Abstract

A major aspect of the contemporary culture war centers on the relations among race, class, and gender at American institution of higher education. As we shall see through a close reading of Walter Benn Michaels’ The Trouble with Diversity, many Leftist scholars follow the classic Marxist position of seeing economic issues as more essential than cultural ones. This conflict between culture and capitalism often results in a splitting off of one from the other, which in turn, undermines our ability to see how these different social forces interact in a complex manner. One reason for this polarization is that people seek to avoid anxiety caused by ambiguity and ambivalence by splitting and simplifying the world according to groups of opposing characteristics. In response, psychoanalysis tells us that we need to find a way to overcome this defense mechanism by increasing our tolerance for fundamental human conflicts, like the conflict between society and the individual.