Toward the Renewal of Civilization

by Boxx, T. William; Quinlivan, Gary M.

• ISBN13: 9780802845344
• ISBN10: 0802845347
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-07-01
• Publisher: Eerdmans Pub Co

Summary

This powerful work the addresses the troubling state of contemporary society at the level of the core political and cultural principles of Western civilization. Twelve leading scholars and social thinkers examine the origins and consequences of new ideologies that have challenged traditional understandings of human nature and society. Delving into such topics as the counterculture of the sixties, politics and culture, the American founding, social-sexual values, natural law, "high" culture and popular culture, and multiculturalism, the authors show how the abandonment of America's intellectual and moral heritage has contributed to disorder and social decline.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix	(2)
Foreword	xi
1. Institutionalizing the Counterculture	1	(9)
Hilton Kramer
2. Cultural Origins of Politics: The Modern Imagination of Escape	10	(16)
Claes G. Ryn
3. Christianity and the Spirit of the Age	26	(16)
Joyce A. Little
4. Culture, Politics, and the American Founding	42	(14)
Charles R. Kesler
5. Radical Challenges to Liberal Democracy	56	(32)
William B. Allen
6. What to Do While Awaiting the Apocalypse: The Role of Creative Minorities in a Time of Cultural Crisis	88	(13)
Stephen J. Tonsor
7. Women in a Changing World: The Consequences and the Implications	101	(13)
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
8. Marriage and the Illusion of Moral Neutrality	114	(14)
Robert P. George
9. The Law and the Loss of Urbanity	128	(24)
Hadley Arkes
10. Immunity, Not Surgery: Why It Is Better to Exert Cultural Authority Than to Impose Censorship	152	(13)
Martha Bayles
11. Multiculturalism and the Problem of Cultural Relativism	165	(13)
Dinesh D'Souza
12. Revolt of the Masses Revisited	178	(14)
Ralph McInerny
About the Contributors	192	(6)
Index	198