Robert Heineman reviews James Davis Hunters The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age Without Good or Evil. A serious subject, a pretty good book, and a good review. A paragraph, for the flavor: "The result, as Hunter has so ably shown, has been to render the concept of character vacuous. Moral education has become an oxymoron, and, in the form dictated by modern psychology, has become a potential danger to American society. Any creed or organization that challenges the need for non-judgmental universality is quickly moved outside the bounds of legitimate public discourse. At the same time, those beliefs that do not so challenge, no matter how quirky or foolish, are seen as within the realm of policy discussion. As a consequence, robust public debate, with its attendant analysis of ideas and creation of new proposals, has been effectively stifled while the most superficial and non-threatening forms of rhetoric continue to be seen as worthy of attention."
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