August 07, 2014

"Contemporary Classic" an Antidote to "Lame Substitutes"

August 07, 2014/ Wendy Shalit

In a recent column, NRO editor-at-large Kathryn Jean Lopez calls A Return to Modesty a "contemporary classic," and takes the discussion of modesty to the next level:

We do tend to settle for slavery to this culture. We fear; we drown in burdens and weary in our overstimulation. We let ourselves fall victim to lame substitutes for love and happiness when if we would move away from the screen, we might just discover the real thing. We become blind and deaf; we look at a word like modesty and make assumptions, or just dismiss it. We become indifferent to alternatives, proposals, truth, and challenge. We surrender our freedom even while purporting to be waving its flag.

Read her full, fascinating discussion here.

A Return to Modesty By Wendy Shalit

When A Return to Modesty was first published in 1999, its young author surprised many with her invitation to consider the new power to be found in an old ideal. With her deeply personal account as well as fascinating intellectual exploration into everything from seventeenth-century manners to the 1948 tune “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” Wendy Shalit launched a worldwide discussion about the possibility of innocence and romantic idealism.

Today, a young girl is pressured to look “hot” before she even knows her own home phone number, and becoming a porn star is just another way of paying for university. Still, now that we have arguably “hit bottom” as a society, the concept of modesty has also become more relevant than ever.

Unfortunately, many problems Shalit originally explored, such as date rape, hookup culture, and most alarmingly, the sexualization of young girls, have only become more prevalent. And now that social media increasingly blurs the line between public and private life, the pressure to be publicly sexual is greater than ever.

What is desperately needed is an alternative, and it is a vibrant one that can be found in this classic work. Beholden neither to social conservatives nor to feminists, Shalit reminds us of a different path that is not prudery, but a compelling ideal—and indeed, a different way of looking at life.

Now, in the 15th anniversary edition that addresses the unique problems facing society now, A Return to Modesty shows why “the lost virtue” of modesty is not a hang-up that we should set out to cure, but rather a wonderful instinct to be celebrated.

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Wendy Shalit

thought my ultrasound tech was joking when she told me that the new health cards don't specify "male" or "female" so as not to offend trans
Mar 8, 2017, 10:16 AM
Wendy Shalit

I'm going to go out on a limb here--my guess is that A #daywithoutwomen is not going to be a Day Without Women Tweeting.
Mar 8, 2017, 7:21 AM

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A Return to Modesty By Wendy Shalit

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