Book Review: ‘Toward a More Perfect Union: The Moral and Cultural Case for Teaching the Great American Story’

A book about America’s cultural and moral decay adds nothing new

The most prominent suspect is the education industry as discussed in "Toward a More Perfect Union: The Moral and Cultural Case for Teaching the Great American Story" by Timothy Goeglein. ESB Professional/Shutterstock

America is in a cultural conundrum. The country leads the world economically, politically, and militarily, yet while leading the world, it seems to have left itself behind. According to Timothy Goeglein, the author of “Toward a More Perfect Union: The Moral and Cultural Case for Teaching the Great American Story,” America has abandoned its identity and the very values that initiated that rise to the top. The country is in moral and cultural decay.

Diagnosing the Societal Decay

Decay forms in response to a disease or from neglect. The latter seems to be the source of America’s moral and cultural decay, and Goeglein suggests there are a number of contributors to the source. The contributors, for those who have not been paying attention over the years, are the media, academia, and the public education system, which happen to be empowered by local, state, and federal government. Those governments are empowered by the taxpayer, whether willingly or unwillingly. It is a cyclical formula that allows each power to feed off the other, except for the taxpayers. The taxpayers (i.e., the average citizen) suffer the consequences from this cyclical formula and thus become the societal decay.