THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 26, 1995 TAG: 9511250174
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY BRINKLEY CRAFT GORANSON
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
THE MORAL COMPASS
Stories for Life's Journey
EDITED WITH COMMENTARY BY WILLIAM J. BENNETT
Simon & Schuster. 824 pp. $30.
William Bennett is back in fine form with this companion volume to his popular 1993 anthology, The Book of Virtues. This one, as its title bespeaks, focuses on morality.
Both books pose questions such as what does it mean to become a compassionate person, an honorable person in relationships, a morally sensitive person in daily life? The heart of the second book, like the first, is how certain stories depict lessons of moral behavior, good conscience and honor.
The format of the two books is the same, anecdotal. In the new one, the former drug czar and Secretary of Education laments the breakdown in contemporary moral consensus and places the root cause in the home.
``The decline of the American family constitutes perhaps the greatest long-term threat to our children's well-being,'' he writes. Throughout his book he argues that home and family must enable children at an early age to develop a moral sense and good habits. He correctly points out that all homes teach lessons even if they are the wrong kind.
The Moral Compass attempts to advance moral dialogue through the interaction of characters in stories. We are asked to consider whether these models make sense in our society as well. The moral characters, whether human, supernatural beings or animals, do not see the world as a place of competition and conflicting interests but in simple terms of transforming whatever problem, injustice or misery is at hand.
Bennett arranges the stories and poems in seven categories that shape us somewhat chronologically. He begins with soothing lullabies and ends with the Great Commandment about loving God and one's neighbor foremost. He emphasizes that virtue and morality are not only about making our own journey through life smoother and more successful. Easing the path for others should be an equal if not more important concern. Though Bennett claims that the aim of the book is to aid in the task of moral education for the young, it also serves as a reminder of the best ideals for all ages.
Bennett writes with a distinctive voice and impressively articulates the noble hope of directing attention and insight toward improving the moral behavior of people and communities today. Illustrations are well chosen, and a good index is helpful in finding the stories.
Despite the strengths of the book - a careful and balanced anthology of good and bad, right and wrong behavior - it is tedious to read straight through. The sheer number of stories about such things as lizards turning into emeralds and birds with golden feathers is an overdose of magic and metamorphosis. I appreciated more the selected pieces by Mother Teresa, Albert Schweitzer and others that are historically documented. Families reading to children, however, will no doubt feel the opposite. This is a book better read aloud in minutes of togetherness.
Still, The Moral Compass presents the problem of preaching to the converted. It is far more likely that families who less need to ponder this book will be those who make the most of it. So the question looms: How might the message be conveyed to families who need it most? MEMO: Brinkley Craft Goranson is a retired Lutheran pastor who lives in
Virginia Beach. by CNB