Word: moral
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Disaster sends us looking for the devil. As the aftermath of Flight 800 showed, it is a terrible anxiety, a kind of low-grade moral infection, not to know exactly what evil you're up against...
Well, that is how most Americans feel about homosexual marriage, which constitutes the ultimate societal declaration of the moral equality of homosexuality and heterosexuality. They don't feel that way, and they don't want society to say so. They don't want their schools, for example, to teach their daughters that society is entirely indifferent whether they marry a woman or a man. Given the choice between what Sullivan calls the virtually normal (homosexuality) and the normal, they choose for themselves, and hope for their children, the normal...
They do so because of various considerations: tradition, utility, religion, moral preference. Not good enough reasons, say the gay activists. No? Then show me yours for opposing polygamy and incest...
Baron Pierre De Coubertin, the French nobleman who revived the Olympic Games, was a firm believer in the ancient Greek ideal of exercising mind and body in harmony. The role of sport is "at once physical, moral and social," he wrote. "I have often noticed that those who find themselves first in physical exercises are also first in their studies. The serious commitment in one area promotes the desire to be first throughout...
This is O.K. for a while. Director Edward Zwick has a deft way with combat scenes, and nobody is better than Washington at conveying tormented dutifulness. What's not so O.K. is Courage Under Fire's pretensions to moral seriousness. It would like to be a thoughtful meditation on bravery, honor, truth--the big topics. But it's really just a crudely manipulated mystery story, building suspense by arbitrarily withholding pertinent information. It's hard to take its thoughts on integrity seriously when it exhibits so little of that quality in its own storytelling...