Anybody that has taught in the public schools more than 15 years is aware of a serious moral decline among the young people of today. You find serious drug use, sex, profanity, violence, etc, among even elementary school kids in a way that just wasn't around in the past. And among adults you find a serious lack of responsibility, a culture of victimization, and a love of greed and attention that is seriously frightening. Our morally decaying, live-and-let-live society may be fun for adults, but it's become poison for our children.

And before some joker starts quoting Socrates' opinions on youth, I'll just say that he made his "the children now love luxury, etc" comment during a moral decline in classical Athens that helped to weaken it and lead to its downfall. Maybe it's not such a great thing that we can compare the children of Athens with our own.

PS: And talking about moral decline in the last thousand years, many great societies have went into a moral decline (Athens a good example, Rome is another) which helped lead to the decline of the society. So you can't just look at humanity as a whole when it comes to moral decline, but look at each individual society.

What makes it complicated is that morality is multi-dimensional; moral declines in one area can exist beside moral improvements in other areas. My lifetime has seen sharp declines in many areas of morality, specifically, financial morality (avoidance of unnecessary acceptance of charity and debt) and sexual morality. However, we've seen improvements in other areas of morality, such as a reduction of sadistic behavior towards animals, and cruelty motivated by racism. (If black people are doing more racially-motivated cruelty than a hundred years ago, it is only because generations ago they had less power to express hatred.)

fsilber:

What makes it complicated is that morality is multi-dimensional; moral declines in one area can exist beside moral improvements in other areas. My lifetime has seen sharp declines in many areas of morality, specifically, financial morality (avoidance of unnecessary acceptance of charity and debt) and sexual morality. However, we've seen improvements in other areas of morality, such as a reduction of sadistic behavior towards animals, and cruelty motivated by racism. (If black people are doing more racially-motivated cruelty than a hundred years ago, it is only because generations ago they had less power to express hatred.)

That is an excellent point and something that I've never really thought of before. Very good point!

fsilber:

However, we've seen improvements in other areas of morality, such as a reduction of sadistic behavior towards animals.

I haven't seen much evidence of this. Watch some episodes of cops where they need to rescue abused pets. You might change your mind in thinking that abuse towards animals has changed.

Cady:

Anybody that has taught in the public schools more than 15 years is aware of a serious moral decline among the young people of today. You find serious drug use, sex, profanity, violence, etc, among even elementary school kids in a way that just wasn't around in the past. And among adults you find a serious lack of responsibility, a culture of victimization, and a love of greed and attention that is seriously frightening. Our morally decaying, live-and-let-live society may be fun for adults, but it's become poison for our children.

And before some joker starts quoting Socrates' opinions on youth, I'll just say that he made his "the children now love luxury, etc" comment during a moral decline in classical Athens that helped to weaken it and lead to its downfall. Maybe it's not such a great thing that we can compare the children of Athens with our own.

Cady,

Couldn't agree more. The mere fact that a large portion of our high schools are now equipped with metal detectors and full time police officers is more evidence that there actually has been a drastic rise in immorality and youth violence. And this is not just some generational perspective gap either.

I don't know if you've seen the movie "City of God", a true story based in Rio, Brazil, but it is a pretty shocking reality check of what can happen with unchecked social decline.

Although I have to disagree on the "live-and-let-live" comment. Live-and-let-live is a quote to live by. As long as their life doesn't infringe on yours, you shouldn't care what they do. The world would be a much better place if more people thought this way.

A lot of what you say is true, however, if the young are proceeding down a patho moral decay, who is responsible for that? We need look no further than the generation that raised them and the generation that is their grandparents.

I have some experience with children, having raised three and having been a nurse all these many years and a couple of things I know for sure:

1) you don't start discipline at 15 yrs...it must begin at 15 months;

2) you have to make sure that your children know that you love them, but that your love is sometimes shown by saying "NO" and that you can't be a friend more than a parent.

3) you can try to understand your children, but understand that you may not always 'get it' and for those times that you don't, your children must understand that you are the Parent and that your word is the last one.

4) just because you had a harder life as a child, don't try to make up for it by overindulging your children. doing without the latest and greatest of everything is a character builder, especially if tied to responsibility. So don't be afraid to have your children do chores and when they are old enough to insist that they have a job of somekind. the rule in our house was if you wanted a car, you had to have a job.

One other thing that makes us more susceptible to the belief that we are headed for hell in a handbasket is that news today is instantaneous so bad things bombard us 24/7. the wild west was more dangerous than most of our cities, but it wasn't noticed so much because news just didn't travel as fast or as far.

FirstInLastOut:

fsilber:

However, we've seen improvements in other areas of morality, such as a reduction of sadistic behavior towards animals.

I haven't seen much evidence of this. Watch some episodes of cops where they need to rescue abused pets. You might change your mind in thinking that abuse towards animals has changed.

How can you be certain that the instances you see on COPS provide a statistically significant evidence that sadism towards animals is just as morally accepted today as in the past?

My belief stems from the fact that sports such as cock-fighting and dog-fighting are outlawed today in more places than in previous generations. Also, I wonder whether police would have even bothered to get involved a hundred years ago if a man was cruel to his dog. (They sure didn't get involved much even in cases of wife-beating a hundred years ago, so I kind of doubt it.)

The very fact that are now treating torture of animals as a crime, that to me signifies that our moral standards concerning cruelty to animals have been raised.

Don't forget bear baiting.

And human fights to the death for entertainment.

And public human tortures & executions for public entertainment (which even 5 year olds happily watched).

And executions of 12 year olds for trivial crimes.

And brutal executions of people for having sex in a way society doesn't like.

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Fact is the dead sea scrolls were written by people who went off to live in a commune because they felt morals were declining. I laughed out loud when I read that at the dead sea scrolls exhibit last year. I wonder if they cursed those rotten kids and told them to "get off my lawn!" too.

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I like the point that we are constantly changing what is moral. Some things that are moral for society are immoral for its members. And some things that are moral for its members ultimately lead to immorality and destruction of the society.

The current "christian" leadership in america has become evil- not just immoral. Can you EVER see a real christian authorising ANY KIND of torture???? On top of that it is openly immoral- having been caught knowingly lying repeatedly. But hey! At least Bush isn't having sex with an intern so he's okay right? Bush Sr was okay-- but we should have never elected a booze/party hound that "didn't do cocaine after january of 19xx" (I forget the year but it was as much as an admission that he'd done cocaine.)

There are too many extremes of wealth in this world. Those extremes corrupt everything.

15 years? Try 40. I'm in the same generation as most of today's parents of teenagers, and nothing I have seen or heard leads me to believe things are one bit different today than they were when I was in school. Pregnant 12-year-olds, drugs dealt and used in the school bathrooms, violence, blatant disrespect - it's all old hat; the only thing new is that yet another generation has aged and become shocked by the revelation that their own kids might emulate the behavior the parents displayed when they were young.