there had been a tuition increase in years. the public tuition in new york state is one half what it is and most dates and one-third what it is in other states. and we need a tuition to improve, to improve the education of public college students in the state. we would have been able to hold harmless, couldn't afford the tuition increase. but, you know, we have friends. really wealthy people who send us their kids to binghamton. why the hell not? right? they make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, some of them millions of dollars a year. we need to raise tuition by around 500 bucks and shelly walks in and says we can raise tuition this year when we're not going to get a pay increase. and the eliot of old would have said that's a lot of crap. that's total drivel. of course, we can raise. one thing has nothing to do with

another. but to debilitated, you know, tortured eliot. i guess so. so it was, you know, but if he goes back over those, all those issues and examines them with the kind of precision that only he can. my job that i can do here is the second best that i can do as well as eliot. . .

>> he said, well, when he called me up to go over the facts in the interviews, he said, by the way, this is the net of 21 hours of interview. and i also, i'm in the movie which is the companion to that book, as is elliot, by the way, and elliot saturday for that interview -- sat for that interview as well. peter's book is a much bigger book than mine. it doesn't cover these 17 plague year months, it covers 50 years. you're going to be reading interviews of elliot's high school girlfriend and the women he went out with in college, and you're going to hear a lot about prostitutes, okay? you're going to hear a lot about a lot of other stuff and a lot of stuff about things outside these 17 months. obviously, these 17 months will be covered, okay? but it's a much, much different

book. you know, the -- and it's a book that has been done with hundreds of interviews, okay? i interviewed nobody, okay? this was, this has the benefit of single-voice clarity, it also has the problem of single-voice clarity. it is the interpretation of one person, one very well-placed person, one person with a unique perspective. so these are, you know, this is the difference between, this is not the difference between, you know, spa -- spaghetti pom darrow and spaghetti with eggplant, this is the difference between a rye not rouse and a studebaker. these are different things. i know peter, and i think he's a good journalist. i think it's going to be a good book, and i think it's going to be an important book. and how am i going to be

remembered? i'm going to be remembered as the person who was a witness to all of this, and i hope i'm remembered as the person who told the truth about this for the benefit of understanding in the state of new york and who looked at himself with the same kind of, you know, harshness as he looked at everybody else. thanks a lot. anybody bought the book? i'll sign it. yes, ma'am. [applause] >> lloyd constantine is a former senior adviser and mentor to former new york governor elliot spitzer. for more information, visit lloydconstantine.com. >> next sunday on booktv's "in

depth," television analyst, author and columnist and three-time presidential candidate pat buchanan on conservative ideology in today's political climb. he'll take your calls, e-mails and tweets. three hours with pat buchanan next sunday live at noon eastern on c-span2. >> sociology professor irene thomson says members of the left and right think largely in the same ways on so-called hot button issues. fairleigh dickinson university is the host of this event, it's an hour, 15 minutes. there are. >> i'm pleased to talk to this wonderful looking, energetic, lively audience, and i will do my best to tell you what i know about the culture wars. let me begin by making the obvious point that we have all

now become accustomed to seeing americans shouting at each other, sometimes literally across barricades about health care legislation, about immigration reform. we have come to hear constant talk about the polarization in the nation, conservatives versus liberals, democrats versus republicans, fox news versus msnbc. this is not new. the intensity of the debate is not new, the idea that there's division is not new. but in the not-so-distant past when americans thought of themselves as divided, as surely we always have, how were we divided? by race, by ethnicity, by religion, perhaps even by region of the country.

but not in ideological or partisan terms, right? and we certainly in the past would not have thought of an american society experiencing a culture war. now, the idea of the culture wars is very scary. it's a more frightening concept than the concept of simple political division. why? it's the culture -- if the culture is at stake, is it your very way of life that's at issue? you can't compromise. this is not like other issues in politics where compromise is seemingly always possible. so how did we get here? well, i'd hate to drag out what's become almost a cliche. it's all the 1960s, but it is.

that is, think about what happened in the famous or infamous depending on your perspective 1960s. when there was a young group of people questioning, challenging traditional values and practices. what happened? they were dubbed very quickly the counterculture, right? now, unlike the mainstream in american society whose respect for authorities remained high, who loved their religions, who were attached to the free enterprise system, who valued the traditional family and sexual morality here were these young people challenging all of that. and they were the counterculture.

well, what happened over time? over time a lot of their ideas seeped almost imper sent my into the larger american culture. others got ignored. i don't think there are many people out there now establishing communes which was one of the things the counterculture did. but many of their values, many of their attitudes did become, in effect, part of the mainstream. but what remains of the counterculture is the very idea that culture is contested. that there is a culture and a counterculture means that culture is something we have arguments about, that we dispute. this is very different. this is very new. when in the 1920s, for example, there were young people acting in much the same way that

the counterculture did in the 1960s. but what did people say about that, their behavior? it was the wildness of youth. period, end. and the depression came along at the end of the '20s, and the wildness kind of disappeared. in the case of the counterculture, it waned a little bit in the late 1970s. but by the beginning of the 1980s we had what was known as the new right. ronald reagan is, of course, elected president in 1980, and a new right emerges which engages in very strong campaigns against abortion, against gay rights, for prayer in the schools. and by the early 1990s we begin to perceive a culture war.

the term, to my knowledge, was actually first used by a sociologist. sociologist of religion with the names james davison hunter published a book in 1991 called "culture wars." but in all honesty i think fame of the title "culture wars" much as i would like to see one of my colleagues get credit, probably comes from 1992 when the phrase was used by patrick buchanan in the a speech to the republican national convention. pat buchanan said the united states was undergoing a cultural war, quote, a struggle for the soul of america. what was in that according to pat buchanan?

abortion, homosexuality, school choice and what he called radical feminism. after 1992 the idea of the culture war became a staple of contemporary journalism. all over the press every dispute got absorbed into the notion that the u.s. was now in a culture war. what did this mean? as hunter described the culture war, there were people devoted to the notion that there is absolute morality, there are absolute moral truths, and then there are people on the other side devoted to the notion that morality resides in our own individual judgment, that we decide what is or isn't moral. so the first group called the

orthodox, the second group called the progressives were at war with each other. and as hunter perceived this, in any group, any social class, race, gender, religion, political party, even church there was a split between the orthodox and the progressive. so the culture war ran straight through the culture. the image portrayed in the press of the culture war was conservatives, liberals, republicans, democrats, an image of those who were devoted to morality and duty on the one side and those devoted to individualism, individual self-expression on the other. so there we have it. two armed camps. well, two camps. by 1994, actually, when james hunter publishes his next week,

he's actually perceiving them as armed camps. his 1994 book which is published directly after the "culture wars" book is called "before the shooting begins." so he meant it. okay. meanwhile, social scientists armed with datum can't find support for the image of the two camps. if you two out and you -- go out and you look at how mountains of survey data that we now have, it is very difficult to find people who are consistently on one side or another of the divide. even on the really, really hot button issues like abortion and same-sex marriage very, very small proportions of americans are consistently on one side or the other. in fact, survey researchers often say that if you look at

what the most prominent response to abortion issues is, it's really, it depends, okay? that is, it's not always right or always wrong, but rather, it depends. okay. so there is the scarcity of clear patterns there. even if there are people absolutely consistent on those issues, they may not all agree on all the other issues in the two camps on school prayer, for example, or censoring popular culture or other culture war issues. so most americans really reside somewhere in the middle, and most of us are internally split. we show, we feel both sides of the culture war within us. let me give you a very simple, obvious example. do i believe in the family? of course i do.

do i believe in the rights of the individual to go against the family? if i'm an american, of course i do, right? is that an obvious kind of split? yes. is it a characteristic -- yes. okay. so where does that leave the notion of the culture wars? the supporters of the idea, if you know anything about academics, you'll know they don't roll over and play dead very easily. they said, no, no, no, no. it's not about public opinion. it's about the culture, the public culture. it's about the ideas expressed by the elite that are trying to influence us, that are trying to make us see the world in one way. and these elite images are

polarizing. yes, most americans may be in the middle, but the moral visions in the public culture are such that the middle is effectively eclipsed. you're either for gay rights and gay marriage, or you're against it. right? there's no middle ground. in fact, said hunter, the very idea of morality has become a right-wing word. the left spot said religion and spirituality. we have this split in the culture. well, if this is true, of course, it's very serious. because a culture without common assumptions or common standards is really going to be in difficulty and have difficulty arising at public policy. so it's a matter of some interest to know whether or not we really are experiencing a culture war. but then the issue becomes,

well, how do you study the public culture? how do you look at what's out there? what are the visions that the elites are putting forth? in hunter's original study, he used largely promotional literature. op-ed pieces, sound bites on the news, direct mail, letters. you all know that this is, of course, simple, exaggerated, these are efforts to get people to contribute to the cause. so these are not the best indicators of what's in the public culture. all right. that's, that's the preliminary to what i did. i said, okay, let's find out what's in the public culture, and one of the easiest, most apparent sources of elite

information is to look at what's written in political magazines. in those magazines there are writings by journalists, of course, but also by academics, political figures, public intellectuals and advocates for all kinds of causes. so i chose four magazines that are in the american mainstream. "national review" on the right, "the nation" on the left, "time" magazine in the middle and "the new republic" being a traditional magazine that moved rightward during the 1980s. and i basically analyzed every article published in those four magazines that dealt with culture war issues that was published between 1980 and 2000.

in case you're curious, there were 436 of them. i'm tough, i'm an academic. no problem. okay. what was i reading about? i was reading about, of course, abortion, homosexuality, feminism, family values, religion in the public sphere, but also you may recall that pat buchanan had on his list school choice. school choice is the idea that parents should really have a say over the curriculum of their school children. they should be able to send their children to schools who exhibit values that match their own. this was a very important conservative idea at many points. among the issues in the culture wars between 1980 and 2000 were issues of curriculum. what was taught in the public

schools? fights about, as you might guess and these are still around, sex education. fights about multicultural education loomed very, very large. and in that era between the '80s and the '90s even the university curriculum was a subject of the culture wars because as it started with stanford, but as many of the elite universities began to alter what their required courses were to make them more, quote, multiculture, there was -- multicultural, there was an outcry. so that, too, became a part of what was in the culture wars. okay. so having read and analyzed this large quantity of data what did i conclude? the most impressive finding is that despite all their disagreements on specific

particular issues, all the culture warriors adhere to remarkably similar american cultural ideas. we are so aware nowadays of our differences, subcultural differences by race, religion, gender, social class, market niches, ideological and partisan ditches that -- differences that we almost forget that all of these take place within a particular american cultural context. so hunter has said morality has become a right-wing word. not at all true. far from that. all sides cast their argument in moral terms. so if the right, for example, believes that it is defending morality when it defends the

traditional family or it attacks the ugliness of popular culture, the left believes that it is defending morality when it fights against the exclusion or inequality of women or gays. if the right gets upset about the immorality of television talk shows -- people love to talk about television talk shows, somebody must watch them to do so, but never mind -- so the right gets very agitated about the immorality of what's on tv talk shows. what does the left say? the left says, it's morally repulsive, that's a direct quote, that there are people out there who are so needy, so in need of social support that they don't even see that they're being exploited as guests on these shows. moral, it's all a matter of morality.

but, but in if american society -- in american society morality is also countered by pragmatism. and so i'm moral, but you're moralistic. everybody left and right is eager to show that they are not moralistic. the other side is. so you get lots and lots of talk. the left sees all the family values campaign as moralistic. the right says, well, these people on the left trying to get people to overcome their antigay sentiments, they're moralistic. you get the idea, okay? what else? despite our uncertainties about religion, elite opinion in the united states respects and supports religion.

left and right, democrat and republican. democrats and republicans endorse so-called faith-based initiatives. left and right argue that there is, indeed, room for religion in the public sphere. for example, on the right you have conservatives arguing, we should be able to say we are opposed to greed, we are opposed to adultery as the bible tells us. and on the left you have people saying, the churches, the religious institutions are the last bastion of escape from the commercial society out there. they are a potential place from which we might generate a response against the dominant culture. we must support religion and religious ideas in the public sphere. everybody endorses

individualism, but everybody also endorses the community. okay. in the wilder culture war imagery, the left -- those people who think morality is for individuals to judge -- is just full of individual rights. in fact, individual licentiousness, right? whereas the right is for the well being of the community, larger communal purposes dominate. not true, not true. everybody supports individualism while also cautioning about the excess of individualism. you know what excessive individualism is called, don't you? selfishness, right? so selfishness is, of course, bad, right? so rank individualism or radical individualism is attacked by all sides even though we all support individualism.

the other side too. you know, we're all for the welfare of the community, but there's excess there too. what do we call that? well, in the old days we used to call that conformity. that word's gone out. in the resultture that i read -- literature that i read, it was often called tribalism. if you're too tied to your group or your community, that's called tribalism. more exotic than conformity. okay. so both sides, both sides support both. let me give you one of those only in america stories. one of the articles among the 436 was written by a conservative woman who argued that the traditional family really is in line with what she called the facts of human nature. and she said it was good for

children to be taught the values of the traditional family. but then she said, and here's the only in america part, we shouldn't worry about this being oppressive because when the children got old enough, they could overturn those values when they were mature and decide to do something different anyway, so it was really okay. this is an amazing, an amazingly american contradiction. we really believe in individualism. and we really believe in traditional authorities. and we want them both, okay? culture warriors want them both. what else was in common? the idea of pluralism. okay. this sounds like a motherhood word, right? pluralism, everybody's for pluralism, right? but, in fact, it was more than

that. culture warriors on both sides converged on the idea that pluralism within one culture was a good thing. multiculturalism as a general idea, as a principle was not supported. yes, some more multicultural education was seen as good by some people, by some writers, but the idea of multiculturalism was soundly rejected by just about everyone. for two reasons. one, because it denied the unity of american culture, and two, because america is a society of individuals, not groups, and individuals can always overcome their cultures, so nobody likes multiculturalism. everybody is for pluralism within one culture, all right? and this means on the right let's have school choice!

then we can have pluralism within one culture, and you can choose which schools your kids get sent to, and you can have the values you want there if you're rural, if you're religious, if you're different from the mainstream. that's fine. and on the left let's have institutions support pluralism. female-operated banks, gay men's health centers, black baptist nursery schools. what's wrong with these? that's fine, that's all part of pluralism within one american culture. okay. both sides are ambivalent about elites. everybody, of course, respects the standards, achievements, right? but we're pop list, right? -- populist, right? so we have this dilemma. so on the right they have to somehow reconcile their affection for the wasp p elite with the general populism.

no problem. no problem. the wasp elite represent the things all the rest of us aspire to, hard work, integrity, so there's no contradiction between the elite and the population at large. on the left, respect for high arts and traditions of high culture sometimes rub up against populism, but what do they say? everybody understands that it is an ideal of democracy to bring the best of the culture to everybody in the culture. so let's, let's spread the wealth of high culture as much as we can. the other thing that happens is that there are internal debates on both right and left about whether some of their -- some in their own midst are elitist. so, for example, on the left there's a lot of concern that some of the more radical

feminists are so inte intellects to be totally out of touch with some of the women that they're supposedly representing or appealing to. on the right, even dirtier stuff on the right. on the right there were conservatives writing articles attacking other conservatives for pandering to the liberal elites, and therefore, not telling them that they were against abortion, not telling them that they saw homosexuality as a sin for fear they'd be labeled -- [inaudible] okay. finally, in keeping with the very characteristic american tendency everybody praises moderation and calls his opponent an extremist. okay. now, there is a language, a use of symbols or a use of rhetoric

that's absolutely identical on both sides. okay? there is -- let me give you just one quote just to make that clear. as i read this short quote, think who is saying this. a culture that is at once moralistic, self-is -- self-righteous, alienated and in a minority will constantly be tempted to break the rules of political discourse. i guess i would naively have thought that was a progressive who was angry about christian fundamentalists. boy, would i have been wrong. this is actually robert bork, a well known conservative who's complaining about the left. see, you always can't tell what's what without a scorecard. the language, the rhetoric, the symbols are all the same. this is basic american culture. we're supposed to be moral but

not moralistic, we're supposed to be individual but not ce -- detached from the community. not alienated, yeah, alienated left wingers, right? okay. so not only do they converge in this fashion, but the culture warriors don't agree among themselves, and they are as ambivalent and nuanced as the population, as all the rest of us are. for example, there are abortion rights' supporters who write about the immorality of abortion. who worry about whether abortion is sinful even if necessary and desirable. there are homosexual rights advocates who disagree among themselves about whether same-sex marriage is good or not. and even if it's good, is it a radical idea or is it a conservative idea? [inaudible] there are anti-gay people who

say, you know, maybe homosexuality isn't a matter of morality, not so sure. even on the more limited things somebody who's back in the news was speaker of the house at the time he wrote about this, newt gingrich, there was great controversy at the time about whether the national end dowment for the arts -- endowment for the arts was supporting immoral art, and this was our taxpayer dollar that was, of course, supporting it. and so newt gingrich and henry hyde who was another conservative congressman argued, of course, public money should not support art that was offensive to the population. but they couldn't agree on what to do about it. gingrich said, let's take art out of the budget, let's not support it, and hyde said, oh, that would be terrible because that would mean we can't agree about culture. you get the idea.

the intensity of these debates is also sometimes fascinating. when you get a progressive who calls other liberals nazis because they support character education in the schools, you can see how passionate things have gotten. on the right there is no ability to agree on whether things in private are somehow less damaging to the common good. let me give you an example. if homosexual acts are not known, are kept private as they used to be, is that less damaging to the general morality? some conservatives argued that that was the case. other conservatives said, absolutely not. by definition, morality is a public matter and, therefore, that is not the case. okay. so if our differences are not so

deep, not so well structured, why does the idea of culture wars continue to resonate? it really does. well, i'd argue, first of all, it's wonderful for politicians. it's a very, very appealing notion. what better way is there to try to mobilize voters than to tell them that their very way of life is being threatened by the opposition? honestly, i don't think it works, that is, i think the good, solid evidence does not show that victories come through using culture war rhetoric. but it is convenient, politically convenient. we've had cultural politics in american life for many years. we've never thought in terms of a culture war. now, i think part of the reason for this is different in how we

all think about culture, and by we all i mean the areafied breed of -- rarefied breed of my buddies, social scientists, as well as the population as a whole. i think we have all come to see culture as more changeable and, therefore, more something to argue about. if you go back from decades in social science, culture was seen how? it was something, of course, transmitted through the generations, so the elders instilled the culture into the young. the young internalized it, right? deeply internalized it and then reenacted it. period. culture was stable, unified, unchanging. nobody sees culture like that anymore. in the population at large, we

differentiate ourselves from others on the basis of our culture. we talk about the culture of this particular corporation, the culture of particular occupations, the culture of entertainment force, and this is how we think. but those cultures we very well know are changing constantly. we're aware of the constancy of culture change. and if change, if culture is something that happens in and through our interactions, it can be changed. and, therefore, it can be subject to contest, to argument. culture wars is a kind of natural extension of that idea. the culture wars we have had are still with us, but many of the hot button issues have become muted. to think very quickly about gays in the military now compared to in the early 1990s, wow. we may still argue about the

merits of abstinence-only sex education, but is it really the same now when we have a conservative vice presidential candidate in 2008 who was not only the mother of five, but one of whom was a pregnant teenager? are feminism and family value issues really a culture war between the two sides anymore? okay. i don't think we will ever stop warring about culture or cultural issues, but the issues themselves will change, and the culture wars will bridgeable. thanks. [applause] >> [inaudible]

i would exercise and use my prerogative and ask a question. i think the quote-unquote culture wars should be understood in a different light in part because they are within the context of a kind of carpe diem agreement about the basic cultural values or which nobody, no american really disagrees. >> uh-huh. >> kind of foundational values that we all share. the question is, even accepting that, can't there be important battles within baseball, so to speak, within that parameter and, indeed, aren't many of the things people point to as being the shell casings of the culture war exactly that? i'll give you two quick examples. there could be disagreements about how two liberal values clash or should be reconciled and, arguably, this happens in the context of, say, abortion where you have a side arguing that the autonomy of a mother

needs to be recognizing and the other said saying, well, no, you're misunderstanding, it's really about the rights or the liberties of the developing child. alternatively, you could have argument about a particular value and how it's interpreted, and those arguments could be deep-seeded, virulent and consequential. here might be a debate about affirmative action, essentially a debate about different notions of equality, equality meaning a color-blind approach or focused more on the equality of opportunity. so am i misunderstanding the thesis? and if not, then why isn't it potentially just as disturbing to have a culture war within the culture as opposed to the different kind of argument that's originally presented? >> okay. in the context of the larger book, let me reiterate the title was called "culture wars and enduring american dilemmas." and some of the things in your

question, bruce, really reflect those end during american dilemmas including how we balance liberty and equality and individualism in the community and such. and what i'm essentially arguing is those who have been with us from the start, they will continue to be with us. they are serious, they are consequential. but they are not at the level of a chasm that cannot be bridged because we've lived with them almost from the outset, and we will continue to live with them. and these disputes, i argue, will never be resolved. they will simply be reopened each time there are new situations or new issues. so affirmative action is different from what came, you know, in the previous century, but some of the same issues are still there. yes, they're real, but they're part of the existing, ongoing american culture. they're not unbridgeable chasms.

>> hi. my name is fred, and i am a member of the fairleigh dickinson secular alliance as well as someone who is proud to call himself an atheist. now, i've seen the culture wars firsthand because of that, like just yesterday we were trying to promote our group, and a sort of a parent/student thing, and parents would kind of give us the evil eye and, you know, there have been times that we have been called godless heathens. so, but with that as a backdrop of the culture war in general and how it can sometimes maybe be dangerous or whatever, is there any real way to sort of fix it or help heal the culture war so it's not as polarizing as it is today? >> that's a wonderful question. let me say, by the way, this is not to make you feel were the,

it'll -- better, it'll probably make you feel worse, there's some survey data saying that atheists are so disliked, they're even more hated than terrorists. [laughter] so i understand where you're coming from there. >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> but, but, now, let me just make a few points. if you look at the kind of literature i've looked at, there are people who will say the atheists and supporters of atheists who say this country is impossible. you cannot attack religion in this country. you get ruled out, it's impossible. on the other side, however -- i'm a social scientist with, you know, one hand on the other hand. on the other side, there are those who argue that americans don't really take religion seriously. so you're allowed to be

religious as long as you're not too really, really whetted to it, okay? i don't know if that gives you comfort or not, but there is, indeed, truth in both observations. most americans, in fact, are moderate, and most americans dislike what they perceive as extremists. and because america is a dominantly still religious country much more so than most countries at the same level of technology and advanced industrial technological societies are not that religious. america's more religious than the rest. and as a result, the atheist becomes the extremist and is disliked, therefore. you know what my answer to you is? on the model of what homosexuals have faced, the more you are out as it were and people see you don't have horns and you're not evil, i think the easier it gets. i mean, what gays coming off the

closet did was to increase tolerance enormously. we do have good data suggesting that is the case, and my guess is that if atheists similarly did precisely what the kind of your organization seeks to do, i think that will be helpful. >> john -- [inaudible] as the faculty adviser to the ssa and somebody who doesn't have horns yet but is probably evil, i want to push you in the other direction. how did it get worse, not that i want them to? you presented a somewhat optimistic response to bruce's question, that is, look, this is enduring, this is historical, it has never been an unbridgeable goal for impasse and will continue to be so in the future, but why should that be the case? i wonder if you have any ideas about what conditions might, in fact, make this chasm worse?

is it -- it seems it could possibly get worse. we see this in other countries, for example. so what might happen that actually might cause this to get worse? >> yeah. i, honestly, i think the reason for my optimism is it's so messy, okay? there is so much complexity in the numbers of die vergingish issues -- diverging issues that seeing the kind of polarization that exists in other countries is hard for me to portray. we have some complexly-identifying people. we all inhabit multiple cultures, each of us as an individual, and i think it's going to be very hard to get people to line up that passionately in that way. that's, that's the basis for my optimism. >> so the question is invariably all these issues are going to

come to court, and since morality seems to be pretty subjective, how do you think courts are going to handle these issues, or how do you think they should handle these morally subjective issues? >> well, what we know as far as i can tell and i will quickly defer to bruce since he knows much more about the courts than i do, but i think common observation has been that court judgments generally are not very far away from public opinion. they may lead them a little bit or lag them a little bit, but they don't typically stay too far out of line with the overall opinion. bruce, if you -- >> very well put. >> i'm from the sociology department. i tend to agree with you that on a global level when we compare to other societies -- [inaudible] probably will continue to exist. but never the less, there is a kind of feeling that since the

1960s on a global level there has been a shift in those -- [inaudible] and the return of religion is explained as a failure of modernity in many cases. what do you have to say about that? >> yeah, i would argue there are big differences between other countries and the u.s. in that the u.s. never gave up on religion. we have higher levels of professed belief than almost any other society at that level. so it's a very peculiar -- now, there are all kinds of arguments. theologians and those devoted to religion may argue our beliefs are, in fact, very shallow because most americans don't even know about religions that they allegedly adhere to. but it isn't like the phenomenon that you're talking about, a

failure of modernization going back to religion. it's as if modernization never struck in the united states at that level. devotion to religion, devotion to traditional authorities has remained incred by high. we are simply -- incredibly high. we are simply off scale on world values surveys comparison. >> we're going to take a short break, and then we will resume our question and answer session with professor thomson. thank you very much, irene. please join me in thanking her once again. [applause] >> okay, we'll continue. please come up to the front if you vice president done so -- haven't done so already. irene doesn't bite. she does answer questions, and she will continue to do so. anybody else have a question for our speaker? >> as a senior citizen, i am very fearful of the cultural revolution that's going on in this country. but i would say the fear is

territorial. if we take the east and the extreme west coast, you know -- [laughter] again, far west and the south we are having a cultural war, and years ago people on the east always supported those people in the west. we were always in favor of dams and conservation of land, and now when we have problems with the poor, guns in our cities and things like that, they don't understand our problem. and i would like your comments on that. >> well, i think, i don't think any of that is truly new. i mean, when i began to talk today about our differences, i added regional because, indeed, we've always had regional differences. city versus rural differences

have ridden through american cultural for a long time. i would also suggest that, you know, the red state/blue state division that you were alluding to is also exaggerated. i mean, it's a wonderful media thing, you know? we can put the maps up and the red stuff and the blue stuff and, wow, it communicates. but what does it really mean? if a state is red, what proportion of the population has to be republicans? the state is blue, what -- you know, if they're close to 50/50, it's still going to be red or blue. so it doesn't, it sounds worse. i think we, we exaggerate because of our 24-hour media ask the blogosphere and all the rest the differences that have always been with us. you know, go back to old musicals and you hear about the farmer and the cowboy who can't be friends, right? you remember that? it's old. it's very old. it seems worse because of how

much everything is amplified. everybody, everybody today has a megaphone. it's called the web. everybody. so i think it's not literally worse, it just appears worse. >> hi. that actually led me into my question. do you think -- we've talked a lot about new sources of blogging and the difference between and whether they are -- do you think that having such news reports available to us on the web and also blogging which can be news or not, do you think that that's exaggerated the cultural wars? >> yeah, i do. for two, two separate reasons. one is the hyperbolic, hysterical tone, you know, go on to cable tv that has to be on for 24 hours. can you get that?

from the blogosphere, it's like it. [inaudible] and so on. that's one aspect of it which exaggerates it. but the other thing that exaggerates any kind of division among us, i now have the ability to read almost exclusively people who think the way i do, and nobody else. i don't have to listen to those blanks on the other side anymore or read them, and, you know, the demise of the sort of "time" magazine kind of centrist news media can, indeed, certainly exaggerate the polarization. >> i think one thing that both sides of the culture war, trying to be brief here, agree with is the problem of the deficit, that we're in a period of scarcity.

i think both think that any mathematical perp on both sides -- person on both side of the culture wars would agree on is that the gulf between the rich and the poor over a long period of time is exaggerated, is growing. what would you think of your feeling of the culture wars here if this divide starts to impinge upon a major portion of the middle class, at least the lower half of the middle class? would you modify your feelings in any way if that happens? >> okay. i think your question is an excellent one, but i don't think it really pertains to the culture wars. i mean, the issue is very real. we have serious economic/political division and problems at the moment. the gap between rich and poor has, indeed, been growing since the 1970s.

income and equality is worse than it ever was. but in fact, what many people argued was that the culture wars were a way to get our mind off those more fundmental problems that you have just addressed. that is, the culture wars were not on the the income divisions. the culture wars were not about taxation and deficit and social welfare spending. they were about these distractions from the point of view of many people more concerned about those issues, the culture wars were actually just a distraction compared to the serious issues that we have not confronted. and i think whether you are seeing in the beginnings of the so-called tea party movement some of that expression of concern or worry about those issues emerging, perhaps you are. i feel duty-bound to say that

there is a counter called the coffee movement, and it has not gotten the same press. so -- the coffee movement, anybody heard that? the coffee party? oh, good. it's really, it's the other side. it's the people who argue that we really need more social welfare concerns in this country and that the tea party movement is failing to understand things like the gap between rich and poor that have grown worse. so there's a lot of churning out there. i don't, i don't offer predictions. [laughter] >> good afternoon. dennis callahan. also a senior citizen. in my household we have "time" magazine which we see as more of a liberal publication, or at least i do, and my wife sees my "wall street journal" and ""businessweek"" being more conservative.

that being the case, we end agreeing on quite a few things. one of the things we do agree on is we see increased polarization in society. you can see it in the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, you can see it in terms of what is going on in washington and the congress and what appears to be the demise of, you know, moderate republicans which i think is, you know, back in the '60s and '70s played a significant role. >> yeah, i certainly agree that there's political polarization and that this congress is probably the most extreme that we've seen on that dimension, certainly seems that way. but whether that in any way translates to polarization in the population at large is very much an open question. and even on rich and poor whether they are necessarily split either in terms of their partisan affiliations, that's all over the lot, whether they

are split because what makes the partisan, you know, whether you're a democrat or republican isn't only whether you're rich or poor, it has a lot of other components. you know, race, religion, gender, everything enters in. it's much more complex. whether or not the population is as polarized as the congress is certainly up for grabs, and most political scientists, i think, would argue that there's a gap between the elite and the maases on that level. ..

>> but if they are, it is a touchstone for a few pivotal groups, individuals, those individuals, that minority may dominate the political sphere. >> in a very temporary and mine away i would argue, again, because there are so many, bart stupak hold everything up for a portion. but seriously, the nra, you know, is very powerful, but can it influenced everything?

yes, there are minorities, political economic, cultural minorities that can sometimes have what seem like outlandish events and power and influence. but i would argue fairly short-lived, except for wall street. >> now, i notice in the q&a and maybe for much longer than that polarization seems to have replaced the word culture. is there a difference between polarization and culture wars? and what would you say congressional scholars who argue that, at least as they measured the united states and congress, that polarization has indeed reached at mr. in washington is ever bit as bad as people like to say that. >> right. i think obviously culture wars and polarization are not the same thing. as you know.

we can be polarized, we can be divided into two polar extremes about whether we believe which is what the major polarization that is in the country. the government should convene more or less in the economy, should spend more or less on social welfare measures. and that's the dominant polarization in our faces all the time as we speak. whether that has gotten worse because of various shenanigans of how congressional districts are organized and how the primary system is organized, i should lead to you guys. but i would assume that a large reason for the extent of polarization is really, really lies in the mechanics of our political system that has allowed for strong conservativ conservatives. one of the gym and the backs if there is no moderate republican anymore. it's something that comes out of

the primary system and the districting system that has brought certain kinds of people to congress more simply than the more moderate mix we had. >> will take a question or two more. she has more books to write so she needs to get back. >> quick question, sort of methodological. this question a student asked before whether it's getting worse or not. and clearly, you know, we have blogs now. we didn't have 20, 30 years ago. but how, in fact, how would you know that it's not actually fundamentally worse and appears worse because it is now out there? methodologically i'm not sure how one would sort that out. the second one is even suppose, let's assume it's not sort intrinsically worse than the population it only appears worse because it's loud and our faces, could it be the case that because precisely, in fact,

could start changing, right? >> self fulfilling prophecy. >> right. >> yeah, i think the latter is something of a danger. i mean, people -- one of the hazards of serving them is that people respond to questions even if they don't know what the hell they're talking about. so people will call themselves a liberal or conservative because they think, ask them and they have no idea. but once polarization enters and image of culture wars and all that, i am a liberal and, therefore, i hate the fundamentals, whoever they are or what ever they for. so there is an element of that, that does occur. know some really good surveys that show, but ask people to define what they mean when they say very conservative. they have no idea.

they really don't, but they know they're a conservative and the other guys are not and, therefore, they are the enemy. so there's a danger in that, i agree. but again i guess my fundamental optimism still comes back to the multiple and overlapping nature of our divisions and substitutions, which makes a kind of simple one-to-one. >> classify people is basically scientifically mistaken, and historically we tend to classify people into two, three groups and say all those people ideas are the same because they have the same ideology. your approach is to try to look at issues that at the center of the debate and a certain point of time is a way to classify

people, but those set of issues would be, you know, very from one generation to the next. and the polarization is on a certain set of issues, and it seems the debate is very heated on those issues given the sense that we have departed very fast on the 1960s to the present time. >> yeah, i think i would agree with that, and i think, you know, as we stand here in 2010, we probably don't even have the imagination forecast what they will be screaming at each other about and 2020. >> appropriate enough, let's wrap up with this last question. >> i think strangely, i was going to ask, we substitute a polarization for culture wars, and despite it all we also continue to use the term liberal

with conservative, rather than you include it. you distinguish between two sides that were also arguing the same time are overlapping greatly. so should we simply stop using these words, liberal and conservative? >> the problem is even liberal, you know, even liberals and conservatives are internally divided. and so you know, there is an individualistic and a communitarian wing within the liberal group, just as it within within the conservative group. when i refer to this across the floor to a progressive calling on a liberal, not -- which happens, why was that? because he was a very individualistic progressive who thought should have character education in school. that's terrible. but they are perfectly good well respected liberals who set what's wrong with giving children character education.

it's the communal education. my overwhelming sense of the complexity in these subdivisions is based on things like that, but you're absolutely right that these are not one-to-one relationships, liberal and one side of the culture war, conservatives on the other side. >> dr. thomas and, thank you very much for joining us today. [applause] >> irene taviss thomson is professor emeritus of sociology at fairly dickinson university. for more information visit her website.

>> will yet this year's conservative political action conference talking to michael patrick leahy about his new book, "rules for conservative radicals." so what are those rules? >> thanks very much and high to everybody in the c-span audience. so let's keep wrote a book or rules for radicals in 1972 which was a good book. he had 13 taxes and 11 ethical groups. we used some of his tactics but we reject in their entirety is ethical rules. basically his ethical rules with the end justifies the means. we think as conservative radicals we ought to follow the example of martin luther king. i have updated a lot of these rules of what we used in starting the tea party movement. in february 27, 2009, the very first will is it's better to be 85% right and quick than 100%

right and slow. so that's one of the rules that i had 1 16 goals and we used nie of his rules. the general idea is rules for collaborative, consensus development of action projects in self organizing groups. that's what we try to do. >> so you are marking federal 27 as the first day of the tea party and that is because? >> will come on favor 27th, 2009, our group, a nationwide tea party coalition sponsored and organized 512 parties across the country. so that was really quite, we had 30,000 people there and we did it within a day and a week, and the day after that on favor 28, eric odom put together the tax they tea party website and we just kept on what we have been doing using conference calls and twitter and facebook. so the rules for conservative

radicals really outlined the techniques that we use in starting the tea party event. >> are these will also propose to be used to win elections? >> sure, sure. ultimately, it's about electoral success. and it's about organizing objects. it's really, the concept that we use as project servant leadership is basically where everybody is a free agent and we give everyone respect, but we ask everybody to kind of take the load and start working. >> what's the next that in the movement? >> that's a great question. i think it's the primaries. i think the idea is to follow the core values of the tea party movement, limited government as authorized by the constitution free markets and fiscal responsibility, and support candidates in primaries who are going to support those guys, both in the republican primary and in the democratic primaries. there are a fair number of democrats and independent in the tea party movement, especially up in connecticut and virginia

beach, virginia,. >> was there anything else that you consulted in writing this book other than his rules? >> boy, that is a great question. you know, i think democracy in america i likes us, was one of the great books of all time. and i think some of the core principles of what american democracy is about are reflected in this movement. and so i think that was probably the other book that was most influential. >> thank you very much for your time. >> sure. >> public service, is one of the great innovations in american political and broadcasting history. thanks. >> will talk now with jonathan krohn, if he is all right with that. can you tell us how's it going with a new book? tells with the new book is about. >> it's about basic and modern america. >> what does that mean to you? >> well in the book i really, i really discuss how there are so many different types of views,

neoconservatism, pay your conservatism, social conservatism, all these different groups that but there are four things i think that unite them. for the constitution, respect for human life, limited government and personal responsibility. >> how old are you? can you tell us how you got started in writing and your ideology at this young age? >> i got involved in politics when i was nine years old. and i really wanted to know what was going on, who were all the. >> of what all these ideas people are talking about and what do these things been? i wanted to for my own opinions and my parents and we don't care if you're a conservative or liberal all whatever, just do what you believe and what you believe, and understand it. so that's what i tried to do. i began to learn, learn more about different issues. i begin to form my own opinions and began to realize my views and buyers are more