New Report Draws Contours of American Culture Wars with Survey Data
Most Americans oppose political correctness and support free speech, yet differ widely on the specifics
NEW YORK, NY – Americans often disagree on cultural values, even while struggling to define the actual terms and experiences relevant to today’s most viral controversies. But a new Manhattan Institute report from adjunct fellow Eric Kaufmann aims to inject vital systemization and quantification into our understanding of the culture wars, offering much needed clarity on how Americans across the political spectrum think about employment, identity, free speech, and censorship.
Kaufmann’s report—based principally on a new survey conducted on the Qualtrics platform—is the first comprehensive analysis of the wider American experience with, and opinion of, cancel culture, political correctness, and Critical Race Theory. Throughout the analysis, he finds the concepts of cultural socialism and cultural liberalism particularly helpful for delineating how Americans think about workplace firings and legal proposals to ban various forms of hate speech. Some of his concrete findings include:
- When asked about the most important problems facing the country, Americans notably rank the issue of political correctness higher than issues like climate change or foreign policy, with 31% of respondents listing political correctness as a “Top 3” issue, compared to 29% and 22% listing the other two issues respectively.
- Public opinion tends to disfavor firing employees or banning social media users for legal speech, both examples Kaufmann describes as cultural socialism that happens to unite Republican survey respondents in opposition, while splitting Democratic survey respondents.
- While diversity training has proliferated across white-collar employment, attending such trainings significantly raises people’s concerns about losing their jobs while also increasing their willingness to approve of firing for speech.
- Younger Americans significantly differ from older Americans when it comes to protecting others from possible harm induced by free speech, even willing to accept punishment for their own gaffes: a majority of those under 25 say that their fear of losing their jobs or reputations for something they say or post online is an acceptable price to pay in order to protect disadvantaged groups. Meanwhile, only 17% of respondents over 50 agree.
In the short term, Republicans stand to gain from current dynamics in the culture war, which tends to divide Democrats while largely uniting Republicans and independents. But the future could yield a change in the tides: the problem of cancel culture is going to get worse, not better. Younger people are substantially more likely to support cultural socialism than older Americans, even when controlling for ideology and party identification. Kaufmann predicts that as today’s college graduates enter large organizations, they will mount an increasing challenge to freedom of expression. The rise of cultural socialism compounded by disagreements on the teaching of American history are likely contour the culture wars and influence political battles for years to come.
Click here to read the full report.
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