Moral breakdown

Moral breakdown is a phenomenon in which a major degradation or complete loss of moral values takes place within a particular society. It often operates in conjunction with various forms of moral panic- the difference being that a moral panic happens when people wrongly assume immorality is on the increase based on evidence that is rooted in fear/hysteria. A Moral breakdown is when moral values are in fact getting worse, and is often less easy to pinpoint outside of retrospect. Other names for moral breakdown include moral decay, moral decline, or moral rot. The abruptness of such kind of degradation may vary depending on the situation and the events that take place within a given society over a certain time. Moral breakdown may be caused by the changes in the political situation and/or cultural changes of the society, or in the aftermath of a conflict or a natural disaster.

Moral breakdown and natural disasters

A critical loss of moral or ethical values may take place during or past a major cataclysm which strikes a given society. One of the better known examples of moral breakdown originating from natural disasters took place during the epidemic of Black Death in Europe (1347–1350). When Mideaval society was faced with the serious possibility of wholesale destruction from the disease, people lost faith in public ethics and religion. Cases of heavy drinking, gluttony, adultery and other acts which were unethical/sinful to the contemporary Christian society took place. Education also suffered as students and teachers alike died in large numbers; newer schools that were established in this era would specifically state that their mission was to address the decay in learning caused by the disease. The people lost trust in the church and God, since neither could provide a cure or shield them from the pestilence. Religious activity, in the form of organized religion, suffered severely, since priests, monks, and nuns were the most likely to die after doctors, given their extensive contact with suffering victims. With the decay in religious education, there was also a steady increase in heretical movements that threatened further instability, such as the Flagellants. Finally, arts and culture changed for the worse, with a heavy emphasis on death and destruction as themes.

Influence of conflict

There is an enormous correlation between war and moral breakdown. This is because conflict has a propensity to erode public confidence in ethical systems, particularly if the conflict is bad enough to threaten civilian lives. In that instance, people sometimes do unethical things to survive, or because they see an opportunity to get away with certain acts they would not if there were no conflict. When Nazi Germany invaded Poland for example, anywhere from 7,000 to several hundred thousand Poles collaborated with the Nazis to hunt down and murder their Jewish neighbors, and seize their property for themselves. While most Poles niether aided nor resisted their German occupiers, several individuals took advantage of the conflict for their own gain. In one egregious instance, there was the Jedwabne Pogrom of 1941, in which more than 340 Polish Jews were herded into a barn by their Polish neighbors and the Gestapo and burned alive. Another instance from the same time period would be Vichy France. In the immediate aftermath of the Fall of France, the country was split into two halves. The first half was to be occupied by German forces, and the other half, named Vichy after a town of the same name, was to remain unoccupied in exchange for loyalty to the German gov't. Collaboration with the racial policies of the Nazi regime was Vichy policy- for example, in the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup, some 13,000 French Jews were rounded up by the Millice secret police without any aid or prompting from the German gov't. These 13,000 were later handed over to the Germans for extermination. In general, there was a strong element of moral panic that enabled the ideology behind Vichy- the ideal France under Marshall Philippe Pétain was defined as "France for the French"- that is, a France without Jews, Freemasons, Protestants, etc. These were the groups that were traditionally considered inferior or deviant in some way by traditional French society. In particular, they blamed the previous Third Republic for granting these groups what they felt was too much influence at their expense; ergo the only solution was dictatorship.

According to the Catholic Herald (1969), during the war in Vietnam multiple atrocities were committed on both sides of the conflict. As the news report reads, violence neither reduces nor nulls violence - on the contrary, violence breeds violence. Conflicts strongly increase the degradation of ethical values as in the instance of the My Lai Massacre committed by the US army being silenced by the news of the first landing on the moon. In this particular instance, the Moral Breakdown caused by war was noticeable not only within the ranks of the army, but also in the society.

Moral breakdown and political/cultural changes

Typically, moral breakdown happens because of external traumatic pressures on a society, such as a war, genocide, or disease but it can also occur voluntarily, in the form of societies making unethical choices. In the 1920s, Moral panic about the "wrong" groups in society gaining more power than it was felt they were entitled to led to many in the United States joining the Ku Klux Klan. In America in the 1920s, many white Anglo-Saxon protestants in the rural South and Midwest felt threatened by the changing aspects of the times. African-Americans were beginning to demand greater civic equality in recognition for their contributions to American victory in WWI. Additionally, there was a deep sense that Catholics and Jews were not 'real' Americans, and their presence in American life led many WASPS to conclude that America's national identity was under siege. Also, traditional values were being challenged in new ways- the 1920s saw the rise of a new urban culture that seemed to celebrate sexual and social freedom at their expense. These feelings of resentment caused many WASPs to champion prohibition and religious fundamentalism. It also fed the Klan's rapid growth. By 1925, the Klan boasted a membership of nearly 5 million, and successfully took electoral power in the state legislatures of Indiana, Colorado, and Oregon. In those states, it actively lobbied to pass legislation designed to discriminate against the groups it regarded as inferior. But in areas where it did not have political power, it often resorted to murder, public beatings, and kidnapping.

A second major example would be the Sexual Revolution in the United States and its long-term effects. Beginning in the 1960s and ending in the 1980s, the sexual revolution took place in the United States and eventually spread across the rest of the western world. Traditionally, American adults regarded unconventional sexual behavior such as fornication and homosexuality to be immoral. But beginning in the aforementioned era, attitudes towards sex and sexuality underwent a radical change. As attitudes towards sexual morals loosened, more and more Americans reported feelings of acceptance towards premarital and extramarital sex, and homosexual behavior. A 1975 poll estimated more than 90% of Americans had admitted to premarital sex at some point in their lives, with no intent of getting married. The sexual revolution was almost immediately followed up with a notable increase in divorce, availability and ease of access to all forms of pornography, including child pornography, and abortion. The use of child pornography is positively correlated with child sexual abuse- arrests for simultaneous child porn possession and assorted indecent acts with minors were reported to have gone up by at least one-third between 2006 and 2009 alone. The divorce rate has remained high and has only begun to decline substantially from 2005 onwards, although that might be because fewer people are willing to get married in the first place.

Societal collapse

Historians believe societal collapse and the overall disintegration of society due to external or internal factors may exacerbate social discord and lead to degradation of morality. Ancient Rome, for example, was notable for condoning infanticide and pedophilia almost from its foundation. A Roman father could legally abandon or kill his children at any age, for any reason. It was particularly common for Roman parents to abandon or kill baby girls. In addition, sexual exploitation of children was commonplace. It was possible to walk into almost any major Roman city and find brothels with child sex slaves for adults to exploit, castrated boys being a particularly-sought after delicacy. Not coincidentally, a majority of Roman parents and several emperors, such as Tiberius, are known to have engaged in sexually abusing children, either their own, or their child slaves. Quintilian in his Orator's Education denotes this: "We [the adults] like it if they [the children] say something outrageous; we reward them with a smile and a kiss words that would be objectionable in an Alexandrian fancy boy! They see our mistresses, our boy lovers; every dinner party echoes with obscene songs; things are to be seen which are shameful to name!" In addition, he strongly implies it was not uncommon for Roman schoolteachers to sexually molest their students and threaten them with beatings if they told their parents. Tiberius, for his part, was accused by both Tacitus and Suetonius of forcing small boys to perform fellatio on him while on retreat on Capri.

However, other examples of moral breakdown occur when resources are dwindling at an unsustainable level compared to the overall influx of newer populations. This, as evidenced from ancient Rome and the ancient Mayans, creates a climate of hypercompetitive behavior between various classes, creating a climate of plutocracy or extreme violence as manifested through Roman gladiator shows and bizarre rituals that were viewed as hedonistic during the early stages of the society. As resources dwindle because of economic recession, societies in decline are more focused on curbing the exhaustion of physical resources (food, water, infrastructure) and ignore the enforcement of social capital among the general public to conserve such physical resources.

See also

• Moral panic
• Democratic backsliding
• Sexual Ethics
• Societal collapse

References

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