One Nation, After All: How the Middle Class Thinks About God, Country, and Family.

• Author: Glastris, Paul

By reading this book, you could have predicted the public's tolerant initial reaction to the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. The book is about the moral views of the American middle class. In particular, the author, a prolific Boston University sociologist, tests the widely held assumption that there is a "culture war" going on out there among the general public (as opposed to among humanities professors and editorialists). As commonly understood, this culture war pits conservatives against liberals -- or, in the language of sociology, traditionalists against modernists -- in a battle over whether American culture is in moral decline, and if so, how to reverse it. Traditionalists believe in old-fashioned families with stay-at-home moms; they resent multiculturalism; they oppose abortion; they are highly patriotic in a my-country-right-or-wrong way; they believe in the absolute moral standards laid down by God in the Bible. Modernists have more flexible ideas about family structure; they defend the right of women to have abortions and work outside the home; they celebrate ethnic, racial, and religious diversity; they are made uncomfortable by unquestioning patriotism, and on moral issues tend to be secular and relativist.

To test this idea, Alan Wolfe and his research assistants conducted interviews with some 200 Americans in suburbs across the country. What they found was that while a certain fraction fall into one of these two categories, the majority do not. Instead, the battle between traditionalist and modernist positions is going on inside the hearts and minds of individual Americans. Most of those interviewed generally agree with the conservative critique of America -- that softness toward criminals, easy divorce and abortion, permissive parenting, welfare programs that encourage illegitimacy, and the secular ideology of elites, have conspired to erode our moral sense. But these same people also see the benefits that come with the liberal-modernist stress on personal freedom and moral autonomy. They may think children are better off with Mom at home, but they see how happy their wives are working, and they like the extra income. They may have moral qualms about divorce and abortion, but they also have loved ones who've had them, and aren't altogether sure they made the wrong decision. "Americans do feel that they have lost the distinction between right and wrong and desperately want it back," writes Wolfe. But they part company with...