A Return to Modesty by Wendy Shalit

Chapter 7 in Wendy Shalit’s book A Return to Modesty presents many different points of discussion. She starts out with a quote from Rousseau and his idea that modesty IS natural. The question then arises that if it is natural, can modesty be a virtue, then? Kant says this about it: “The girl is not [...]

The title of Chapter 5 in Wendy Shalit’s book, A Return to Modesty, begs a question. It is “Forgiving Modesty.” Is there a reason that society needs to forgive modesty? Has modesty failed us? First, before even considering this, we need to define our terms. Shalit gives a couple definitions of modesty. She says there are [...]

With a week sabbatical, we are on Chapter 3 of Wendy Shalit’s A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue. Last week, NeW at Arizona State University took part in a panel discussing Arizona Proposition 102 - a state Constitutional amendment that would protect marriage as the union of 1 man and 1 woman. While discussing the [...]

At our last NeW meeting at ASU, we discussed Chapter 1 from A Return to Modesty. The chapter is rightfully titled, “The War on Embarrassment.”Shalit introduces her discussion on modesty with her stories about when she was exempt from 4th Grade Human Growth and Development class and from the embarrassing questions that Mrs. Nelson posed. [...]

Mark Twain said it this way: “Clothes make the man. Naked people have left little or no influence on society.” Until next Tuesday, we will be discussing the Introduction in A Return to Modesty. One thing I found most interesting in the Introduction, was on pages 8-9, when Shalit tells of some of Mary Pipher’s [...]