“ We have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of blue states and red states. We are, and always will be, the United States of America “ . When he was elected President of the United States on November 4th last year, Barack Obama seemed to embody a new, reconciled America. His speech itself, as shows the previous extract, expressed the idea that Americans were no longer divided: a black president in the White house, the symbol was strong enough to give credence to this belief, forty years after Martin Luther King's assassination.
Yet this point of view was maybe exaggerated. Divisions in the United States don't amount only to racism, they also concern gun politics, sex education, abortion..., that is to say the Culture wars.
And all of these issues are still at the core of strong conflicts in America, as shows the current fight of American gays to be granted larger rights. That is why Americans aren't really a united people. On the contrary, division and the Culture wars seem to be typical of the United States nowadays, to characterize the modern American society's identity.
But, after all, can't these culture wars and this division inside the American society be regarded as a good signal for America? Are they really a threat to the American nation?

These highly divisive conflicts are mostly a good sign for the United States. Above all, this division shows that Americans today still enjoy a wide freedom of speech, one of the values that are at the root of their society but must never be taken for granted. The Culture wars are, indeed, the evidence that each person or group can defend its interests, that every American can express himself, that every opinion is heard. For a nation as cosmopolitan as the United States, which has grown through successive immigration waves and as a consequence binds together individuals from very diverse origins, this good condition of the freedom of speech is essential.
Besides, confronting ideas, even