The Demoralization of Western Culture

This is a robust, rigorous and entertaining contribution to the widespread debate about values in particular those values according to which we conduct our private lives. Fevre argues that many of us in the Western world feel genuine confusion about our morality; we are more unsure about where right and wrong might lie than at any previous point in our history. He contends that the most important cause of our difficulties lie in the popularity of a particular sort of reasoning: "common sense" - which came to dominate our thinking during the 20th century. Drawing on information about art, sex, work, religion, nationalism, politics, the environment and advertising, he looks at why this sort of reasoning has proved so persuasive and so much more powerful than alternative modes of thinking offered by those who want to resist it.

R. W. Fevre is Professor of Social Research at Cardiff University.