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Why Moralize upon It? - Democratic Education through American Literature and Film (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R3,115
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Why Moralize upon It? - Democratic Education through American Literature and Film (Hardcover)
Series: Politics, Literature, & Film
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously declared that "the greatest duty
of a statesman is to educate." The central claim of "Why Moralize
upon It?" is that it is not only statesmen who can help educate a
democratic citizenry, but also novelists and filmmakers. This
book's title is drawn from Melville's "Benito Cereno." Near the end
of this novella, after he has put down a rebellion of enslaved
Africans, the American captain Amasa Delano claims that "the past
is passed," and thus there is no need to "moralize upon it."
Melville suggests, though, that it is crucial for Americans to
critically examine American history and American political
institutions; otherwise, they may be blind to the existence of
injustices which will ultimately undermine democracy. Danoff argues
that novels and films play a crucial role in helping democratic
citizens undertake the moral reflection that must be engaged with
in order to preserve their political community and render it
"forever worthy of the saving," as Abraham Lincoln put it.
Contending that some of the most profound American thinking about
the nature of democratic leadership has come through novels more so
than treaties or essays, the works of fiction examined in this book
explore difficult questions rather than provide any easy answers.
Because these works have an ambiguous, nuanced, and tragic outlook,
they show citizen-readers how to think through the moral
complexities political issues on which they must render judgment.
The rich and multi-faceted democratic education that citizens glean
from outstanding works of fiction is particularly necessary at a
time when the media-landscape is often dominated by superficial
"viral moments," "sound-bites," and social media posts. Moreover,
given that we today live in an era of sharp political polarization
in which partisans often demonize one another, it is especially
valuable for Americans to be exposed to literary and cinematic
works of art which remind us that none of us have a monopoly on
virtue, and that all of us inhabit what Melville called "the common
continent of men."
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