Word: bennette
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...LAWYER: Robert S. Bennett...
Those qualities, in that order, are the 10 sections in Bennett's 831-page volume called The Book of Virtues (Simon & Schuster). The book obviously appeals to some appetite in the American people. Published in November, Bennett's book has been 10 weeks on the best-seller list...
...Bennett is not demagoguing the verities. He anthologizes the old republic and the old virtues, but he addresses virtue at a level of commonality that is deeper than politics or nostalgia. "We must not permit our disputes over thorny political questions," Bennett writes, "to obscure the obligation we have to offer instruction to all our young people in the area in which we have, as a society, reached a consensus: namely on the importance of good character...
Americans need to be repersuaded about the virtue of virtue. What are the chief American virtues now? All those that Bennett lists, no doubt. But they are terribly out of focus. Traditional societies evolve virtues; experience over generations teaches them which virtues are necessary (honor, hospitality and modesty for the Bedouin, for example). A somewhat violent, highly mobile information-television society of short moral attention span, of merciless scrutiny of its role models and of crazed blasts of overstimulation tends to subside into a psychology of grievance and entitlement...
...Bennett book ought to be distributed, like an owner's manual, to new parents leaving the hospital. It is basic and corny in places, but as with everything else that got in the path of the baby boomers, it is necessary once again to reinvent the wheel...