by Heather Funches

Created on: September 01, 2009

If you look at personal morals and look at society as a whole then you would say yes based on the overall actions of the few in society that were raised with no morals. But personal morals and society morals differ greatly. I often hear my husband, who is in his fifties, saying that he feels that he has awakened on another planet because he doesn't understand the lack of morals in the younger generations. I tell him the truth. It is not a lack of morals. It was the lack of teaching on the parents part. Moral integrity is still very prevalent in society today. The media just choose to highlight the lacking side of morals because it still wows and raises rating. People who have a strong moral background watch the news or read the papers with a sense of disbelief that the kid down the road got caught doing something morally wrong. They wonder at the lack of shame. Because one child on a street is raised without strong morals does not mean the whole street is morally corrupt.

My children are challenged daily by a select few of friends who's moral upbringing isn't to the standards that I hold my children to. I do not deny my children the right to be their friends because of this, I hope that my children's influence might help the child(ren) see that their actions are not morally correct. But again that states a new issue in the whole moral issue. Who is to say whose moral upbringing is the right upbringing? I believe that my children have a strong moral upbringing but that doesn't mean that the neighbor believes the same. Who are we to judge the morals of our neighbors or their children?

Personal morals are not decaying in our society because personal morals are just that, personal. Society as a whole can't judge the decay or lack of decay because societies beliefs on morals change as quickly as the weather. Ask five people individually what are the top five personal morals that they value above all others and every person will have at least one different one in the list. If their list isn't like my list does that make them less moral then me? Or does that make me less moral then them?

Personal morals are based on religious beliefs, town structure, school settings and family structure. Personal beliefs are held by everyone. They just differ greatly from one person to another. Take a city kid from Chicago and a country kid from a small town in Kansas, both will have personal morals but they will be ranked differently.

To determine if there is decay in personal morals one must ask a more serious fundamental question first. Is societies morals decaying? It is the decay there that will eventually spreads to the family life and then to personal morals. That makes a person wonder, if societies morals are decaying, am I participating in that decay by not acting against it?

Learn more about this author, Heather Funches.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.