A study I read about in a blurb from the on line version of the Baltimore Sun says that students get an “F” in virtue and character. These are the main points, from 8600 high school students polled nationwide.
92% had lied to their parents
76% had lied to a teacher
more than 1 in 4 would lie to get a job
1 in 6 had come to class drunk
47% said they could get a gun if they wanted one
Other than coming to class drunk, I was guilty of all these things in high school. I think most people lie to their parents at SOME point growing up. I think that lots of people lie on resumes, I stretch the truth a bit on mine but draw the line at outright lies for fear of having it bounce back in my face. The ability to get a gun doesn’t seem to reflect anything about their virtue to me.
I’m unconvinced that today’s youth are really any different from the people I grew up with. (I’m 34.) I hear older people that are astounded at the immorality of today’s youth but, so far, all of these people I’ve spoken to admitted to going to schools in more sheltered communities. My brother is 8 years older than me and his stories of high school sound like he grews up in a LESS moral time than I did. How far back do we have to go to find a more moral time? The 50’s? And if there was a time was it worse if you go back further? How were the morals in highschools the 1920’s?
What do you all think? Are American morals deteriorating in an alarming way? Do they fluctuate regularly? Are they improving slowly? Maybe some of you will reveal your ages as you answer so that I can get a feel for whether your opinion on this subject varies consistently with age.
Wasn’t there some piece of ancient Sumerian pottery, dated to 2800 B.C. or so, inscribed with a lament about how the kids of this generation are slackers and don’t respect their parents any more?
Tracer, you goof, it was 2700. Sheesh, I’m always cleaning up after you…
ANYway… this issue, like everything else, is relative. The older you get, the more you need to complain. And the best target to complain about are the young whipper-snappers.
And let’s not forget that all these old-timers probably don’t even REMEMBER the old days…
Some people would call me an “old timer”. I graduated high school in 1966. I don’t really think that morals have declined much, at least since 1966. The difference, as far as I can see, when comparing back then to today, is that back in the 60’s it wasn’t out in the open like it is today.
As for the statistics you quoted, I think that nothing is different now than then, except maybe the coming to school drunk part.
One thing that was never heard of, at least in my school, back then was some kid coming to school with a gun and going “postal” on his classmates. Of course, it may have happened in a lot bigger schools, but you didn’t hear of it as much, possibly because back then, the news media just presented the news in a straight forward fashion, instead of sensationalizing it like they do today. I mean, back then they reported the story, and that was that. Now, they report the story and then for days on end they dissect it and then they dissect what they have already dissected.
Me, too. Ditto on your resume comment - I exaggerate a bit, but would never actually lie, just paint myself in the best possible light. I am also about your age - 35, to be exact.
Look at things like rape (particularly date rape and spousal abuse), child abuse, and pedophilia. Not too long ago, most of these incidents were swept under the carpet. When my mom and her sister both told their mother that their babysitter had sexually abused them, they were accused of lying. And punished. My grandmother did not have a context in which to even believe that it was possible; it was simply not talked about and therefore not a part of her reality. A college friend remembered a high school classmate who “got sick and had to go away for a while.” It was only much later that he realized that she had gone away to have, and give away, her illegitimate child. We don’t do that to young mothers so much any more.
I really don’t think that anything has changed all that much, with the possible exception of the availability of handguns. (I’m guessing that there are more of them, per capita, than there used to be.) The 50s were only more moral because everyone was so successfully repressed.
I will also put forth my personal opinion that this more public awareness of human imperfection will, eventually, be a good thing. Certainly the pendulum has, as it always does, swung too far in some instances. We’ve had some witch hunts (daycare abuse, for example) but I think, once things normalize, the increased honesty will be for the better.
Not really. Sure, more guns are being manufactured each day, but that’s because old guns are getting retired as they wear out or become obsolete. And as far as handgun availability goes, in the 1950s, it was possible to buy handguns at gas stations. The one difference between then and now, handgunwise, was that back then most new handguns were revolvers whereas now most new handguns are semiautomatic pistols.
Well, my take on it, and here’s where I’m pretty sure I’m gonna get flak, is that it isn’t a moral thing at all…
See, I hope that my kids grow up to distrust authority like their dad did, and I intend to make sure my kids know how the world really works…
I think it’s an issue of Standards, and what we will and won’t allow, and issues of responsibility.
I think that kids today are no better and no worse than kids 10, 20, or 120 years ago… they are just different, to deal with a different world.
In 50 years, they’ll look back, and say, wow, we are nothing like what our parents were like… and we’ll be pissed that the young snotty whipper-snappers are getting above themselves… hehehee
Didn’t take the survey, but I’m a Junior in high school so I’ll go through some comprehention.
Lying
A teenagers definition of lying is more vague than an adults. Unless a definition of lying was given most of my friends and other classmates would take lying as something as little as sneaking to get a pop when you really said you were going to the bathroom. I don’t think lying is a big deal, but if they were to clarify that the lying had to be something of more relivance, then that would prolly go down a good deal. (i.e. Did you skip school on Friday? No, I’ll bring a note next time. and not brining one would be the “bar” of sorts- or it has to be that or more relivant.)
As for parents, I’ve lied to my mother alot of times. Very small things though. I mean I didn’t take 50$ and then say I didn’t, things like why were you late getting home or something, are frequent.
To get a job: I’m curious to see if an adult would do the same? Bush and Gore are doing it right now, there’s 2 for you,
1:6 come to class drunk
I saw this on The O’Reilly Factor today. (Get the book it’s great) When this came up I was suprized. (I then proceded to remind myself of the idiots who go to my school and then the numbers worked out) I know people who’ve brought liquor to school disguised as Kool-aid or mixed in with Kool-aid. I’m wondering if “drunk” also covered hard drugs and such, because then it would make sence.
46% said they could get a gun
Irrelivant to their(teens) morals. If someone could get a gun it doesn’t mean they’ll use them. This should be taken as more of a reflection to parents to place their guns in better spots.
Overall reply: I want this behavior to continue, it’ll help me make my way to a higher paying job. Although I do think the lying one is a little unclear.
I would imagine that significantly more than 46% would be capable of “getting a gun”. However, I’d imagine that most would be very hesitant to admit it.
Boy, does that bring back memories!
Anyone who thinks kids were more moral back in the early 80’s never witnessed the unbridled carnage of my midwestern high school. Hell, only 1 in 6 hadn’t come to class loaded. And all most of us had access to guns. Idealizing the past, if you ask me.
When the word immoral is used, it connotes a distinctly voluntary aspect. Namely, that the individual thus described is knowingly immoral. This may not be the case so much as how modern kids are being amoral. This is not to condemn them as opposed to identifying the basic root of this conduct.
Over the years there has been a distinct decline in the quality or coherencey of individual philosophy. These days, fewer and fewer people seem to have any sort of rational philosophy. (For an excellent treatise on this subject read, “Philosophy, Who Needs It” by Ayn Rand.) This can be attributed to the continuing erosion of religious practice in a society that no longer looks to the church for explanation of the world around them.
A lack of religious practice neither precludes nor obviates the need for a rational philosophy and this is the point. So many people have abandoned the often arbitrary doctrines of religion in favor of “scientific” thought. Yet, they have done so without the rigorous introspection and autoscopic analysis required by such a mindset. Plainly put, people are shedding one moral code without adopting another. The prevalence of “psuedo-science” is a sterling example of this. People want all of the trappings of scientific credibility without doing any of the homework. It is one of the reasons why, after so many half hearted attempts, people are returning to the churches for moral guidance. Too often they are unwilling to apply themselves to such an onerous task as self determination.
The dramatic increase in homocides commited by children is direct evidence of this. Parents have not adopted a rational philosophy and therefore are incapable of transmitting any such thing to their children. The rebellious behavior of the “Flower Generation” was but a ground swell presaging a far more severe demagnitization of our youth’s moral compass. However dogmatically the church enforces the ten commandments, a distinct portion of them serve as a framework for functional social conduct. As the church has been abandoned for its too often intransigent viewpoints, few have bothered to fully reweave the net of their moral fabric.
It is through these holes in the network of coherent and connected thought that our youth are falling. Raised in a philosophical and moral vacuum, they are not acting immoral, but instead, amoral. The tragic amount of hard knocks and lessons learned the difficult way will cull a stunning portion of these children through suicide and dissolution. What we are witnessing is nothing short of lost generations of youth. Few parents are willing to admit how rarely they bother to clearly explain or logically diagram why certain things are right and wrong to their children.
Too often kids are given the answer, “…because I say so!”. Does anyone think that a child’s mental framework and perception of reality will not be warped by such unsupported “reasoning”? Just watch Jay Leno’s “Jaywalk Hall of Fame” sometime. The people on it are incapable of naming even the most basic historic or current events. What sort of well reasoned philosophy do you think these mental midgets have? This vacuousness will continue to haunt us in the hollow stare of a twelve year old murderer. In the glazed look of a pregnant thirteen year old girl, still just a child herself.
What’s different today than it was 30 years ago (IMHO) are the attitudes toward parenting, which has resulted in a different set of characteristics for the children.
We as parents are incredibly more protective and cautious, perhaps because of increased reporting of crime, kidnappings, and guns in school. So, we are driving our children to school and/or staying at the bus stop and watching them get on the bus. (My parents never did any of this).
We are supervising their play time and setting limits on their freedoms. We used to play in the woods, totally unsupervised at 8 years old. Today, I don’t let my children do that (I’d be cited for neglect). Adding to that, discipline has been one of my toughest things to resolve.
The net result? I’ve seen a lot of spoiled and disrespectful children. Are they any different from when we were kids? I’d have to watch the video of me growing up.
I believe it was Socrates who said the quote regarding the disrespectful slackers that are today’s youth.
My son and I go around and around on this. I ask “Is your homework done?” answer: Yes.
sound simple? not if you understand that my question “Is your homework done” was reinterpreted to mean “Did you complete all the assignments that are due tomorrow except for the ones you know you’ll have time to finish before the class they’re for?”
Read some history! I just finished a book on London in the year 1700, and golly! Kids of all ages were drinking, drugging, whoring, mugging, raping, stealing—and being hanged for it. They didn’t have the mass media then to publicize it, but kids have been committing all kinds of horrors for as long as there’s BEEN kids. And remember, there were no “social services” or juvenile homes 100, 300 or 500 years ago.
Whenever something like Columbine happens and the news media goes all woo-woo-eyed about “we have lost our innocence,” I want to gag. We never HAD our “innocence!”
Actually, didn’t England have the “poor house”? You know, the places they threw all the wretches of humanity that would otherwise dirty up the pretty streets…
I think Zenster and Eve make great points here on both sides–that juvenile crime has always been a problem, but perhaps it is growing in scope because of our amoral society. Or maybe it’s just that we have live video of everything and the fact that there are, what, twice as many people as there were a hundred years ago, and therefore there are that many more tragedies to report even if the crime rate stayed the same.
I think the majority of it is the media sensationalizing it. Everything today has to seem to be bigger, better, and faster than yesterday, even the problems to get noticed. One of the things that trully amazed me in my school years, was how we would have AIDS awareness rallies, and some slick motivational guy would come walk and and tell us how ‘for the first time in history having sex will kill you’, which I’m sure would really comfort the millions of people who died of Syphylis of the centuries. (Not in anyway to minimalize the impact of AIDS on the world today) In the history of humanity, sex was probably right after death one of the most common direct causes of death, from STDs to Jealous Spouses, to problem pregnancies that couldn’t be dealt with medically until this century. The problems of today are just a new spin on old problems, but that would be to boring to report, so the sky has to start falling at least twice every newscast.
