Introduction -- Revelation : the new rise of an old morality -- Piety : the work is its own reward -- Prudence : heresies of the unconscious mind -- Austerity : an unadorned life -- Fear of God : the evil of banality -- Temperance : sober, chaste, and penitent -- Order : the company we keep -- Reformation : slowly at first, then all at once -- Afterword.
Summary:
"An examination on the American left's war on fun"-- Provided by publisher. In Rothman's view, the left used to be the party of the hippies and the free spirits. Now it is home to woke scolds and humorless ideologues. Like their puritanical forebears, new leftists do not abide forms of pleasure that distract from the great work of our time-- righting the wrongs of America's white patriarchal heritage. Progressive Puritans are committed to waging a war on decadence, frivolity, and pleasure for its own sake. Here Rothman uncovers the historical roots of the left's war on fun, and counsels us to rediscover the freedom and joy at the heart of the American experiment. -- adapted from jacket.
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