They erupted into full battle during the late '60s and the Vietnam War era. Traditionalists such as philosopher Allan Bloom, novelist Saul Bellow and intellectual William Bennett defended the traditional curriculum based on the canon of Western civilization. The curriculum changed.
Wars are hard to contain, of course, and the culture wars spilled into politics.
Many Americans, including Republicans, agreed. The Cultural Left won another battle. In the 1992 election year, the culture wars went below the mainstream media radar screen. The traditionalist George Bush lost his re-election bid to Bill Clinton, our first postmodernist president. Traditionalists respect human experience and the concept of truths learned from that experience, and most of them rely on religious beliefs for moral guidance.