Posted by
OnceAlwaysaMarine on Saturday, April 05, 2008 1:53:33 PM
I am stirred into responding to the article written in 1998 by Christina Hoff Sommers, Professor of Philosophy, Clark University: Are We Living in a Moral Stone Age? Written from the perspective of one who is charged to educate our nation’s youth, she seems to be deeply concerned with the evident deficiency of moral sensibility exhibited by a large number of them. Professor Sommers’ description of these young people as morally confused is troubling.
“This is a generation of kids that, despite relatively little moral guidance or religious training, is putting compassion into practice. Conceptually and culturally, however, today’s young people live in a moral haze. Ask one of them if there are such things as “right” and “wrong,” and suddenly you are confronted with a confused, tongue-tied, nervous, and insecure individual.”
I am struck by the fact that the professor recognizes a deficit of moral or religious training in today’s youth, while at the same time having identified no apparent lack of compassion. Compassion is defined in the Encarta Dictionary: English (North America) as: “sympathy for the suffering of others, often including a desire to help”. Compassion and sympathy, even when inciting one into taking measures intended to ameliorate the suffering of others, may be expressed with little consideration for moral correctness. On several occasions I have witnessed the compassionate expression of sympathy demonstrated, for instance, in the friend of a bereaved alcoholic or crack addict supplying his or her bereaved friend with alcohol or illegal drugs as a gesture of compassion and sympathy. In these cases there definitely exists compassion and a desire to help, but where is the morality in such actions? In other cases, compassion and the desire to help
do not necessarily produce any action on the part of the compassionate sympathizer. The compassionate individual says: “Oh, I feel so sorry for Joe. I wish there was something I could do!” For many in today’s society, this kind of sentiment alone gives them a sense of moral complacency.
I believe some insight may be found in an earlier passage from Professor Sommers’ article:
“Most of the students I meet are basically decent individuals. They form wonderful friendships and seem to be considerate of and grateful to their parents—more so than the baby-boomers were. In many ways they are more likable than the baby-boomers—they are less fascinated with themselves and more able to laugh at their faults.”
Many of today’s morally challenged youth are the progeny of morally deficient baby-boomers; a generation which in itself, it can be argued, was spoiled into a perverted sense of superiority, brashness, egotism, and pomposity and who continue to show a disdain for the institutions and principles upon which this nation was built . Combine these attributes with a 1970’s era disrespect for governmental, and subsequently parental, authority, due to the unpopularity of the Viet Nam war and the advent of a “If it feels good, do it” philosophy and one will begin to understand how and why American society has come to embrace a “moral Stone Age”. The renunciation of faith, the bringing of homosexuality out of the closet and into the curriculum, while conversely, removing God and The Ten Commandments from the schoolhouses and public squares of this country, has brought with it the natural consequence of “Conceptual Moral Chaos” and “The Loss of Truth” in our society’s youth. Are we living in a moral Stone Age? Yes, but we did not arrive at this sad state of affairs entirely by accident. Mostly, it is the result of the
radically liberal and secularized views disseminated by the majority of those now occupying positions of authority in our schools, churches, courts and political offices.
Sadly, our students are living in the moral Stone Age many present-day parents, educators, entertainers, and policy makers have led them to embrace.