I will refer to the prestige culture in American culture around the time of Kennedy's election in 1960 as basically Yankee. Then as now, Harvard symbolized Yankee values -- liberal values.
From the standpoint of liberal Yankee values, then as now, the Roman Catholic Church symbolized pre-modern conservative values.
Symbolically, Kennedy's election marked a new advance of American Catholics in the prestige culture of American culture. Up to his election in 1960, people from white Anglo-Saxon Protestant backgrounds had dominated the prestige culture in American culture.
Today six Justices on the United States Supreme Court come from a Roman Catholic background. This shows just how much American culture today is different from American culture in 1960s.
Today when conservatives glibly criticize the mainstream media for allegedly being liberal, those critics mean in effect Yankee.
Historically, over against Yankee culture in American culture, there was Southern culture, which was based on the ideology of white supremacy. To be sure, Southern culture represented another strain of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture involved in Yankee culture in American culture.
Today when conservatives glibly criticize the mainstream media for allegedly being liberal, those critics are in effect aligning themselves with white Southern culture.
Of course in 1960, there were a large number of African Americans, mostly Protestants, mostly in Southern culture, but also in Yankee culture in northern cities.
Naturally there were other significant groups of Americans in 1960 who had their own distinctive cultural customs -- such as Jews, Mormons, and Native Americans.
Symbolically, Kennedy's narrow victory in 1960 represented an advance for all out-groups in American culture, not just the American Catholic out-group.
But the American Catholic bishops did not support Kennedy's candidacy in the 1960 presidential election. As a result, many American Catholics who listened to the bishops did not support Kennedy.
Now, whether or not Kennedy was motivated by political pragmatism, he supported the black civil rights movement in his 1960 presidential campaign -- and in his presidency. Of course as everybody knows, President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963.
Today, thanks to legislation passed subsequently under President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Jim Crow laws and customs in Southern culture in 1960 are now a thing of the past.
Otherwise, however, white Southern culture today is deeply conservative, just as the Roman Catholic Church today is still deeply conservative, despite a few admittedly significant changes instituted by the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) in the Roman Catholic Church.
Now, the Roman Catholic bishops claim to be the sole arbiters of what is the current "Tradition" that practicing Catholics are supposed to honor -- at least until the bishops change it. As the sole arbiters of what is the current "Tradition" for practicing Roman Catholics, the bishops occasionally change the official rubbish that the church teaches.
For example, before the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) in the Roman Catholic Church, the church was officially teaching certain rubbish that Paul Blanshard criticized in his books AMERICAN FREEDOM AND CATHOLIC POWER, 2nd ed. (Beacon Press, 1958; 1st ed., 1949) and COMMUNISM, DEMOCRACY, AND CATHOLIC POWER (Beacon Press, 1951).
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