Culture war speech
From Free net encyclopedia
A culture war speech is term used in the United States of America to refer to a speech given either by a conservative or by a liberal that predominately supports a single culturally-biased or ethnocentric point of view and that does not recognize the validity of even parts of any opposing viewpoints.
A conservative culture war speech given by a conservative would be one that supports a pro-life stance, gun rights, freedom of religion, traditional marriage, and similar conservative values.
These same topics, in a culture war speech given by a liberal, would respectively be expressed as support for pro-choice positions, a degree of gun control, a separation of church and state, and same-sex marriage.
A famous example was delivered by Pat Buchanan at the 1992 Republican National Convention; other conservative examples have also been delivered, such as by Charlton Heston.
Similarly, liberal examples have also often occurred, such as delivered by Ray Nagin, with his "Chocolate City" speech on Martin Luther King Day, 2006, and by Senator Ted Kennedy with his impassioned speech on the US Senate floor against Judge Samuel Alito in January 2006 during the Samuel Alito Supreme Court nomination proceedings, prior to the vote that confirmed Judge Alito as an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court.
The key technique commonly employed in making the speeches on either side is to frame one's own argument in a positive light, while accusing the opposition as holding anti-views that are far removed from the mainstream. The mainstream, of course, being simply a codeword for the position that the person making the point holds near and dear, without any regard to the majority viewpoint of the population as a whole.
See also
- culture wars
- Ethnocentrism
- Neoconservatism
- Neoliberalism
- Ordoliberalism
- Paleoconservatism
- Paleoliberalism