Why Young Americans Can't Think Morally

Jewish World Review ^ | Sept. 20, 2011 | Dennis Prager

[ReformationFan]

Last week, David Brooks of The New York Times wrote a column on an academic study concerning the nearly complete lack of a moral vocabulary among most American young people. Below are some excerpts from Brooks' summary of the study of Americans aged 18 to 23. (It was led by "the eminent Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith.")

"Smith and company asked about the young people's moral lives, and the results are depressing …

"When asked to describe a moral dilemma they had faced, two-thirds of the young people either couldn't answer the question or described problems that are not moral at all …

"Moral thinking didn't enter the picture, even when considering things like drunken driving, cheating in school or cheating on a partner …

"The default position, which most of them came back to again and again, is that moral choices are just a matter of individual taste …

"As one put it, 'I mean, I guess what makes something right is how I feel about it. But different people feel different ways, so I couldn't speak on behalf of anyone else as to what's right and wrong …

"Morality was once revealed, inherited and shared, but now it's thought of as something that emerges in the privacy of your own heart."

[Monterrosa-24]

The percent of teens and young adults capable of moral thinking and being serious about the Bible and the Constitution zigs and zags like the stock market but the half-century trend is downward.

[keats5]

Our children have become pagans.

Without God, they become gods to themselves.

Feral behavior soon follows.

[lurk]

...and when these young people get into the position to decide the fate of the elderly in a few years, how do you think they’ll do?

[LomanBill]

"...According to my opinion, and the opinions of many defectors of my caliber, only about 15% of time, money, and manpower is spent on espionage as such. The other 85% is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion, active measures, or psychological warfare.

 

What it basically means is: to change the perception of reality of every American that despite of the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country.

 

It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages.

 

The first stage being "demoralization".... "

 

--KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov

--Soviet Subversion of the Free Press (Ideological subversion, Destabilization, CRISIS - and the KGB)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2095202/posts

[doc1019]

Considering that almost all the TV watched by the young today involves sex between unwed adults, what can you expect? Seldom can you name a program that doesn’t.

[Carry_Okie]

Our government and media are dedicated to turning people into animals, who will then be treated as such.

[Jonty30]

I think part of the reason for confusion on morality is that our society has achieved many advancements and we’ve managed to minimize the consequences of bad behaviour.

[Running On Empty]

Marking

[Chiltepe]

People (and I won’t assign it just to young people) still express moral beliefs, it’s just that they are liberal morals—even when they don’t realize it. Ask almost anyone what they think of racial or multicultural issues, and they know the publicly acceptable answer to give. Ask them why, and they will almost invariably say because it is absolutely right or wrong, completely taking the individual interpretation out of it. Individual interpretation is saved for traditionally conservative moral positions. Even many conservatives will play the race card on fellow conservatives, if they are angry at them and want to embarrass them. What all of this shows is not so much a decline of morality as a domination of our culture by liberal mores.

[Norm Lenhart]

Several of us on a music production related forum spent days arguing with one 20something about how piracy of music software was wrong legally and morally.

The hoops that guy jumped through were mindblowing in justifying his actions. It was all about him and if he wanted it, he would take it. No one was physically hurt or financially harmed he said. Even people who lost jobs programming the very software he pirated due to the companies going belly up over...piracy...could not convince him otherwise. He wanted it and that’s all the justification he needed.

Right and wrong no longer exist for many of the population. It’s that simple.

[doorgunner69]

Oh, like wow, dude! This is too hard to think about, like math and stuff.

Maybe after a few tokes, get back to me?

[Irenic]

Considering that almost all the TV watched by the young today involves sex between unwed adults, what can you expect? Seldom can you name a program that doesn’t.

*************************

I've wondered about all this homosexual ruckus all around, teaching in school, parades, singers, celebration for the military--you get the idea. It seems that could be confusing, too. I just read an extremely sad story and it has me pondering...

I know they say they are doing good, but I'm thinking it is doing more harm than anything that could be construed as good.

'What do I have to do so people will listen to me?' Boy, 14, kills himself after being bullied and thanks Lady Gaga in last post

"She said that her son had been questioning his sexuality over the last year and that his fellow students picked up on it and used it to taunt and bully him."

[Exton1]

Every Generation away from those that went to Church and read the bible, become less moral than the one before. Without Religion there is no evil one man will not do against another. Religion is the link to the past that help s us keep our morality. This is a result of over 60 years of the attack on Christianity.

[21twelve]

My wife asked our 16 year old son if he thought that going to church and being involved with his youth group two days out of the week had an impact on who he was.

He looked at her like she had two heads. “Well, yeah!”

I thought it was a dumb question too - but I know what she meant. And glad he could see the reason why he behaves the way he does.

[little jeremiah]

Placemark.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Taunting and bullying are the refuges of the weak minded, those who give in to the passions of the crowd, even if a laudable goal, ostensibly in line with traditional morality, appears to be the end.

[chiller]

I may be prima facia: not a “religious” Christian, but learned how to live a moral life in Sunday school and church. I do know right and wrong.

What’s happening today is wrong in much (not all) of this country.

Ever think you’d like to live forever? I couldn’t bear it, seeing the decay as it is. Things can and do change, for better or worse, so I’ll keep hope alive as jj says

[LomanBill]

>>Without Religion there is no evil

Au contraire mon FRere.

"I KNOW BUT ONE CODE OF MORALITY FOR MEN WHETHER ACTING SINGLY OR COLLECTIVELY"

Jefferson was not talking about Religion - which he loathed, and for good reason.

Seems to me Jefferson was talking about self-evident Truth rendered by the relationship manifested between the Individual and their Creator -- in minds which Almighty God hath created FREE.

Likewise...

...who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time;...

---The Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom

... he evidently observed that religion, historically, is most usually a product of the coercive State.   Typically manifesting itself in a tyrannical state of affairs that is referred to in the Old Testament as Ba'al.  

Ba'al being the subjugated worship of the State by religious mandate -- against which Jefferson declared:

"I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ETERNAL HOSTILITY

TO EVERY FORM OF TYRANNY OVER THE MIND OF MAN"

[karnage]

Failure of parenting.