The Broken Hearth: Reversing the Moral Collapse of the American Family

by William J. Bennett

Book Overview

Bestselling author William Bennett addresses the central social issue of our time--the deline of the family--in a book as intellectually provocative and politically controversial as his landmark The Death of Outrage.

Our recent economic prosperity has masked the devastation of the American family, which is now under seige as never before. From the dramatic rise in illegitimacy, divorce, and single parenthood to the call for the recognition...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 076790513X
• ISBN13: 9780767905138
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Shocking and brilliant

Bennett describes a hideous, irrational, and sick society that I was shocked to learn existed outside of many of our closed lives. Bennett is a conservative Republican, but the stuff he talks about should be at least considered by everyone. I personally want more freedom for everyone (I'm a Libertarian), but what Bennett makes clear is that people today consider the breakdown of the American family the result of freedom (if we have freedom, we'll have promiscuity, out of wedlock children, higher STD rates, abortion, and teen mothers), but it's not freedom that causes that- it's lack of responsibility (and those don't have to go hand in hand). His main point is that the traditional nuclear family is the foundation for a just society and it's being destroyed. He makes a brilliant argument for his case. Everyone needs to read this and contemplate the future we're creating.

A much needed defense of the family

This book is an examination of how the family is unraveling in Western society. Bennett looks at all the worrying signs: the erosion of marriage, the increase in divorce, the promotion of alternative lifestyles, the degrading of values, the increase in cohabitation, and the triumph of radical feminism, individualism and hedonism. These trends, taken together, have had an enormous impact on Western culture. Consider but one of the monumental changes taking place to day: the push for homosexual marriage. "What is being demanded," says Bennett, "Is the most revolutionary change ever made to our most important institution." To radically alter the nature of marriage is to at the same time pry marriage from its cultural, social, religious and biological underpinnings. Once done, it then can be redefined by anyone at will. Bennett is clever enough to realize that there is no single cause to the collapse of the traditional family. The are economic, legal and cultural reasons one can adduce. For example, radical feminism has taken its toll. So too have liberalized divorce laws. The massive increase of working mothers is another factor. The rise and triumph of the sexual revolution is yet another important factor. And he is not asking us to turn back the clock - at least not all of it. Some social changes of the past have century have been helpful. But if the over-all direction we are taking is unproductive, and in fact harmful, then it is time to reassess our direction. As C.S. Lewis has reminded us, progress can only be achieved by getting to where you want to go to. If you have taken a wrong turn along the way, the first step is to go back to that point. And if over thirty years of social science research is correct in telling us that marriage and family breakdown are serious and damaging social problems, then the sooner we start our u-turn, the better. Bennett says that while we all must play a part in the rescue of marriage and family, it is important that societies and governments also play their role. And he reminds us that social trends are not irreversible. "Other social problems once thought to be intractable have, after all, yielded to resolute action." The negative trends we see all around us can be turned around, if the have the commitment and care to see things change. Part of the way we turn things around is to tell people the truth - the truth that marriage and family are good for children, for parents and society. And this book helps to make that case.

bennett tackles tough issues

william bennett does an excellent job in explaining and demonstrating his position on such controversial topics as divorse,homosexuality abortion and single parenting. he clearly presents a logical and defensible position on these subjects substantiated by sociological, demographic, and fiscal data. even if you do not subscribe to his philosophy, it is very hard to argue with his presentation of fact.

The declining family

In 1960, one in twenty births was out of wedlock. Now, the ratio is one in three. Celebrities such as Madonna and Jodie Foster have been upfront in getting pregnant but not getting married (thank God Madonna finally married her second child's father). Although the divorce rate peaked in 1980 (how much higher could it have gone?), it has not significantly decreased since then. Regardless of the fact that gays have legitimate rights to privacy, many groups advocate sanctification of the gay relationship in marriage.Bill Bennett takes these issues on and, predictably enough, he decries the current situation. He notes that there has been some progress in solving our social ills such as a reduction in the welfare roles and a reduction in crime but, generally, the situation remains grim. I would have liked a better explanation of how the crime rate and welfare roles have decreased when there are so many out of wedlock births ... that seems to be inconsistent. However, I nontheless agree with his premise. A society which encourages strong families is more stable and has less social problems.Certainly, some of Bennett's solutions are controversial, such as making divorce laws tougher. However, I agree that often while a spouse argues that it will be better for the kids if the marriage ends than if the kids live in a house with a rocky marriage, the opposite is in fact true. Unless there is abuse or some other catastrophic problem, how many children would vote to have Mom and Dad divorce if they had the choice? How many children, as opposed to their parents, are actually happier after a divorce? I would suggest very few are.I am very conservative and the instability of the family is of deep concern to me. This book crystalizes my views and will be helpful in my formulating arguments for the preservation of the traditional family. Therefore, since Bennett echoes and elucidates my concerns, I like and recommend this book.

Marriage and the Family was done in by Psychology

Bennett has correctly described the present dilemma of marriage and family in America. Maybe Bennett can raise it up again like Lazarus because Marriage has died and psychology has killed it. In a psychologized society, it isn't just that we are no longer required to bear suffering. It becomes an act of self-betrayal not to leave our unhappy marriage and seek our "soul mate" or our "true selves." The traditional family has degenerated from a social institution to a psychological relationship; from a married man and woman with their own biological children to any kind of loosely-gendered partners, haphazardly-acquired progeny or drive-in occupants of any single abode. The remnants of Freud's seduction theory can be seen in the psychologized fusion between sex and love in the last 50 years, a fusion that did not exist before in Western civilization, except as poet's flights of fancy which only the most naive would care to emulate in their real life. The combination of Freud's theories that has sex funding most human behaviors, and our psychologized cultural paradigm shift from goals and principles to roles and feelings has turned our emotional and love relationships into a competitive manic-depressive playing field. The reason we have such difficulty is that sex has been thrust forward as a role rather than remaining in the background of our lives as a biological goal. Our natural sex drive has been twisted into an unnatural self-image that we term "sexuality," or "sexual orientation." We have subverted the physiological sex drive to be the handmaiden of psychological self-esteem. In today's culture we are not a human being with a biological sex drive so much as a sexy person based upon our looks, our age, our clothes, our personality, our self-esteem, or how much money and power we have. In a society where most people would choose to be sexy and high rather than loveable and stable, sex and power naturally begin to seem more important than love and community. We have questions that no one seems to be able to answer. How do I know when it's "real love?" What about romance, stars in my eyes and soul mates? The desire for a soul mate is a misapprehension. We must each relate to the cosmos alone, not through another person. Any soul mate we may find will devolve into a person with flaws, and unless we understand this our search will last forever. The mystics have always told us that love is the basic material we are all made of, what the universe is made of, and when we chip away all that is not us, we are all revealed as being love-not being in love, being love itself. When we become revealed as love we no longer have stars in our eyes, we are the very stars themselves. The idea of marriage and family as moral principles sustaining a civil society has systematically devolved to the idea of marriage and family as psychologically sanctioned methods of securing happiness, legal rights and government benefits for indivi