Book Review

As the debate over family values and moral clarity continues to engage the Boomer generation, Professor Andrew Schoedinger's latest work, Where Have All Our Values Gone? responds to many of the ethical problems that today's mainstream media and academic community have been hesitant to approach. Delivered in two parts, Schoedinger begins with a candid review of the psycho-babblistic hype that has led to today's politically correct love affair with moral relativism. This is followed by a terse analysis of the causes that have led to the decline of moral values in our culture. Part two capitalizes on the argument made in the first nine chapters, and offers a resolution to America's moral quagmire.

Unabashed in its critique of John Dewey's "progressive" education and Benjamin Spock's "enlightened" child care, the first two chapters of the book develop the author's foundational premise that our culture's decline in virtue has been brought about by the deification of the individual, and the dismissal of personal ethical commitment. This point is clearly heard when Shoedinger takes the progressive educational programs that have come to dominate the academic community to task, by reminding all parties concerned that students are better taught by traditional task-masters, as opposed to being pampered by classroom field guide's who mislead society to believe that school must be fun if it is to be effective. Likewise, contemporary American parenting is quickly set straight by the author's contention that the "half century since the original publication of [Dr. Benjamin Spock's] Baby and Child Care has demonstrated that such a permissive way of dealing with aberrant behavior constitutes a dereliction of parental duty because it has failed to teach children that they are responsible for their own behavior."


Continuing along the same lines, the ethical enemy of our day is unmasked in the third chapter as Schoedinger offers one the clearest explanations of today's politically correct love affair with moral relativism. Reminiscent of Pogo's famous line "We have met the enemy, and it is us," chapters four, five, and six analyze the historical genesis behind the moral decline of the twentieth century. Due attention is given to the direct effect that McCarthyism, the Cold War, the counterculture of the Sixties, and the discord over the Viet-Nam War had on the loss of civility and the diminishment of such community virtues as patriotism and duty. In chapter seven, Schoedinger points to six distinct stages that have led to the corruption of our legal system, making the case that our overly-litigious society has cashed in on the myth of victimization; and that victimization itself "is perfectly consistent with the child-centered upbringing recommended by Dr. Spock, concerned not with others but with the self." Chapter eight confronts the corruptive influence of today's entertainment industry, noting its obvious disregard for public decency. Schoedinger argues that the problem arises from narcissistic "producers and directors [whom] have convinced themselves that they are artists on the cutting edge of social commentary."

Constituting the second part of the book chapters ten through fourteen offer a clearly laid-out means to a moral end that breaks away from the typical self-help 'empower-the-little-guy' drivel that has come to plague America's bookshelves. Schoedinger's game plan is simple, but tough: drop your self-infatuation, recognize your moral conscience, accept your duty, confront evil for what it is, and put yourself on a virtuous path. To those who would object that such a game plan is too difficult, only goes to make the professor's argument for him. Echoing the sentiments of both Plato and Aristotle, Schoedinger's resolution to moral decline calls for a social discipline and perseverance that few academics seldom speak about anymore. Similarly so, Where Have All Our Values Gone? is a book that is seldom seen. It is a book that speaks from the academic world, but talks to the real world.

Review by Professor James Stockton