1. Hillerman, Tony, Coyote Waits (New York: Harper Paperbacks, 1990).Google Scholar

2. The reference to “downstream effects” is from Bauer, Gary, “The Moral Ecosystem,” Focus on the Family Citizen newsletter (18 March 1991);Google Scholar TV as a “toxic waste dump” was from a syndicated column by Charon, Mona, Daily Oklahoman, 7 July 1993;Google Scholar see Medved's, Hollywood Versus America ((New York: HarperCollins, 1992)Google Scholar on his diagnosis of video pollution; Buchanan, Patrick was quoted in The Christian Science Monitor, 17 May 1993, p. 3.Google Scholar

3. See Bellah, Robert N., Madsen, Richard, Sullivan, William M., Swidler, Ann and Tipton, Steven M., Habits of the Heart (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985);Google Scholar works by Lasch, Christopher, including: “Capitalism vs. Cultural Conservatism?” First Things, April 1990, pp. 15–23;Google ScholarThe True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics (New York: Norton, 1991);Google ScholarCulture of Narcissism (New York: Norton, 1991);Google ScholarHaven in a Heartless World: The Family Besieged (New York: Basic Books, 1979);Google Scholar and Bell, Daniel, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 1976).Google Scholar

4. See Etzioni, Amatai, The Spirit of Community (New York: Crown, 1993);Google ScholarGlendon, Mary Ann, Rights Talk (New York: Free Press, 1991);Google Scholar and Elshtain, Jean Bethke, Democracy on Trial (New York: Basic Books, 1995).Google Scholar

5. See Putnam, Robert, “Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital,” Journal of Democracy 6 (01 1995): 65–78;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “Tuning In, Tuning Out: The Strange Disappearance of Social Capital in America,” PS: Political Science & Politics, 28, no. 4 (12 1995): 664–83.Google Scholar

6. See especially the works of Dworkin, Andrea, Pornography. Men Possessing Women (New York: Plume, 1989);Google Scholar and MacKinnon, Catharine, Only Words (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).Google Scholar

7. See Hertzke, Allen D., Echoes of Discontent (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1993), chap. 3.Google Scholar

8. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, chap. 4, section 38, from Origins 21 (16 05 1991).Google Scholar

9. Popper, Karl R., The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Basic Books, 1959),Google Scholar and Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1972). Popper stressed the importance of asserting falsifiable hypotheses of a theory, the lack of which doomed certain grand theories. In addition, he stressed that theories are better when they both encompass and surpass prior theories in relatively elegant fashion.Google Scholar

10. Easton, David, The Political System: An Inquiry into the State of Political Science, 2d ed. (New York: Knopf, 1971), implicitly criticized timid theorizing that never rises above the middle level.Google Scholar

11. See King, Gary, Keohane, Robert, and Verba, Sidney, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 29.Google ScholarKing, et al. clarify that the quest for scientific inference involves “using the facts we know to learn about facts we do not know” (p. 46).Google Scholar

12. Dodd argues that biology is a better model for the social sciences because of the complexity of variables and the potential for change. See Dodd, Lawrence, “Congress, The Presidency, and the American Experience: A Transformational Perspective,” in Divided Democracy, ed. Thurber, James A. (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1991).Google Scholar

13. Because the interdisciplinary study of ecology cannot bracket human influences, it has direct ecological linkages to human behavior. See Toulmin, Stephen, The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), pp. 228–29, 234.Google Scholar

14. The term moral ecology has been used before but without systematic evaluation. Madsen, Richard uses the specific term moral ecology in Morality and Power in a Chinese Village (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).Google Scholar Robert Bellah and his colleagues employed the term in Habits of the Heart, though at various times interchangeably with the term “social ecology,” to describe the “subtle ties that bind human beings to one another” (p. 284). In exploring the themes of Habits of the Heart, Charles H. Reynolds and Ralph V. Norman argue that environmental analogies are pertinent to an understanding of the “civic ecology.” See “The Longing for Community: Civic Ecology, Narrative, and Practices,” in Community in America: The Challenge of Habits of the Heart, ed. Reynolds, and Norman, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).Google Scholar In The Good Community (New York: Knopf, 1991), Bellah, et al. Google Scholar asserted that moral ecology was another way to describe effective institutions, a narrower denotation than is captured in this essay. Novak, Michael entitles a section of The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Free Press, 1993),Google Scholar “Protecting the Moral Ecology.” Novak explains Pope John Paul II's warning to American Catholics (that the U.S. media may be undercutting the moral virtues necessary for democracy and capitalism to work) to mean that the media represents “a form of pollution in the moral order even more destructive than the pollution of the physical environment.” “There is,” he says, “an ecology in morals as well as in the biosphere.” Novak also ends a 1997 essay on cultural crisis with a call to recognize the moral ecology, but without specifying what that might mean. See Novak, Michael, “Truth and Liberty: The Present Crisis in Our Culture,” The Review of Politics 59 (Winter 1997): 5–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar I used the term in Echoes of Discontent (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1993) prior to having read specific passages of Madson, Bellah, and Novak. The fact that several scholars coined the same theoretical construct, apparently independently of one another, provides one kind of corroboration that a genuine empirical phenomenon has been identified.Google Scholar

15. Leopold, Aldo, The Sand Country Almanac (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), first published in 1949.Google Scholar

16. Hardin, Garrett, “The Tragedy of the Commons' Science 162 (13 12 1968): 1243–48.Google ScholarPubMed

17. See Hancock, Trevor, “Health, Human Development, and the Community Ecosystem: Three Ecological Models,” Health Promotion International 8, No. 1, 1993;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMcLeroy, Kenneth R., Bibeau, Daniel, Steckler, Allan, and Glanz, Karen, “An Ecological Perspective for Health Promotion Programs,” Health Education Quarterly, 15 (1988): 351–78;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed and Stokols, Daniel, “Translating Social Ecology Theory into Guidelines for Community Health Promotion, American Journal of Health Promotion 10 (1996): 282–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

18. Egan, Timothy, “From Adolescent Angst to School Killings,” The New York Times, 14 June 1998, p. 1.Google Scholar

19. Huston, A.C., Donnerstein, E., Fairchild, H., Feshback, N.D., Katz, P.A., Murray, J.P., Rubenstein, E.A., Wilcox, B., and Zukerman, D., Big World, Small Screen: The Role of Television in American Society (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992),Google Scholar calculated that the average child sees approximately 12,000 violent acts a year. And levels have risen over the last two decades, as noted by Hattemer, B., “Violence in Media Causes Youth Violence,” in Violence: Opposing Viewpoints, ed. Barbour, Scott and Swisher, Karin (San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996).Google Scholar

20. In spite of the complexity of human influences, the academic community has produced an uncharacteristically strong consensus about the impact of media violence and behavior. See Big World Small Screen; Berkowitz, Leonard, Aggression: Its Causes, Consequences, and Control (St. Louis: McGraw-Hill, 1993););Google ScholarNational Institute of Mental Health, Television and Behavior: Ten Years of Scientific Progress and Implications for the 80s, vol. 1 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982);Google ScholarMurray, John P., “Children and Television Violence,” Kansas Journal of Law and Public Policy, 4 (1995): 7–14;Google Scholar Brandon. Centerwall, S., “Television Violence: The Scale of the Problem and Where to Go From Here,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 267 (10 06 1992): 3059–3063;CrossRefGoogle ScholarProthrow-Stith, Deborah, Deadly Consequences (New York: Harper Perennial, 1991);Google Scholar and National Television Violence Study Council, “National Television Violence Study, Summary of Findings and Recommendations,” Mediascope, <http://www.mediascope.ort/mediascope/ntvs.hrml>

21. Cannon, Carl, “Media Violence Increases Violence in Society,” in Violence in the Media, ed. Bruno, Leone (San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1995).Google Scholar

22. Since 1952 numerous congressional hearings and dozens of government reports, including Surgeon General reports in 1972 and 1979, have probed media violence. In 1969, the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence reported that violent television adversely affected viewers, a finding echoed in “The Attorney General's 1984 Task Force on Family Violence.” Report of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence to President Lyndon B. Johnson, Publication No. 0–331–948 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969).Google Scholar

23. On the role of media violence in the acquisition of “aggressive scripts,” see Berkowitz, Aggression; Abelson, R.P., “Script Processing in Attitude Formation and Decision-Making,” in Cognition and Social Behavior, ed. Carroll, J.S. and Payne, J.W. (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1976);Google Scholar and Hattemer, “Violence in the Media.”

24. International studies include Gerbner, George, “Violence and Terror in the Mass Media,” UNESCO report no. 102, Paris, France, 19880.Google Scholar See also Bogart, L., “Violence in the Mass Media,” Television Quarterly 8 (1969): 36–47;Google Scholar B. Centerwall “Television and Violence”; National Institute of Mental Health, “Television and Behavior,” Big World, Small Screen; Viemero, V., “Violence Viewing and Adolescent Aggression: A Longitudinal Study” (Paper presented at the International Television Studies Conference,London,10–12 April, 1986, ED 294555);Google ScholarKruttschnitt, C., Heath, L., and Ward, D.A., “Family Violence, Television Viewing Habits, and Other Adolescent Experiences Related to Violent Criminal Behavior,” Criminology 24 (1986): 235–67;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Huesmann, L.R. and Eron, L.D., eds., Television and the Aggressive Child: A Cross–National Comparison (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1986).Google Scholar

25. The National Commission, 1969, concluded that national violence rates rise after a violent newscast or program.

26. The teen school killers of 1996–1998 were all obsessed with violent pop culture and apparently patterned their behavior on such movies as “Natural Born Killers” and “The Basketball Diaries,” violent videos such as “Mortal Kombat,” and the violent lyrics of “gangsta rap.” See Timothy Egan, “From Adolescent Angst,” and Pearson, Mike, “The Price American Society is Paying for Violent Films,” The Washington Times, National Weekly Edition, 20–26 April 1998, p. 36.Google Scholar

27. Murray, “Children and Television Violence.”

28. Berkowitz, L., Aggression: A Social-Psychological Analysis (New York: McGraw Hill, 1962).Google Scholar

29. George Gerbner may have been the first to use the term, but others have found the Mean World Syndrome a useful model, including Murray, “Children and Television Violence,” and the large research team for Mediascope, which described it as “increased feelings of victimization.”

30. Donnerstein, Edward, “Pornography: Its Effect on Violence Against Women,” in Pornography and Sexual Aggression, ed. Malamuth, Neil and Donnerstein, Edward (Orlando, FL: Academic Press, 1984), p. 40.Google Scholar

31. The District Attorney of Oklahoma County, Bob Macy, cited a dramatic reduction of reported rapes when the city cracked down on the previously thriving sex industry, including porn shops. Interview with author, 1995.

32. Prothrow-Stith, Deborah, Deadly Consequences (New York: Harper Collins, 1991).Google Scholar

33. Paul, Pope John II, Centesimus Annus, chap. 4, section 39.Google Scholar

34. See Promises to Keep, ed. Popenoe, David, Elshtain, Jean Bethke, and Blankenhorn, David (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996),Google Scholar and Bennett, William, Index of Leading Cultural Indicators (Washington, D.C.: Heritage Foundation, 1993)Google Scholar on evidence for serious decline; and for the opposing position see Stacey, Judith, “Good Riddance to ‘The Family’: A Response to David Popenoe,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 55 (08 1993),CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Kain, Edward, The Myth of Family Decline: Understanding Families in a World of Rapid Social Change (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1990).Google Scholar

35. Consider births out–of–wedlock. Those who see disturbing trends cite figures from National Center for Health Statistics, which reported that 32% of all U.S. births in 1996 were out–of–wedlock. Those who are less troubled note that only 8% of children were living with an unwed mother, according to the 1996–97 Statistical Abstract of the United States. Both figures can be correct because the latter averages new births with the extant population and excludes children born out–of–wedlock whose custodians ultimately marry, or who live with their father, grandparents, or others.

36. Popenoe, in “American Family in Decline.”

37. Arland Thornton, “Comparative and Historical Perspectives on Marriage, Divorce, and Family Life” in Promises to Keep.

38. Lawrence Stone is author of Broken Lives: Separation and Divorce in England 1660–1857 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).Google Scholar The quote is from a syndicated column by Parker, Kathleen, “Parents Leave Void in Kids' Lives,” The Daily Oklahoman, 1997.Google Scholar For the alternative view that family changes have been more gradual over time see Mintz, Steven and Kellogg, Susan, Domestic Revolutions: A Social history of American Family Life (New York: Free Press, 1988). Though Mintz and Kellogg argue that the family stability of the 1950s was exceptional, their conclusion that families in the future will be “small and fragile” (p. 237) tends to substantiate the concerns of others.Google Scholar

39. Blankenhorn, David, Fatherless America (New York: Basic Books, 1993), pp. 18–19.Google Scholar

40. The National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control, “Monthly Vital Statistics Report,” 46 N, No. 1(S)2 (11 September 1997) reports that of all U.S. births in 1996, 32.4% were out–of–wedlock, with the racial breakdown revealing rates of 25.7% for whites, 40.9% for Hispanics, and 69.8% for blacks.

41. Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, Miles To Go: A Personal History of Social Policy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996). In chapter 3 Moynihan draws upon empirical studies of the adverse impact of out–of–wedlock births to coin his celebrated term “defining deviancy down.”Google Scholar

42. The National Center for Health Statistics, CDC, in “Teenage Births in the United States: National and State Trends, 1990–1996” (30 April 1998), reports that between 1991 and 1996 teen birth rates declined nationally and among all subgroups. Yet since most of the decline was among married teens, this did not result in a corresponding decline in the rate of out–of–wedlock births. A much publicized later report on declining birth rates among single African American women similarly found no effect on the proportion of births out–of–wedlock. Thus, even apparently successful efforts to increase contraceptive use or sexual abstinence have not reestablished the marital norm. See Holmes, Steven A., “Black Birthrate for Single Women is at 40–Year Low,” The New York Times, 1 July 1998, p. 1.Google Scholar

43. Though scholars are somewhat divided, lowering legal barriers apparently did contribute to increased divorce rates. Paul A. Nakonezny, Robert D. Shull, and Joseph Lee Rodgers find that no–fault divorce laws had a “significant positive effect on the divorce rate.” See “The Effect of No–Fault Divorce Law on the Divorce Rate Across the 50 States and its Relation to Income, Education, and Religiosity,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 57 (05 1995): 477–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarGlenn, Norval D., however, contests the data in “A Reconsideration of the Effect of No–Fault Divorce on Divorce Rates,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 59 (11 1997): 1023–1030;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Nakonezny, et al. contest his analysis in “The Effect of No–Fault Divorce Legislation on Divorce Rates: A Response to a Reconsideration,” 1026–1030.Google Scholar

44. After dramatic increases through the 1970s and 1980s, the divorce rate leveled off to about half the number of marriages. A slight decrease from 1992 (when there were 52 divorces for every 100 marriages) to mid–1997 (when the rate the rate was 48 for every 100), indicates perhaps that a few more people are attempting to avoid divorce's toll. Centers for Disease Control, “Monthly Vital Statistics Report,” 45, no. 10 (24 04 1997).Google Scholar

45. Popenoe, , “American Family Decline, 1960–1990: A Review and Appraisal,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 55 (08 1993): 527–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46. Weitzman, Lenore J., The Divorce Revolution (New York: The Free Press, 1985). Weitzman's research produced the often quoted statistic that divorced men see their standard of living increase by 42% while women and children experience a decline of 73%.Google Scholar

47. Moira Eastman associates divorce with “increased rates of poverty, mental illness, suicide, physical illness, mortality, depression, drug abuse, cigarette smoking, homelessness, juvenile crime, and school failure.” Moira Eastman, “Myths of Marriage and Family,” in Promises to Keep. See also Whitehead, Barbara Defoe, “Dan Quayle Was Right;” The Atlantic Monthly 271, no. 4 (04 1993): 47–84;Google Scholar and “The Decline of Marriage as the Social Basis of Childbearing,” in Promises to Keep, pp. 3–14.Google Scholar For an alternative view see Cherlin, Andrew J., Furstenberg, Frank F. Jr., Chase-Lansdale, P. Lindsay, Kiernan, Kathleen E., Robins, Philip K., Morrison, Donna Ruane, and Teitler, Julien O., “Longitudinal Studies of Effects of Divorce on Children in Great Britain and the United States,” Science 252 (7 06 1991), 1386–89, who suggest that problems in marriages before divorce were already adversely influencing children, especially boys. But their findings did not distinguish generally disfunctional families from those that functioned adequately until divorce, nor do they gainsay the possibility of long-term problems for children of divorce.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

48. Whitehead, in “Dan Quayle Was Right,” summarizes the drawbacks of step–families: the lack of strong commitments to stepchildren, feelings of isolation from the new stepfamily, increased risk of abuse, and anxiety resulting from both the original change into the stepfamily and possible future family breakups since stepfamilies are far more likely to break up than other families.

49. In Michigan, State Representative Dalman argued that people “must begin to see the connection between divorce and other problems,” such as poverty and juvenile delinquency. Johnson, Dirk, “No–Fault Divorce Is Under Attack,” The New York Times, 8 February 1996, A8.Google Scholar The Louisiana Legislature approved a law providing for a “covenant marriage” option, which is viewed as a cunning way to make couples think anew about the marriage commitment. Sack, Kevin, “Louisiana Approves Measure to Tighten Marriage Bonds,” The New York Times, 24 June 1997, p. 1.Google Scholar

50. Myers, Ken, Mars Hill Audio, 01–02, 1998, Berea Publications, Charlottesville, VA.Google Scholar

51. Gertrude Himmelfarb documents how the sexual “innovators” of the late nineteenth century viewed themselves as elites and did not wish to change the mores of those beneath them; in contrast, the sexual revolution that began in the 1960s was a real revolution that reached into all strata of society. See Himmelfarb, , The Demoralization of Society (New York: Knopf, 1995), 217–18.Google Scholar This view is echoed by Stanton, Glen, Why Marriage Matters: Reasons to Believe in Family in Post-Modern Society (Pinon Press, 1997).Google Scholar

52. Whitehead, “Dan Quayle Was Right.”

53. See Wilkie, Jane Riblett, “Marriage, Family, and Women's Employment,” in Marriage and Family in Transition, ed. Edwards, John N. and Demo, David H. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1991)Google Scholar and Hochschild, Arlie Russell, Time Bind (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1997).Google Scholar

54. Hewlett, Sylvia Ann and West, Cornell, The War Against Parents (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998).Google Scholar

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56. Elshtain, Jean Bethke, “The Hard Questions: Lost City,” The New Republic, 4 November 1996, p. 25.Google Scholar

57. Pope John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, especially chapter 4, and Daniel Bell, Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism.

58. Dawson found children twice as likely to need professional psychological help and score more poorly on wellness indicators when they did not live with both biological parents, conclusions independently reached by Zill, et al. , Dawson, Deborah, “Family Structure and Children's Health and Well-being: Data from the National Health Interview Survey on Child Health,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 53 (1991): 573–84.Google ScholarZill, Nicholas, Morrison, Donna, and Cairo, Mary Jo, “Long–Term Effects of Parental Divorce on Parent–Child Relationships, Adjustment, and Achievement in Young Adulthood,” Journal of Family Psychology 7 (1993): 91–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59. Ellwood, David, Poor Support (New York: Basic Books, 1988), p. 46.Google Scholar

60. Galston, William and Kamarck, Elaine, “A Progressive Family Policy for the 1990s,” Mandate for Change (Berkeley Books, 1993).Google Scholar

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62. Horn, Wade, Father Facts (Lancaster, PA: The National Fatherhood Institute, 1995), p. 23.Google Scholar The issue is given extensive, if somewhat polemical, treatment by Blankenhom, David, Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem (New York: Basic Books, 1995),Google Scholar who echoes Moynihan's lament in Miles to Go. For a nuanced historical perspective, see Griswold, Robert L., Fatherhood in America: A History (New York: Basic Books, 1993).Google Scholar

63. University of Illinois researchers conclude that “the longer the time spent in a single–parent family, the greater the reduction in educational achievement.” See Krein, Sheila and Beller, Andrea, “Educational Attainment of Children from Single Parent Families: Differences by Exposure, Gender, and Race,” Demography 25 (1988): 221–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Others found lower–income children with “intact” families outscored children from high–income, single–parent families. See Astone, Nan Marie and McLanahan, Sarah S., “Family Structure, Parental Practices, and High School Completion,” American Sociological Review 56 (1991): 309–320;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Li, and Wojtkiewics, , “New Look at the Effects of Family Structure on Status Attainment,” Social Science Quarterly.Google Scholar

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65. Hraba, Joseph, Mok, Waiman, and Huff, David, “Tonight's numbers are … Lottery Play and Problem Gambling,” Journal of Gambling Studies (New York: Human Sciences Press, 1991), p. 178.Google Scholar

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68. Stearns, James M. and Borna, Shaheen, “The Ethics of Lottery Advertising: Issues and Evidence,” Journal of Business Ethics (Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995), 50.Google Scholar

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70. Sandel, Michael J., “Bad Bet,” The New Republic, 10 March 1997, p. 27.Google Scholar

71. The idea of social capital as a positive externality is made by Putnam, Robert in “The Prosperous Community: Social Capital and Public Life,” The American Prospect 13 (Spring 1993): 34–42.Google Scholar

72. King et al., in Designing Social Inquiry, suggest that social science research should seek to derive as many observable implications of a theory as possible.

73. On children see Louv, Richard, Childhood's Future (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990);Google ScholarBlankenhom, David et al. , eds., Rebuilding the Nest (Milwaukee: Family Service America, 1990);Google ScholarFuchs, Victor R. and Reklis, Diane M., “America's Children: Economic Perspectives and Policy Options,” Science, 3 (01 1992): 41–46;CrossRefGoogle ScholarCarnegie Commission Report, Ready to Learn: A Mandate for the Nation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992);Google Scholar and National Commission on Children, Rockefeller, Senator Jay, Chair, , Beyond Rhetoric: A New American Agenda for Children and Families (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1991).Google Scholar The quote is from Ernest Boyer, commenting on the findings of the Carnegie report. See Boyer, Ernest, “America has Orphaned Its Young,” Los Angeles Times, 8 12 1991, M5. While noting economic forces, these reports also cite the family and moral environment.Google Scholar

74. Applebome, Peter, “Children Score Low in Adults' Esteem, a Study Finds,” The New York Times, 26 June 1997, A12.Google Scholar

75. Garbarino, James, Raising Children in a Socially Toxic Environment (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995).Google Scholar

76. “1997 Index of Social Health: Monitoring the Social Well–Being of the Nation,” Miringoff, Marc L., Director, Fordham Institute for Innovation in Social Policy, Fordham Graduate Center, Tarrytown, New York.Google Scholar

77. James Q. Wilson's ecological analysis of the link between social disorder and crime—the so–called “broken window” thesis—has guided numerous successful community anticrime efforts. See Wilson, James Q.Kelling, George L., “Broken Windows,” Atlantic Monthly 249, no. 3 (03 1982): 29–38.Google Scholar

78. Lawrence Dodd, “A Transformational Perspective.”

79. Wilson, William Julius, When Work Disappears (New York: Vintage, 1996).Google Scholar

80. Sandel, Michael, Democracy's Discontents (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).Google Scholar

81. Michael Novak admonishes corporations to avoid promoting messages that undermine sustaining virtues in Toward a Theology of the Corporation (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1981),Google Scholar but there is little evidence they have heeded his exhortation. In The Fire of Invention (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), Novak suggests that corporations foster civil society by producing wealth, contributing to civic causes, teaching sturdy virtues, and checking the overweening state, but he does not refute evidence that certain corporate patterns can undermine family cohesion and community vitality.Google Scholar

82. Sandel, in Democracy's Discontent, argues that the public philosophy of modern liberalism, which rests on the notion that the state must be neutral about conceptions of the good life, has failed because it cannot address the legitimate moral concerns of citizens. Wilson, James Q., in The Moral Sense (New York: The Free Press, 1993),Google Scholar argues that the modern attempt to cleanse morality from public discourse has “amputated our public discourse at the knees,” and made it impossible to have a serious discussion of the issues perplexing society (p. xi).

83. Theodore Lowi exhibits this tendency in The End of the Republican Era (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), chap. 6, in which he envisions “statist” local conservatives enforcing a virtual police state on women.Google Scholar

84. This was how Hardin phrased the remedy in “The Tragedy of the Commons.”

85. See, for example, Berger, Peter L. and Neuhaus, Richard John, To Empower People: From State to Civil Society, 2d ed., edited by Novak, Michael (Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 1996);Google Scholar and Democracy and Mediating Structures: A Theological Inquiry, ed. Novak, Michael (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1980).Google Scholar

86. Anderson, Terry L. and Leal, Donald R., Free Market Environmentalism (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991).Google Scholar

87. As argued by Smith, Fred L. Jr, president, Competitive Enterprise Institute (1001 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20036), a think tank that challenges the command assumptions of environmental policy.Google Scholar

88. In addition to her syndicated radio program, Laura Schlessenger offered her remedy to moral confusion in How Could You Do That?!: The Abdication of Character, Courage, and Conscience (New York: HarperCollins 1997)Google Scholar and The Ten Commandments: The Significance of God's Laws in Everyday Life, with Vogel, Stewart (New York, HarperCollins, 1998).Google Scholar