[Culturechat] the American culture war

[Hal Taussig]

Culture chat is intended to be about the dimension of the Untour experience 
which puts travelers in touch with the people whose country is being 
visited. As it's founder I can speak with some authority about one 
of  Idyll's central missions: the desire to bridge cultural gaps, to make 
an in-depth contact with life-styles that may at first seem strange, even 
sometimes weird. There is another kind of cultural gap that I want to 
mention in this connection, i.e., the value gaps that have been deepening 
in the United States in recent decades, escalating into what is sometimes 
called an "American cultural warfare." It is ironic that recent 
discussion  in culturechat about the impending Iraq war has tended to 
deepen the value gulf between  those Americans who meet in this on-line 
discussion group. We have tended to fan the flames of our own culture war, 
and done so in the very format intended to bridge cultural gaps. I am by no 
means neutral on the subject of war versus peace. In fact I feel as 
strongly about the present issue as in any matter that has engaged my 
energies in seventy-eight years of sometimes profound political 
commitment.  But when I encounter someone who has the opposite opinion from 
mine, I try to do the same thing I do when I meet a new, strange value 
system in some foreign land I am visiting. I try to get inside the mind-set 
of the people who adhere to this "strange" belief-system, this "odd" 
behavior. I continue to encourage the need to reach out to other cultures 
as an aspect of a rich travel experience. Likewise I hope that in 
culturechat we can consciously demonstrate (most especially by the tone of 
the language we use) an openness to values to which our first response may 
well be visceral rejection.
Hal Taussig
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