The television screen is the lens through which most children learn about violence. Through the magnifying power of this lens, their everyday life becomes suffused by images of shootings, family violence, gang warfare, kidnappings, and everything else that contributes to violence in our society. It shapes their experiences long before they have had the opportunity to consent to such shaping or developed the ability to cope adequately with this knowledge.
Sissela BokSome level of truthfulness has always been seen as essential to human society, no matter how deficient the observance of other moral principles.
Sissela BokAre people the best judges of their own happiness, or outsiders? In defining happiness, should we think of entire lives or of shorter periods such as moments, days, or years? And to what extent are virtue and happiness linked?
Sissela BokTrust is a social good to be protected just as much as the air we breathe or the water we drink. When it is damaged, the community as a whole suffers; and when it is destroyed, societies falter and collapse
Sissela BokAmerica may be the only society on earth to have experienced what has been called an 'epidemic of children killing children,' which is ravaging some of its communities today.
Sissela BokWe are all, in a sense, experts on secrecy. From earliest childhood we feel its mystery and attraction. We know both the power it confers and the burden it imposes. We learn how it can delight, give breathing space and protect.
Sissela BokThree sorts of goods, Aristotle specified, contribute to happiness: goods of the soul, including moral and intellectual virtues and education; bodily goods, such as strength, good health, beauty, and sound senses; and external goods, such as wealth, friends, good birth, good children, good heredity, good reputation and the like.
Sissela Bok