: The family is and has always been the principal means of transmission of culture - of moral and ethical principles, of religious beliefs, of attitudes about other people, of ways of understanding the world, of enduring habits of being - from one generation to the next. It is also clear to everyone that the family is failing, for a variety of reasons and in important ways, to perform its traditional function of providing the mortar - the binding agent - which keeps society from disintegrating.
Those who hope to restore this property to the family try to fix it; those who hope to
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