Essay On Gabler's 'America The Stony-Heartd'
Bryant Hernandez
English 1C
Professor Shahoian
4 September 2013
The Bold Play On Words
"America the Stony-Hearted," is the title of a column by famous journalist and political commentator, Neal Gabler. Gabler believes we have become "a different country morally from what we were." Ultimately though, his analysis of a "moral revolution" in the U.S. over the past 30 years, in my perspective, is inaccurate. Gabler states: “When the political history of the last 30 years is written, scholars will no doubt describe a rightward revolution that jolted this country out of its embrace of New Deal, big-government progressivism and into a love affair with small-government conservatism.” In accordance to recent political issues, the phrase “love …show more content…
In undergoing a revolution for the nation’s soul, we may have found ourselves losing it.
When taken into context though, the question arises: is the statement really bold or is Gabler’s approach in how he directed the concluding statement bold? By lacking “compassion”, being “tolerant”, and serving the “community” instead of the individual, the nation’s stance is therefore deemed “immoral”. Denotatively speaking, the word immoral implies not confirming to the accepted standards of morality. The words used by Gabler though —compassion, tolerance, and community— are often associated connotatively with morality. Therefore, Gabler’s concluding statement, although bold, is quite contradicting and inaccurate once again. Even if there was a possibility of being accurate, you cannot assert a statement based on a generalization — just because a few may fall into the category depicted, doesn’t mean the whole nation
English 1C
Professor Shahoian
4 September 2013
The Bold Play On Words
"America the Stony-Hearted," is the title of a column by famous journalist and political commentator, Neal Gabler. Gabler believes we have become "a different country morally from what we were." Ultimately though, his analysis of a "moral revolution" in the U.S. over the past 30 years, in my perspective, is inaccurate. Gabler states: “When the political history of the last 30 years is written, scholars will no doubt describe a rightward revolution that jolted this country out of its embrace of New Deal, big-government progressivism and into a love affair with small-government conservatism.” In accordance to recent political issues, the phrase “love …show more content…
In undergoing a revolution for the nation’s soul, we may have found ourselves losing it.
When taken into context though, the question arises: is the statement really bold or is Gabler’s approach in how he directed the concluding statement bold? By lacking “compassion”, being “tolerant”, and serving the “community” instead of the individual, the nation’s stance is therefore deemed “immoral”. Denotatively speaking, the word immoral implies not confirming to the accepted standards of morality. The words used by Gabler though —compassion, tolerance, and community— are often associated connotatively with morality. Therefore, Gabler’s concluding statement, although bold, is quite contradicting and inaccurate once again. Even if there was a possibility of being accurate, you cannot assert a statement based on a generalization — just because a few may fall into the category depicted, doesn’t mean the whole nation