Generation Gap or Gap Within a Generation?

Can the American system, which does fairly well at accommodating political or economic conflicts, handle a cultural battle, which begins to shape up more and more like the pointlessly violent strife of hostile religions sects?” So asked the Wall Street Journal in May 1970. The Kulturkampf to which it referred was an “argument over the way people think of themselves and how they should live .. . a cultural conflict [that] is potentially every bit as volatile as conflict over more substantial issues.”

To those who think in terms of issues, such a cultural conflict may appear implausible. A confrontation between guardsmen and students at Kent State or hard hats and demonstrators in New York they see as a clash of ha...