Is our society letting go of its morals?

No

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by Dennis Krivda

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Admittedly, the advent of 24-hour news channels with their images of massive bomb blasts in the Mid-east; or thugs smashing an innocent bystander over the head with a board; or some jerk weed father using his children to perpetrate a balloon hoax make it quite difficult to believe that humanity has any morals left at all.

From the mildly disturbing to the abhorrently murderous, repulsive stories flood into the world's living rooms every day, which can convince anyone with a rational thought that the human race is going to hell in a hand basket in a hurry. And when the President of the United States even resorts to casual adultery (yes, Bill, oral sex is 50% oral and 50% sex) it's gotta be hard for even the loosest of liberals to disagree that modern morals have - at the very least - eroded around the edges slightly.

Clearly, that perceived erosion causes the casual observer to conclude that humanity has completely lost its ability to live with compassion, fairness, a sense of justice, humility, and peace.

In fact, the exact opposite is true. Humanity grows more moral with every passing hour. And a quick review of history proves that fact.

First, though, there must be a clear definition of morals and morality. Of course, the dictionary explains that morals represent the code of conduct for any society; or the difference between what is right and what is wrong; or the ability of individuals to act in an socially acceptable manner. Generally speaking, each society defines its own set of morals or standards. Those definitions of morality, however, shift over the years.

Even churches redefine what is an offense and what is not. The Roman Catholic church, for example, once required that a woman must always wear a veil whenever she entered the nave of a cathedral. Nowadays, some parishes are just glad to see anyone kneeling in the pews.

So, as society ages, standards change. A push back through time shows that humanity actually grows in morality with every day.

Less than 24 hours ago, for example, President Obama signed into law a bill that now makes it illegal for anyone to assault a person in the US simply because they do not agree with their sexual orientation. Two days ago some bigot could beat a person simply because they imagined some sort of homosexual advances; and the bigot would not have broken any American law.

Pushing back still further in time, way back in 1984 the US government enacted the Equal Access Law. At first, the law was strongly endorsed by many churches across the nation so that bible study groups could meet in public school auditoriums. When other groups cited that same law as a guarantee that they may also use the school auditoriums for their activities, American Christian groups quickly did an about face and opposed the right of groups such as atheists, Satanists, gay support clubs, and even Wiccans to gather in schools. Fortunately, the US federal government wisely upheld the law but provided that school districts have the option to prohibit all extra-curricular activities in their facilities.

Less than fifty years ago, laws prohibited black and white people from marrying one another in the United States. President Barack Obama is actually the illicit offspring of a white woman and a black man. In fact, interracial couples were almost always shunned, and sometimes assaulted simply because they were in love with one another.

Mid-century America was not the most moral of nations.

In 1940s America, children worked in coal mines. Ten year-old girls were often forced into labor in sweatshops. And when the kids didn't please their parents enough, abusive physical discipline was considered the only effective means of correcting behavior, even when that "bad" behavior resulted from a genetic blemish or some other flaw that was not the fault of the child.

Adults barely had it any better back then. Laborers were paid just enough to survive. Before minimum wage became a federal law in 1938, companies thought nothing of expanding their profit margin by simply paying their workers as little as possible. Anyone who protested too much was quickly dispatched, left on the streets, and forced to struggle to return to the workforce, or worse...beg.

There was no health-care benefits. There was no dental plan. There was no paid overtime! There was no glass ceiling because women were barely considered worthy of working outside the home. And any unhappy woman who complained too much about her home life would typically suffer through a sound beating at the hands of her "hard-working" husband. The neighbors didn't report such physical abuse because that was the social standard, or "morality" of the times.

Two hundred years ago, anyone who wasn't outwardly Caucasian and male was considered as a second-class citizen in the United States. Women could not vote, but Africans were treated especially harshly. In fact, they were legally considered less than a full person, and regarded as pure property to be traded, bought, sold, and generally ignored.

No doubt, film from the Salem witch trials would keep many people glued to the cable news channels today. Viewers would simply gasp and shake their heads over the report that the mob intentionally crushed to death one person simply because others in the community thought that person was a witch.

Even the Holy Bible has its tales of human horror. God sanctioned the killing of entire villages (including women and children) simply because they didn't praise Him. God, Himself, killed hundreds of thousands of people (including pregnant women and young children) when He flooded the earth and killed all that lived on the earth and in the earth.

And modern people are fascinated by phone videos of a tsunami washing ashore? God killed the entire human race, except for eight people, just to vanquish the evil in humanity. Anyone who believes that evil still exists in the world today would have to concede that God failed in His attempt to remove evil from this planet.

How can God fail at something?

Is society letting go of its morals? Hardly! Governments create more laws every day to protect the rights of victims. From rape victims in Africa to white collar crime victims in Argentina, and from hate crime victims in Wyoming to assault victims in Warsaw, Poland, humanity continually strives to protect the innocent.

Society is certainly not letting go of its morals. Individuals might have fewer morals or lower standards these days, but society - and the human race in general - surges forward in the struggle to achieve widespread fairness, justice, compassion, humility, and peace.

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