Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Social Issues

Abstract

PART 1. Culture and Values ISSUE 1. Is America in Moral Decline? YES: Gertrude Himmelfarb, from De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values NO: Everett C. Ladd, from The Myth of Moral Decline, Responsive Community Gertrude Himmelfarb, a professor emeritus of history, details some of increasing moral problems in America and interprets them as being part of a larger pattern, which she calls the de-moralization of society. Everett C. Ladd, president of Roper Center for Public Opinion, empirically tests moral decline thesis and finds that, according to indicators that he employs, it is a myth. ISSUE 2. Does News Media Have a Liberal Bias? YES: H. Joachim Maitre, from The Tilt to News: How American Journalism Has Swerved from Ideal of Objectivity, World and I NO: Martin A. Lee and Norman Solomon, from Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media Journalism professor H. Joachim Maitre argues that news reporters are liberals who allow their political views to seep into their reporting. Media critics Martin A. Lee and Norman Solomon argue that media bias in reporting is toward conservative status quo. ISSUE 3. Is Third World Immigration a Threat to America's Way of Life? YES: Peter Brimelow, from Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster NO: John Isbister, from Immigration Debate: Remaking America Peter Brimelow, a writer and senior editor of Forbes and National Review, asserts that large influx of immigrants from non-European countries threatens to undermine cultural foundations of American unity. John Isbister, a provost at University of California, Santa Cruz, cites research showing that immigration does not have many negative impacts that people like Brimelow fear. He argues that immigration has a negligible effect on earnings and public finances and that its cultural impacts will make it more obvious that United States is a plural and not a unicultural society. PART 2. Sex Roles, Gender, and Family ISSUE 4. Is Feminism a Harmful Ideology? YES: Robert Sheaffer, from Feminism, Noble Lie, Free Inquiry NO: William H. Chafe, from Paradox of Change: American Women in Twentieth Century Robert Sheaffer, a consulting editor for Skeptical Inquirer, argues that feminists are attempting to impose an inappropriate equality on men and women that conflicts with basic biological differences between genders. William H. Chafe, a professor at Duke University, maintains that vast improvements that women have made and obvious need to end continuing discrimination demonstrate value of feminism. (Part contents)