Bennet on Religion

Bennett sets up an unsettling depiction of today's society. However, it seems as though he is merely trying to draw pathos out of readers. He mentions the most heinous crimes, and extreme situations and attempts to pass it off as a normal occurrence in society. He states over and over that "something has gone wrong with us." Though some of the situations he speaks of are accepted as socially deviant but most all of society, some of it is extremely relative. He speaks a great deal on out of wedlock births. And further, he goes onto to include them in a list of things that "are not good to get use to." To some people, out of wedlock births are not a horrible things. It is common for single women to want to have a child before they are no longer able to. He loses some ethos when he attacks this perspective, especially being that this viewpoint is becoming more and more accepted. Also, he speaks a great deal about our low achievement scores on the secondary education level, but fails to mention how our educational institutions are set up differently than other countries. For example, we, by law, require all minors to attend school, where as many other countries do not, and only educate the more intelligent students. Equal education oppurtunities cannot be a bad thing, or credited to social regression. Bennett also lays a great deal of blame on the media. He makes the transition from Bach and Buddy Holly to Guns 'n' Roses and 2 Live Crew. However, he left out nearly two decades of music which, in essence had the same types of messages as these two examples. He does not note any "social regression" during this era, so it seems to be an indirect correlation between social deviance and music.

Bennett offers the solution of bringing religion back to educational institutes. He states that "we must have public policies that once again make the connection between our deepest beliefs and our legislative agenda." It is unfair to assume that the morality set up by the ten commandments in the Bible is even an accurate distinction between what is and is not moral. The only reason divorces are considered immoral, and pre-marital sex is considered to be wrong is because of the morals established in the Bible. And, it is absurd to assume that these morals are still applicable to what is going on in today's society. Re-establishing religion, first, by law, could not exist. Also, religion