Question

How did framing the Cold War in absolute terms as a battle between freedom and slavery influence Americans’ ability to understand many world events?
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Answer 1

The Cold War was in many ways a very polarized ideological battle. In it capitalism represented the power of the individual, which is integral to the ideas upon which the United States was built, and communism represented equality of outcome for all individuals, an idea based on the power of the state. Because America was founded on freedom from state corruption, communism was seen as a form of complicit slavery to the state. One of the biggest cultural impacts on the United States as a result of these events would be a very strong sense of patriotism, especially in the baby boomer generation. This causes many Americans to see world issues as resultant of an imbalance of cultural freedoms.