The Moral and Cultural Case for Teaching the Great American Story’
America is in a cultural conundrum. The country leads the world economically, politically, and militarily, yet while leading the world, it seems to have left itself behind. According to Timothy Goeglein, the author of “Toward a More Perfect Union: The Moral and Cultural Case for Teaching the Great American Story,” America has abandoned its identity and the very values that initiated that rise to the top. The country is in moral and cultural decay.
Diagnosing the Societal Decay
Decay forms in response to a disease or from neglect. The latter seems to be the source of America’s moral and cultural decay, and Goeglein suggests there are a number of contributors to the source. The contributors, for those who have not been paying attention over the years, are the media, academia, and the public education system, which happen to be empowered by local, state, and federal government. Those governments are empowered by the taxpayer, whether willingly or unwillingly. It is a cyclical formula that allows each power to feed off the other, except for the taxpayers. The taxpayers (i.e., the average citizen) suffer the consequences from this cyclical formula and thus become the societal decay.
Goeglein pinpoints the issues within the systems that contribute to the decay. The most prominent suspect is the education industry: secondary and post-secondary. He addresses the problems of radical teaching and professorship that has become more and more overt and offensive in its attacks on the homeland. Howard Zinn makes an appearance, and Goeglien discusses how his book “A People’s History of the United States” worked to misconstrue and misrepresent American history to future generations in such a way that it left a bitter taste in their mouths. Now, those who have been tutored under such instruction, speak from those bitter mouths against the country, and they are not just students, but are now teachers, social activists, corporate executives, and politicians.
The author cites countless authors, journalists, and historians from the past and present to guide hs narrative. Goeglein, a conservative, doesn’t simply pull from fellow conservative writers and thinkers, but also references numerous liberal and left-wing thinkers who have noticed or experienced the destructive actions impacting American society. This range of political and social thought shows the reader that this moral and cultural war is not being fought along strict partisan lines. There is crossover.
Everything does point back to the education system, as it should. In one of the final chapters of the book, the author discusses the lack of constitutional knowledge among average Americans. Goeglien points out that some school districts and states are actively minimizing the use of civics and history in school, or not making it a required course. As if the problems of having deficient knowledge of civics and history have not been made clear already, a society devoid of that knowledge can only increase those problems and enlarge and deepen this decay.
A Study of the Obvious
“Toward a More Perfect Union” is an interesting read only for the fact that there are a lot of good thoughts and quotes in it, along with some statistics. For those who have not been paying attention to the sources of America’s decay, this book is a good place to start catching up. To that point, however, the book is a study of the obvious. As aforementioned, the author quotes various authors, journalists, and historians, but they are simply recalling their experiences, which are results from a society in cultural and moral decline, or they are stating the country’s glaring societal problems.
The author gives a few suggestions about how to reverse the decay, like parents becoming more involved in their children’s education, school-choice advocacy, and promoting civics and American history in schools. “Toward a More Perfect Union” is an echo of what the Right has been yelling for the past decade. Goeglien doesn’t give the reader any information they can’t readily find from places like The Heritage Foundation, PragerU, or The Federalist. Ultimately, the book adds another voice to the ongoing, though necessary, chorus lamenting America’s lumbering toward destruction, but doesn’t add anything new to that chorus.
‘Toward a More Perfect Union: The Moral and Cultural Case for Teaching the Great American Story’
By Timothy Goeglein
Fidelis Publishing, March 31, 2023
Hardcover: 208 pages
