Casablanca is a movie about love and loss, virtue and vice, good and evil, duty and treachery, courage and weakness, friendship and hate. It is a story that ends well, but only because the main characters make a heartbreaking choice. Casablanca is perhaps the most widely viewed motion picture ever made, often finishing on critics' lists second only to Citizen Kane. What accounts for its continuing popularity? What chord does it strike with audiences? What lesson does Casablanca teach Americans about themselves? What influence does popular culture have on public mores? The contributors to...

Virtue is not what it used to be. It has lost its good name. If virtue were a television show, it would garner low ratings and promptly be cancelled. If virtue were running for president, it would fare poorly in the Iowa caucuses and would drop out of the race after a weak showing in the New Hampshire primary. Virtue has a bad name, both because people no longer use the term and because it is associated with repression of desires. Today, it not considered healthy to keep inner urges at bay for very long. Virtue comes off looking like a relic of a quaint, narrow-minded, uptight age. Virtue...