“From this perspective, the culture wars amount to a conservative backlash against progressive social gains, including civil rights, as well as the economic redistribution they entailed. But the claim is heard just as often, coming from the Right, that it was the Left who unduly politicized social issues and cultural production. Turning this stalemate around, we might put it to some use. What if instead of tracing the culture wars backward, we plumbed thinking about them? Shifting our attention from origins and ends to preconditions, we could ask what underwrites the culture wars, what unites them across time, and what sets them apart.”