TL: DR–is there a standard model for rate of moral decay?
are we more immoral now as a society than in the past?
IS there a universal measure for morality?
is that measure reliant on religious ideals, or is morality a general human standard?
we’ve discussed here before how people have decried ethical degeneration since the beginning of civilization.
so my question is: is it a tractable stat? is there a metric for moral/amoral/immoral levels of general society? crime rates seems like the go-to stat, but too many laws are not based on actual morality-- jaywalking isn’t immoral but it’s a crime stat. out of date tags, speeding, not wearing a helmet or seatbelt, (maybe) marijuana–all crime statistics, none morality based. obviously murder and violent crime, incidents of theft, rape, etc are good crime stats for morality.
my line of thought is two-fold: historically, i can see some pretty TERRIBLE acts on the wide-scale that were magnitudes worse than things are now. flip side–we can benchmark “moral allowances” to the status quo (known as the slippery slope).
so on one hand, living during the Holocaust–people must have thought evil ruled the world. Revelation Believers must have though the beast was coming at any moment. in some points of history, things have been really, really, REALLY bad.
when you add up that we 1. reflect on by-gone eras with maudlin fondness and 2. everyone has done that since literally forever and 3. honest evaluation of the past shows how cruel people have been–it sure looks like thing are either only as bad or actually better now.
on the flip side, there are datapoints for new benchmarks in moral slip.
once was a time couples slept in two beds on tv. now we’re up to the point “shit” can be said on basic cable as well as much more explicit sex and violence.
some of the best shows on TV glorify moral equivocation (breaking bad?!) and my god, the net. the internet has opened a world of exposure to terrible, incomprehensibly awful things. so i would say there’s clearly more exposure to immorality now than ever-- *tho i can’t track if it impacts people’s own behavior. *
/b/ is both the butthole of the internet and a launchpad for moral activism against atrocious acts such as kiddie porn. conflicted
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so are we exposed to worse things–or are we finally just being honest about reality? are we allowing more and more unethical or immoral things into the status quo, or were those things never actually immoral to start with?
people had dirt, filthy sex in the 50s, 30s, 10s–with or with tv ever factoring in. are we more perverted now that we see it more often in media?
we have more sex and violence at more easily accessible points–in higher saturation–and i think the general sensitivity of the world has become more and more obtuse. but i don’t necessarily see a slip in actual morality as much as i see a relinquishing to liberalism.
but liberal doesn’t mean immoral per se.
some points:
[ul]pot legalization: do gooders consider it the harbinger of moral decay. is it? or did we just criminalize something unjustly? is marijuana use actually an issue of moral fundamentals?
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[li]exposure: people had crazy, lusty sex even back before tv existed. does seeing it make people more immoral? or are people pretty even-keel perverted no matter what? [/li][li]america is progressively becoming more liberal–is that reflected in a comparable ratio of immorality? we are one of the last westernized conservative nations–are we just beholden to a quaint notion of what is moral?[/li][li]my dad said when tv came out, it was declared evil and satanic by his church. eventually, that “moral issue” was dissolved by the church and accepted as just part of life. is that the kind of thing that is happening with morality? it’s not that we are increasingly worse people–it’s that we started out villainizing things wrongly to start with. saying they’re not wrong anymore isn’t embracing decay; it’s admitting we were being a little uptight to start with?[/li][/ul]
the net seems like a pretty seedy place. but it’s pretty on-par with your average interstate truck-stop bathroom wall (oh the things they write there).
part of this consideration is fueled by the american idea that we are morally off-track and that is what is wrong with our nation on whole. the conservatives are claiming obama’s win is due to the fact lazy, immoral people want to mooch and be depraved. and god has forsaken us because we embrace this.
my dad is in a tailspin over it all since tuesday. yet when i confront him to name that one president in history who was morally upstanding, beyond reproach–who governed the nation with Christian Law and got EEEVERYONE to be more moral and wholesome–he goes silence. so whatever era it was when america WAS morally on track can’t be quantified. he can remember when it was better–but cannot back that memory up with a point in history.
i honestly can’t tell if we are worse now or better. i can debate myself forever, but maybe i’ll shut up and see what you think now.