What Motivates Cultural Progressives?: Understanding Opposition to the Political and Christian Right
Author(s): George Yancey (Author), David A. Williamson (Author)
Publisher: Baylor University Press
Publication Date: July 10, 2012
Language: English
Print length: 279 pages
ISBN-10: 160258463X
ISBN-13: 9781602584631
Book Description
Public activism has grown significantly during the 21st century as a cornerstone of the democratic process. But activism, regardless of its ideological roots, is often interpreted through the lens of the culture wars―pitting social movements with opposing ideals against one another. For too long, as George Yancey and David Williamson argue, progressive activists, one side of these culture wars, have been seldom studied and virtually never critiqued in public conversation.
Yancey and Williamson describe and analyze the multifaceted cultural progressive movement and its place within the larger American society. What they uncover is a collective identity informed by staunch opposition to cultural conservatives―both political and religious―that is motivated by the progressive activist’s preference for absolute rationality. Further, Yancey and Williamson argue that, despite great resistance to conservatives purportedly nonrational appeals, progressive activists are found to use irrational techniques when seeking to establish their movement and position their cause as socially legitimate.
In the contemporary heated political climate the often-surprising and likely controversial findings of
What Motivates Cultural Progressives? will prove essential, thought-provoking reading for understanding the growing concern over the influence of activism.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Although there are many about the Christian Right, there has been until now no good book that explores how opposition to that movement among cultural progressives helps to anchor the culture wars. What Motivates Cultural Progressives? should be widely read by political scientists, sociologists, and all who seek to understand cultural politics in the United States.”―Clyde Wilcox, Department of Government, Georgetown University
“Geroge Yancey and David A. Williamson take the project of studying secularists to a whole new level.”―Hunter Baker, Associate Professor of Political Science, Union University, Renewing Minds
“Williams is wholly at home with Bonhoeffer’s life and thought…”―Larry Rasmussen, Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary, International Bonhoeffer Society Newsletter
Review
Groundbreaking. This research brilliantly unmasks the subtle social, philosophical, and ideological forces behind the exclusion of conservatives and their viewpoints from the academic enterprise.
— Louis Bolce, Associate Professor of Political Science at Baruch College, City University of New York
About the Author
George Yancey is Professor of Sociology at the University of North Texas and author of Compromising Scholarship: Religious and Political Bias in American Higher Education.
David A. Williamson is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of North Texas.
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