Use Paradigms to Compare Cold War to Culture Wars

¶ … Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union is known as such because it was waged not through direct conflict, but in through military and political stand-off between nations. On an international level, the Cold War was waged through techniques such as the U.S.S.R. extending its sphere of influence into Eastern Europe and the United States' Berlin airlift. However, its effects were also felt inside the United States, with the hysteria that resulted in the form of McCarthyism and the often-obsessive fear people expressed in regards to protecting themselves from possible nuclear conflict. The hatred an American expressed for communism was used to validate his or her status as a 'real' American. This line of reasoning can be seen today in issues of discrimination against Arabs and other demonized ethnic groups, as well as upon moral issues as abortion and gay parenting. One's stance on these issues is not taken simply as a validation of what is best for a woman or a child. Rather the political position one takes on these issues becomes a 'litmus test' if one is liberal and freethinking or sexually uptight, or to take a conservative paradigmatic perspective, if one is moral or immoral.

The sociological concept of structural-functional theory assumes that large social systems are characterized by a need for homeostasis. In this point-of-view, any society wishes to preserve its current state of social relationships. Issues such as gay parenting that challenge the conventional norm of what it means to be a parent. Thus gay parenting is seen to be threatening a society's inner sense of homeostasis. Immigrants who appear to be members of national or ethnic groups hostile to the United States, also become, from the point-of-view of society, al threat to U.S. societal stability. Even the Cold War becomes an expression of a kind of a societal threat, as the potential of communist intrusion into the government system threatened concepts of United States freedom. The Cold War was characterized by the idea that threats to American stability existed everywhere, from the U.S. media to the State Department. It should be noted that structural-functional theory does not validate racism, necessarily, however it does admit that to function, a society must preserve a certain pre-existing structure and thus the idea that a society would be frightened by challenges to its structural system should not come as a surprise. The supposed paranoia of McCarthyism or even Arab racial profiling is thus seem as a natural social function in view of a society's desire for things to remain the same.

In contrast, the social conflict theory assumes that societies evolve through crisis, both great and small. States of crisis are not unnatural or permanently threatening, rather conflict is a natural part of the way a society evolves and functions. From this point-of-view, the Cold War at home was a result of the United States in crisis, adjusting to the new balance of power that occurred in the world after World War II. The resulting wave of discrimination against individuals of an Arab background resulted from the fears that swept society after September 11th. And the threat of abortion or gay parentage is the result of a crisis in a society that has experienced profound variance in terms of what it means to be a woman, a mother or father, or to be a publicly sexual human being.