Our Character, Our Future

Rating:
Summary: A watery, lukewarm bowl of political soup
Review: "Our Character, Our Future," by Alan Keyes, is edited by George Grant. In his foreword Grant notes that the content of this slim volume (135 pages) was gleaned from "speeches, articles, comments and conversations." The main text is divided into 35 chapters, most not more than 3 pages long, in which Keyes looks at topics from his conservative worldview.

Keyes covers a lot of ground--teen drug use, abortion, Afrocentrism, the controversy over Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, welfare, capital punishment, anti-Semitism, etc. But as a whole his perspectives lack depth. The chapters are just too short and sketchy, and he makes too many unsupported statements. He frequently attacks the Clinton administration, and also complains about "intellectual fascists," "dogmatic liberal judges," etc. His religious references and assertions will, I imagine, appeal to Christian conservative readers.

A typically weak chapter is "Outing the Left," where Keyes accuses Clarence Thomas opponents of "anti-Catholic slurs" and abortion rights supporters of "religious bigotry" without supporting his accusations. Another noteworthy chapter is "The Rights Rage," where he suggests that gay rights activists "quit while they're ahead"--remarkably bad advice in light of the mountain of gay rights advances that have been made at so many points in both the governmental and private sectors since this book's 1996 publication date! Reading "Our Character" is like listening to a long diatribe by someone who keeps talking and talking and talking without really saying all that much.

Rating:
Summary: A great intellectual model in America
Review: "What sense is there in winning, in success, or even in prosperity if there is no truth." So opens Allen Keyes' fabulous but short compendium of essays. From this initial line it's clear he opposes the modern American fad advanced by, as Keyes notes, the covert totalitarianism of today's "tolerant" crowd who hold "the bigoted opinion that if you disagree with them you must be pretending".

As the only statesman and orator in America's last party primaries, Keyes is feared by some, not because he is black as Keyes once claimed, but because he is brilliant - a condition frightening to ignorance.

One of Keyes central refrains is that "we don't have money problems, we have moral problems". But morality is not fertile in the American mind through the expected and intended cultivation of education where respect and honor are reached through the application of Enlightenment reason with an understanding of natural rights, founding documents, their supporting material and the Founder's source and positions on such matters. Instead, for Keyes the moral alpha and omega are sourced in the Christian God, not reason, though he has a great talent for it. Where he fails is as a Creationist, wishing school boards across America could force Christianity into science class (tangentially referenced in his last preachy chapter). Keyes' respect for deep, open education is thus in doubt, mixed in the very least. And yet, on the contrary, Keyes has a respect for science, apparently as long as it does not squeeze his beliefs.

An Alan Bloom disciple, Keyes knows alternative ways of thinking, giving him a capacity to see beyond his time and place. With this tool his book is a bit of revelation every other page.

Rating:
Summary: A watery, lukewarm bowl of political soup
Review: "Our Character, Our Future," by Alan Keyes, is edited by George Grant. In his foreword Grant notes that the content of this slim volume (135 pages) was gleaned from "speeches, articles, comments and conversations." The main text is divided into 35 chapters, most not more than 3 pages long, in which Keyes looks at topics from his conservative worldview.

Keyes covers a lot of ground--teen drug use, abortion, Afrocentrism, the controversy over Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, welfare, capital punishment, anti-Semitism, etc. But as a whole his perspectives lack depth. The chapters are just too short and sketchy, and he makes too many unsupported statements. He frequently attacks the Clinton administration, and also complains about "intellectual fascists," "dogmatic liberal judges," etc. His religious references and assertions will, I imagine, appeal to Christian conservative readers.

A typically weak chapter is "Outing the Left," where Keyes accuses Clarence Thomas opponents of "anti-Catholic slurs" and abortion rights supporters of "religious bigotry" without supporting his accusations. Another noteworthy chapter is "The Rights Rage," where he suggests that gay rights activists "quit while they're ahead"--remarkably bad advice in light of the mountain of gay rights advances that have been made at so many points in both the governmental and private sectors since this book's 1996 publication date! Reading "Our Character" is like listening to a long diatribe by someone who keeps talking and talking and talking without really saying all that much.

Rating:
Summary: A watery, lukewarm bowl of political soup
Review: "Our Character, Our Future," by Alan Keyes, is edited by George Grant. In his foreword Grant notes that the content of this slim volume (135 pages) was gleaned from "speeches, articles, comments and conversations." The main text is divided into 35 chapters, most not more than 3 pages long, in which Keyes looks at topics from his conservative worldview.

Keyes covers a lot of ground--teen drug use, abortion, Afrocentrism, the controversy over Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, welfare, capital punishment, anti-Semitism, etc. But as a whole his perspectives lack depth. The chapters are just too short and sketchy, and he makes too many unsupported statements. He frequently attacks the Clinton administration, and also complains about "intellectual fascists," "dogmatic liberal judges," etc. His religious references and assertions will, I imagine, appeal to Christian conservative readers.

A typically weak chapter is "Outing the Left," where Keyes accuses Clarence Thomas opponents of "anti-Catholic slurs" and abortion rights supporters of "religious bigotry" without supporting his accusations. Another noteworthy chapter is "The Rights Rage," where he suggests that gay rights activists "quit while they're ahead"--remarkably bad advice in light of the mountain of gay rights advances that have been made at so many points in both the governmental and private sectors since this book's 1996 publication date! Reading "Our Character" is like listening to a long diatribe by someone who keeps talking and talking and talking without really saying all that much.

Rating:
Summary: Incisive analysis of 1990's America by a true statesman
Review: After reading this book, I can see why people have a hard time putting a label on Alan Keyes. He's found a way to transcend the typical conservative vs. liberal tags, by -- get this -- looking to the Declaration of Independence (and a lot of world history) for our American "Mission Statement." I especially liked chapter 3, where Dr. Keyes shows a hint of a Francis Schaeffer or Chuck Colson as he exposes our materialistic selfishness for what it is -- "adolescents with a paycheck." After reading this, I was humbled by the high ideals Dr. Keyes described, and inspired to live the kind of life that extends beyond my own little self. A short book, it can be read in a day or two. This is a great read for anyone who likes to THINK.

Rating:
Summary: What kind of future now - he's stranded!
Review: Alan Keyes is currently living in the O'Hare Airport outside Chicago. The Illinois Republican Party paid for his airfare from the Baltimore-Washington metroplex to Chicago and now claim they don't know what he's doing here. He may be seen washing his face in the automatic toilets in the "A" Terminal or lurking by the cash register in the Sky Cap Lounge. His character is unchanged, however. Always a moody fellow, he sometimes berates the porters for accepting gratuities and sometimes harangues them for showing inadequate enterprise. As yet, he has not caught anybody getting pregnant in the airport but is still watching and will raise an alarm if he sees anyone handing out condoms. When he gets tired of his Jeremiah role he may walk back to to the Tidewater. People have walked this far before.

Rating:
Summary: an arrogant, bigoted theocrat
Review: Alan Keyes views are simply disturbing to me. Basically he's decided that all of the country's problems would go away if everyone were as holy and God-fearing as he is. This book is nothing but tired, religious-right rhetoric and sadly I've heard all of it before. He is also bigoted (he lumps gays and lesbians with pedophiles and rapists) and racist ("I believe that, unwittingly, Jewish supporters of the government-dominated welfare state approach to the economic and social problems of the black community helped to create the mentality that now produces anger and anti-Semitism in black neighborhoods.") His ideas are so incredibly far to the right it borders on theocracy.

Rating:
Summary: Logical, thought-provoking, and revealing
Review: I like how rational Keyes' thinking is, and I entirely agree with his idea that our country needs to stop focusing on economics so much and start focusing more on our nation's cultural climate; this is actually in line with the views of many so-called "ultra-leftist" organizations like the Culture Jammer movement.

I agree with Keyes that freedom entails not merely privileges and opportunities but moral responsibilities and sacrifices as well, and that our nation's culture has lost sight of these responsibilities and has suffered as a result.

However, I think Keynes also exposes a few potential faults in his philosophy.

For instance, Keyes criticizes Gay Rights activists by claiming that prohibiting discrimination policies against gays violates freedom of religion. This makes a good deal of sense. The Constitution/Declaration of Independence mentions nothing about sexual orientation, so it's OK to discriminate on the basis of it, particulary when that discrimination is based on religious conviction.

However, I started to wonder what would happen if there was a religious group in America that believed that people with black hair are evil and should be killed. Clearly that would be unconstitutional since "all men are created equal", and since the Constitution/Declaration of Independence override religious freedom, such a religious group must not be allowed to carry out its doctrine.

But where do our rights in the Declaration of Independence derive from? As the Declaration says, and as Keyes emphasizes in his book, they come from God. A largely Christian conception of one, to be more specific.

In other words, I think Keyes' text gives clear evidence that because our nation's ideology is founded on a Christian God, the precepts of our nation are a bit biased towards monotheism and Christianity in particular. Although the Declaration of Independence provides a solid moral foundation for our people to live by, they are biased against alternative moral systems espoused by other religions and philosophies; meaning that many Christian moral precepts (e.g., "all men are created equal") are allowed to be enforced by the government while other non-Christian moral precepts (e.g., "being homosexual should not be discriminated against") are not.

Rating:
Summary: "endowed by their Creator" or the game is lost
Review: If you think that the Declaration of Independence is no longer relevant I dare you to read this book. If you already have a healthy respect for the Declaration and the principles therein, then you are in for a treat. I know of no one who can put today's issues in perspective against the backdrop of American history the way that Dr. Keyes does in this book. He shows how important to our continued freedom is the understanding and acceptance that our rights come from our " Creator".

Rating:
Summary: "endowed by their Creator" or the game is lost
Review: If you think that the Declaration of Independence is no longer relevant I dare you to read this book. If you already have a healthy respect for the Declaration and the principles therein, then you are in for a treat. I know of no one who can put today's issues in perspective against the backdrop of American history the way that Dr. Keyes does in this book. He shows how important to our continued freedom is the understanding and acceptance that our rights come from our " Creator".