Empower America, an organization co-directed by William J. Bennett and Jack Kemp, has just released The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators 2001, an update of the cultural barometer initiated in 1990. In an interview coinciding with the release, Bennett noted that, although some of the indicators have shown improvement, the trends involving the continuing breakdown […]

In my October, 2000 Special Pre-Election Issue, paraphrasing Pat Buchanan, I wrote that the 2000 election was not to be about who gets what or the details of policy, but rather was to be about who we are. Now, three months after Election Day, I’m even more convinced. The post-election fight in Florida and the […]

Last summer, the Federal Communications Commission released a report that was critical of the marketing practices of the entertainment industry, accusing it of, among other things, directly targeting younger children with violent TV shows, CD’s, and movies. This report sparked a flurry of activity among policy makers, including hearings conducted by the U.S. Senate and […]

Several years ago, Forbes Magazine published a special issue, a collection of articles with a theme approximating the title of this essay. One of the articles, by Peggy Noonan, made the observation that we are the first generation in world history that expects happiness. This struck me as profound, but also prompted my asking, “how […]

David Brooks, Senior Editor of the Weekly Standard, has written a perceptive, but (to me) troubling book about the state of the upper middle class American ethos. Titled Bobos In Paradise, it posits a new ruling class, the bohemian bourgeoisie (“bobo”), that has been created by bridging the opposing cultural value systems. Briefly, Bobos are […]