"Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that thankfulness is indeed a virtue"
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Gratitude gets framed here not as a feeling but as a corrective discipline, and that move is the point. Bennett’s line treats “thankfulness” like a civic muscle that atrophies without deliberate exercise. The phrasing “need to remind ourselves” quietly assumes a moral drift: left alone, people slide into entitlement, complaint, or the addictive calibration of always wanting more. It’s a gentle sentence with a stern diagnosis.
Calling thankfulness “indeed a virtue” is doing political work. Virtue language doesn’t just describe private character; it signals standards a society should reward, teach, and expect. Bennett, best known as a culture-war moralist from the late 20th century (education secretary in the Reagan era, later a public voice for “values”), reliably aimed to re-anchor public life in personal responsibility and traditional moral vocabulary. In that context, gratitude functions as a counter-argument to what conservatives often portray as a grievance-driven politics: if citizens are taught to be thankful, they are less likely to demand, accuse, or imagine themselves primarily as victims of systems.
The subtext is a rebuke that doesn’t name its target. “Sometimes” softens the scold, but the imperative remains: you should be grateful, and your lack of gratitude is not just unattractive, it’s ethically wrong. It’s also a clever bit of rhetorical insulation. Who wants to argue against thankfulness? By casting it as “virtue,” Bennett turns a warm emotion into a moral benchmark, one that can be invoked to praise humility, critique resentment, and defend an older, character-first vision of citizenship.
Calling thankfulness “indeed a virtue” is doing political work. Virtue language doesn’t just describe private character; it signals standards a society should reward, teach, and expect. Bennett, best known as a culture-war moralist from the late 20th century (education secretary in the Reagan era, later a public voice for “values”), reliably aimed to re-anchor public life in personal responsibility and traditional moral vocabulary. In that context, gratitude functions as a counter-argument to what conservatives often portray as a grievance-driven politics: if citizens are taught to be thankful, they are less likely to demand, accuse, or imagine themselves primarily as victims of systems.
The subtext is a rebuke that doesn’t name its target. “Sometimes” softens the scold, but the imperative remains: you should be grateful, and your lack of gratitude is not just unattractive, it’s ethically wrong. It’s also a clever bit of rhetorical insulation. Who wants to argue against thankfulness? By casting it as “virtue,” Bennett turns a warm emotion into a moral benchmark, one that can be invoked to praise humility, critique resentment, and defend an older, character-first vision of citizenship.
Quote Details
| Topic | Gratitude |
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