When Morals Declined Dramatically

WHEN would you say the dramatic moral decline began? Within your lifetime or perhaps that of older relatives or friends? Some say that World War I, which erupted in 1914, ushered in our era of unparalleled moral decadence. Professor of history Robert Wohl wrote in his book The Generation of 1914: “Those who lived through the war could never rid themselves of the belief that one world had ended and another begun in August 1914.”

“Everywhere, the standards of social behavior​—already in decline—​were devastated,” says historian Norman Cantor. “If the politicians and generals had treated the millions under their care like animals dispatched to slaughter, then what canons of religion or ethics could any longer inhibit men from treating each other with the ferocity of jungle beasts? . . . The slaughter of the First World War [1914-18] thoroughly debased the value of human life.”

In his comprehensive work The Outline of History, English historian H. G. Wells noted that it was following the acceptance of the evolution theory that “a real de-moralization ensued.” Why? Some held that man is simply a higher form of animal life. Wells, who was an evolutionist, wrote in 1920: “Man, they decided, is a social animal like the Indian hunting dog . . . , so it seemed right to them that the big dogs of the human pack should bully and subdue.”

Indeed, as Cantor noted, the first world war had a devastating effect upon people’s sense of morality. He explained: “The older generation was completely discredited in everything​—its politics, its dress, its sexual mores.” The churches, which prostituted Christian teachings by endorsing the evolution theory and egging on the warring sides, contributed greatly to the moral decline. British Brigadier General Frank Crozier wrote: “The Christian Churches are the finest blood-lust creators which we have and of them we made free use.”

Codes of Morality Discarded

In the decade after World War I​—the so-called Roaring Twenties—​old values and moral restraints were brushed aside and were replaced by an anything-goes approach. Historian Frederick Lewis Allen comments: “The ten years which followed the war may aptly be known as the Decade of Bad Manners. . . . With the old order of things had gone a set of values which had given richness and meaning to life, and substitute values were not easily found.”

The world’s Great Depression of the 1930’s sobered many by plunging them into abject poverty. By the end of that decade, however, the world had entered another, even more devastating, war​—World War II. Soon nations were making fearsome weapons of destruction, snapping the world out of the Depression but plunging it into suffering and horror beyond human imagination. By the end of the war, hundreds of cities lay in ruins; two in Japan were devastated, each by a single atomic bomb! Millions died in gruesome concentration camps. Altogether, the conflict took the lives of some 50 million men, women, and children.

During the horrid circumstances of World War II, instead of adhering to long-held traditional standards of propriety, people adopted their own codes of behavior. The book Love, Sex and War​—Changing Values, 1939-45, observed: “It seemed that sexual restraint had been suspended for the duration, as the traditional licence of the battlefield invaded the home front. . . . The urgency and excitement of wartime soon eroded moral restraints, and life on many home fronts appeared as cheap and short as life on the battle front.”

The constant threat of death intensified people’s yearning for emotional relationships, even transient ones. One British housewife, in justification of the sexual permissiveness during those dramatic years, said: “We were not really immoral, there was a war on.” One American soldier admitted, “By most people’s standards we were immoral, but we were young and could die tomorrow.”

Many survivors of that war suffered as a result of the horrors they witnessed. To this day some, including those who were then children, suffer flashbacks, feelings that the trauma is happening again. Many lost their faith and along with it their moral compass. Without respect for any authority that might establish standards of right and wrong, people began to see everything as relative.

New Social Norms

After World War II, studies were published regarding human sexual behavior. One such study in the United States in the 1940’s was the Kinsey Report, of more than 800 pages. As a result, many people began to talk openly about sexual matters, which earlier were not as commonly discussed. Although the statistics given in that report regarding those engaging in homosexual and other deviant sexual behavior were later recognized as exaggerated, the study revealed the dramatic moral decline that had followed the war.

For a time, there was an effort to preserve the appearance of propriety. For example, in radio, motion pictures, and television, immoral content was censored. But that did not last long. William Bennett, formerly a U.S. secretary of education, explained: “By the 1960’s, however, America began a steep and uninterrupted slide toward what might be called decivilization.” And this was reflected in many other lands. Why, in the ’60’s, did the moral decline accelerate?

That decade saw, almost simultaneously, the women’s liberation movement and the sexual revolution with its so-called new morality. Also, effective birth-control pills were developed. When sex could be enjoyed without fear of conception, “free love,” or “sexual relations without any commitments by either partner,” became common.

At the same time, the press, the movies, and television loosened their moral codes. Later Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former head of the U.S. National Security Council, said regarding values presented on TV: “They clearly extol self-gratification, they normalize intense violence and brutality, [and] they encourage sexual promiscuity.”

Already by the 1970’s, VCR’s had gained popularity. In the privacy of their homes, people could now view immoral, sexually explicit material that they would never have allowed themselves to be seen viewing in a public theater. More recently, by means of the Internet, pornography of the most despicable sort has become available in lands around the globe to any who have a computer.

The consequences in many ways are frightening. “Ten years ago,” said a warden at a U.S. penitentiary recently, “when kids would come in off the street, I could talk with them about right and wrong. But these kids coming in now have no idea of what I’m talking about.”

Where Can One Turn?

We cannot turn to the world’s churches for moral guidance. Rather than upholding righteous principles as did Jesus and his first-century followers, the churches have made themselves part of this world and its evils. One writer asked: “What war was ever fought in which God wasn’t claimed to be on each side?” As far as upholding God’s moral standards is concerned, years ago a New York City clergyman said: “The church is the only organization in the world which has a lower entrance requirement than those for getting onto a bus.”

Clearly, the dramatic decline in the morals of this world cries out for something to be done. But what? What change is needed? Who can make it, and how will it be accomplished?