Just in time to get you in the spirit for IWF’s book forum tomorrow (sponsored with the Ethics and Public Policy Center) at which James Bowman will talk about his new book,”Honor, A History,” Josiah Bunting has this to say in today’s Wall Street Journal:
“Can honor be resuscitated? As Mr. Bowman notes, ‘honor is stark and unforgiving,’ and early-21st-century America does not like stark choices. (‘Then it is the brave man chooses / While the coward turns aside,’ in the words of the old hymn.) ‘Character,’ meaning resolution, the persistence in right action whatever its costs, seems a quaint and Victorian crotchet. Citizens feverishly, fitfully, deplore the inadequacies of body armor for their Marines and soldiers; three days later, they have moved on. Did you say 32 Iraqis were blown up this morning, and a soldier killed, north of Baghdad? Shame. Let’s see what that does to the president’s poll numbers.”