‘People are picking the dumbest fights’: the tortured history of America’s culture wars
Why This Matters
The recent publication of Isaac Butler's book on the history of America's culture wars offers a timely analysis of the long-standing tensions between artistic expression and societal norms, shedding light on the enduring impact of past controversies on contemporary debates. This examination is particularly significant in today's polarized climate, where the boundaries between art and offense continue to be tested. By tracing the evolution of these conflicts, Butler's work provides valuable context for understanding the complexities of cultural discourse.
In a new book, Isaac Butler goes back to the 1980s to trace how battles started against the arts, from Piss Christ to Mapplethorpe, and looks at what we can learn for todayIsaac Butler is limbering up for an event at Politics and Prose, an independent bookshop and venerable Washington institution, but still has time to explain his arm tattoos.They variously depict: a logo from his grandparents’ company in the 1960s; a satellite that his father worked on at Nasa; a “jaunty crab” for his wife, who finds crabs “hilarious”; an iris by Japan’s Utagawa Hiroshige for Butler’s daughter, Iris; a drawing of a scene from a production of The Seagull by the Russian theatre maker Konstantin Stanislavski; and an artwork by the American painter and photographer David Wojnarowicz that shows a house on fire. Continue reading...
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