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God on the Quad by Naomi Schaefer Riley
- Abstract
We have grown used to the notion that America is now a nation divided between two cultures—red and blue. But what do the colors stand for? Too often “blue” is taken to denote education and worldliness (European vacations, NPR, secularism) while “red” stands for ignorance and naive credulity (NASCAR, talk radio, megachurches). As the conventional wisdom would have it, one side is cultured, while the other has, in the anthropological sense, a culture—and a primitive one at that.
But what if our familiar understanding of this divide is mistaken, a case of comparing choice apples with common oranges—and only then finding the oranges wanting? After all, red America may have its quotient of fools and boors, but so too does blue America (just consider the lumpenbobos on display at any upscale Manhattan nightclub). A more arresting question is whether the converse is true. If blue America has its Ivy League and jet-setting business class, is there a genuinely “elite” cohort within America’s red culture, too?
About the Author
Mark C. Henrie is senior editor at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
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