Research Catalog

Title

Before the shooting begins : searching for democracy in America's culture war / James Davison Hunter.

Author

Hunter, James Davison, 1955-

Publication

• New York : Free Press ; Toronto : Maxwell Macmillan Canada ; New York : Maxwell Macmillan International, [1994]
• ©1994

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

• Dr. Joseph R. Stanton Human Life Issues Library and Resource Center former owner. sch
• Value of Life Committee former owner. sch

Description

ix, 310 pages : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

"At the very center of cultural conflict today are a host of public issues—abortion, sexual harassment, homosexuality—issues so contentious they have recently provoked violence. Finding chilling parallels between today’s culture war and the period just before America’s civil war, James Davison Hunter in Before the Shooting Begins poses the central political question of our time—how might we find a working agreement on the common good in a culture as fractured and contentious as ours? Hunter persuasively demonstrates that the only way beyond the contemporary culture war is through the hard, often tedious task of arguing substantively over our deepest differences: however, enormous obstacles stand in the face of such a path. Focusing primarily on the abortion dispute, Hunter explores the world of civil institutions, of special interests, and ordinary citizens, and finds that power politics, not substantive democracy, has come to dominate the manner in which the cultural struggles of our day are addressed." excerpted from dust jacket.

Subject

• Abortion > United States
• Abortion > Moral and ethical aspects
• Abortion > Political aspects > United States
• Culture conflict > United States
• Cultural pluralism > United States
• Avortement > Aspect moral
• Conflit culturel > États-Unis
• Diversité culturelle > États-Unis
• Abortion
• Abortion > Moral and ethical aspects
• Abortion > Political aspects
• Cultural pluralism
• Culture conflict
• Social conditions
• Cultuurconflicten
• Controversen
• Abortus provocatus
• United States > Social conditions
• États-Unis > Conditions sociales
• United States

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 293-299) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Prologue: Democracy and the Culture Wars: What Is at Stake -- 1. A Search for Common Ground: What Democracy Requires -- 2. The Distortions of Rhetoric: What Activists Say, But Do Not Quite Mean -- 3. The Distortions of Interest: What Activists Would Rather Not Talk About -- 4. The Anatomy of Ambivalence: What Americans Really Believe / James Davison Hunter and Carl Bowman -- 5. The Culture of Ambivalence: What Role Feelings Play in Middle America -- 6. The Politics of Civil Society: How Civic Institutions Mediate Conflict -- 7. The Education of Citizens: What Multiculturalism Really Accomplishes -- 8. The Futile Quest for Political Solutions: Where the Search Leads -- 9. Beyond the Culture War: What It Will Take.

ISBN

• 0029155010
• 9780029155011

LCCN

93042433

OCLC

29429628

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library