Culture War Politics Intensifies, Partisan Conflict and Division Have Spread Far Outside Their Usual Boundaries

Culture War Politics Intensifies, Partisan Conflict and Division Have Spread Far Outside Their Usual Boundaries

by 05/25/2022

As our culture war politics intensifies, partisan conflict and division have spread far outside their usual boundaries. Increasingly, virtually any sphere of life has grown politicized, shaded in either red or blue. Neighbors become online adversaries online, and once-independent institutions become platforms for political theater.

So what are the proper boundaries between the various spheres of our lives? Is it possible to discern and develop distinct domains between education, church, family, politics, and finance in a way that is complementary and supportive, rather than either atomizing or totalizing? Can our culture wars be contained and curbed, or are they destined to invade and poison every nook and cranny of life?

We hope you can join us for an Online Conversation on Friday, June 3rd at 1:30pm ET with National Affairs editor Yuval Levin and sociologist and professor Brandon Vaidyanathan on how we can envision and develop new habits and models that lead us toward more coherent lives and contribute to the common good.Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy. The founder and editor of National Affairs, he is also a senior editor at The New Atlantis, a contributing editor at National Review, and a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times. Dr. Levin served as a member of the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. Dr. Levin is the author of several books on political theory and public policy, most recently A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream.

Post-Event Discussion Groups

Those who register for this Online Conversation will be invited to participate in post-event discussion groups to continue the conversation! The discussion groups will be moderated by Trinity Forum representatives and aim to allow participants to more deeply engage with the ideas in the Online Conversation with other viewers. Once registered, look in your confirmation email for the link to sign-up for a discussion group. We trust this will provide a safe space for you to connect with other thoughtful folks who want to continue the conversation!

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We hope you will join us virtually for this Online Conversation on Friday, June 3rd! This conversation will be recorded and made available on our website and YouTube channel.

Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy. The founder and editor of National Affairs, he is also a senior editor at The New Atlantis, a contributing editor at National Review, and a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times. Dr. Levin served as a member of the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. Dr. Levin is the author of several books on political theory and public policy, most recently A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream.<

Brandon Vaidyanathan

Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology

Dr. Brandon Vaidyanathan

 

Dr. Brandon Vaidyanathan is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at The Catholic University of America. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Business Administration from St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia and HEC Montreal respectively, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Notre Dame.

Dr. Vaidyanathan’s research examines the cultural dimensions of religious, commercial, medical, and scientific institutions, and has been published in journals such as Business and Society, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Social Forces, Social Problems, Sociology of Religion, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, and Work, Employment, and Society. His research has been funded by grants from the John Templeton Foundation, Templeton Religion Trust, and the Lilly Endowment.

Selected Publications

Books

Vaidyanathan, Brandon. 2019. Mercenaries and Missionaries: Capitalism and Catholicism in the Global South (Cornell University Press, 2019)

Ecklund, Elaine Howard, David R. Johnson, Brandon Vaidyanathan, Kirstin Matthews, Steven Lewis, Robert Thomson, and Di Di. 2019. Secularity and Science: What Scientists Around the World Really Think About Religion (Oxford University Press, 2019)

Articles

Jacobi, Christopher Justin, Brandon Vaidyanathan, and Maria Andronicou. 2022. Mental Health Correlates of Sharing Personal Problems in Congregations during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

Khalsa, Simranjit, Brenton Kalinowski, Brandon Vaidyanathan, and Elaine Howard Ecklund. 2022. Science-Religion Boundaries in Indian Scientific Workplaces. Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science.

Jacobi, Christopher Justin, and Brandon Vaidyanathan. 2021. Racial differences in anticipated COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among religious populations in the US. Vaccine.

Frankham, Emma, Christopher Jacobi, and Brandon Vaidyanathan. 2021. Race, trust in police, and mental illness crisis support, Contexts.

DeAngelis, Reed T., Gabriel A. Acevedo, Brandon Vaidyanathan, and Christopher G. Ellison. 2021. Coping with an Evil World: Contextualizing the Stress‐Buffering Role of Scripture Reading. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

Kirstin R. W. Matthews, Erin Yang, Steven W. Lewis, Brandon R. Vaidyanathan & Monica Gorman. 2020. International scientific collaborative activities and barriers to them in eight societies, Accountability in Research.

Vaidyanathan, Brandon. 2020. “How minority religion can shape corporate capitalism: An emergentist account and empirical illustration.” Business and Society 59(5)

Salazar, Esmeralda Sánchez, Brandon Vaidyanathan, Elaine Howard Ecklund, Adriana Garcia. 2019. “Challenging Evolution in Public Schools: Race, Religion, and Attitudes towardTeaching Creationism.” Socius.

Vaidyanathan, Brandon, Simranjit Khalsa, and Elaine Howard Ecklund. 2018. “Naturally ambivalent: Religion’s role in shaping environmental action.” Sociology of Religion 79(4): 472-494.

Johnson, David R., Brandon Vaidyanathan, and Elaine Howard Ecklund. 2018. “Structural Strain in Science: Organizational Context, Career Stage, Discipline, and Role Composition.” Sociological Inquiry 88(1):5-31.

Vaidyanathan, Brandon. 2018. “The Politics of the Liturgy in the Archdiocese of Bangalore.” Pp. 180-205 in: Catholics in the Vatican II Era: Local Histories of a Global Event. Edited by Kathleen Sprows Cummings, Timothy Matovina, and Robert Orsi. Cambridge University Press.

Vaidyanathan, Brandon, Simranjit Khalsa, and Elaine Howard Ecklund. 2016. “Gossip as social control?: Informal sanctions on ethical violations in scientific workplaces.” Social Problems 63(4):554-572.

Vaidyanathan, Brandon, David Johnson, Pamela Prickett, and Elaine Howard Ecklund. 2016. “Rejecting the Conflict Narrative: American Jewish and Muslim Views on Science and Religion.” Social Compass 63(4):478-496.

Vaidyanathan, Brandon, Michael Strand, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Meghan Davis, Amanda Varela, and Thomas Buschman. 2016. “Causality in Contemporary American Sociology: An Empirical Assessment and Critique.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 46(1):3-26.

Offutt, Steven, LiErin Probasco, and Brandon Vaidyanathan. 2016. “Religion, Poverty and Development.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 55(2):207-215.

 

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