sixtyandaquarter
Member
A majority of that is true, but let's not forget the base of that. And today I see more people pounding on bibles in the street than I do anything else when it comes to being good people.
Morals, why does it seem that a lot of people don't care to follow them anymore?
- Thread starter Diaforetikos
- Start date
Yeah discussions of the Bible are somewhat tangential, but the topic is concerning a question about why people have abandoned morality, which really raises the question about whether they have done so at all or if it's just a matter of changing moral values away from those that are supposedly traditional to our culture. Since most deeply faithful people believe that their religion of choice has a monopoly on morality and that the basis of their faith is infallible, it's fair enough to debate on the subject.
I don't want to see it break down into flaming and trolling, but as long as it remains mature and fair-minded there's nothing wrong with asking hard questions and challenging eachother's thinking. There's really multiple aspects to this discussion:
-Has western society (or the world at large) really abandoned morality?
-Did it ever have it in the first place, or do moralists mourn a fantasy of some moral golden era that never really existed in historical fact?
-What constitutes morality, and how does one decide what is and is not moral?
-Is moral equatable to Good and immoral equatable to Evil (capital Good and Evil, as in absolute), or are there aspects to a specific set of moral values that are at best neutral?
If we stay in the bounds of the topic and stay civil I don't see a reason to shut down discussion.
I don't want to see it break down into flaming and trolling, but as long as it remains mature and fair-minded there's nothing wrong with asking hard questions and challenging eachother's thinking. There's really multiple aspects to this discussion:
-Has western society (or the world at large) really abandoned morality?
-Did it ever have it in the first place, or do moralists mourn a fantasy of some moral golden era that never really existed in historical fact?
-What constitutes morality, and how does one decide what is and is not moral?
-Is moral equatable to Good and immoral equatable to Evil (capital Good and Evil, as in absolute), or are there aspects to a specific set of moral values that are at best neutral?
If we stay in the bounds of the topic and stay civil I don't see a reason to shut down discussion.
Dissonance
Member
People aren't following morals anymore because they're beginning to realize that they're relative - and generally bullshit. Morals change between time and place, yet we're all told during our younger years that "this is just how it is" or that "everybody does it" or that "it's just natural to act this way".
Morals are trumped up reasons to act illogically when you don't like the rational response to an issue.
Morals are trumped up reasons to act illogically when you don't like the rational response to an issue.
Dissonance":2eqrdo8k said:
Not quite. I'm not going to run down to the local playground and beat up some kids playing basketball even though they're being loud and disrupting my work. Not just because the police would beat my ass but I have an invisible cricket on my shoulder who tells me not to (and he'd beat my ass, then sing a song about it.)
Morals aren't some fictional mental laws meant to confine people, they're the rules everyone follows that govern what is right and just. They're different from person-to-person, but unless someone has absolutely no concept of what they think is wrong then everyone has a system of morals.
I find morality is nearly impossible to define. It is a construct of the human mind, but not of any individual human mind. Rather, it is a contruct of the collective human mindset, though it differs from time to place to best suit the situation.
In my opinion, as a result of morality simply being a construct of our psyche, there is no such thing as absolute morality. Morality is just a set of guidelines which we create to have a measure of "things we should do" and "things we shouldn't do".
Because times, technology and society all change, and our beliefs about the world and how things should be are different on a temporal basis, the things we should and shouldn't do change over time.
Less than a few decades ago, animal testing was considered moral by the large majority of people. It can help out thousands of people by finding cures for diseases, and it does not involve invoking physical harm on something as important as a person.
In the present however, animal testing is considered immoral. There's better ways of testing things that do not involve harming animals.
Does this mean that people in the past were acting immoraly by testing on animals? I don't think so, they were just doing what was right by them. I'm sure THEY didn't think they were being immoral either.
In my opinion, as a result of morality simply being a construct of our psyche, there is no such thing as absolute morality. Morality is just a set of guidelines which we create to have a measure of "things we should do" and "things we shouldn't do".
Because times, technology and society all change, and our beliefs about the world and how things should be are different on a temporal basis, the things we should and shouldn't do change over time.
Less than a few decades ago, animal testing was considered moral by the large majority of people. It can help out thousands of people by finding cures for diseases, and it does not involve invoking physical harm on something as important as a person.
In the present however, animal testing is considered immoral. There's better ways of testing things that do not involve harming animals.
Does this mean that people in the past were acting immoraly by testing on animals? I don't think so, they were just doing what was right by them. I'm sure THEY didn't think they were being immoral either.
decemberfox
Member
The reason people these days aren't bothering with morals is because they're stupid. Not all morals, mind, stuff like 'Don't kill people or beat them up' is all good and fine, but stuff already mentioned like premarital sex and junk is becoming an anachronism (to general society in most countries, obviously it doesn't apply everywhere). Olden day morals like those were in place for no real reason, and people are now beginning to ditch them, because there's no real point to them.
The other stupid thing about them is how subjective they are. You can't define life by morals because everyone's are different. People nowadays think pedophilia is wrong and immoral, but a long long time ago women were married at 13 or younger, to much older men. And, as soon as they could, they started making babies. If you mention this to someone, chances are they'll say that we've moved on as a society, that we've realized what's right and what we should do (I'm speaking from experience =p). But I personally think that we've just become prudes.
I don't have a problem with any morals, or lack of morals, so long as it doesn't affect me. If people are trying to push their opinions on me, because something I do is 'wrong,' and I shouldn't do it, then I have a real problem. The REALLY annoying thing is that the people who still uphold 'stupid' morals are generally old-fashioned people who think their way to live is the right way to live, and everybody should live that way.
The other stupid thing about them is how subjective they are. You can't define life by morals because everyone's are different. People nowadays think pedophilia is wrong and immoral, but a long long time ago women were married at 13 or younger, to much older men. And, as soon as they could, they started making babies. If you mention this to someone, chances are they'll say that we've moved on as a society, that we've realized what's right and what we should do (I'm speaking from experience =p). But I personally think that we've just become prudes.
I don't have a problem with any morals, or lack of morals, so long as it doesn't affect me. If people are trying to push their opinions on me, because something I do is 'wrong,' and I shouldn't do it, then I have a real problem. The REALLY annoying thing is that the people who still uphold 'stupid' morals are generally old-fashioned people who think their way to live is the right way to live, and everybody should live that way.
They were acting immorally to the people that think animal testing is immoral. If they decided it was moral then it would be moral to them. Morals are totally subjective and based on opinion.
Behavioral choices springing from rational concepts of law and justice are more properly termed ethics. Morals imply a supernatural causality or consequence for action and an arcane set of rules having little to do with justice, practicality, or social norms. If you honestly believed in an imaginary cricket who could physically harm you if you violated his code of morals you'd qualify as a moralizer, but if you choose not to beat up children because you draw the rational conclusion that their annoying behavior does not justify physically harming them due to practical consequences (whether the contrast between being annoyed and being bodily harmed or the likely legal repercussions), you are really behaving ethically.ixis":1khe2wn3 said:
Mr. N":2h5bfgzl said:
Morality and ethics are essentially the same, the only difference is ethics is held by a larger group of people and you can impose laws on breaking ethics. Morals can be held by anyone, and morals do not have to be religious or supernatural (i.e. philosophy.)
And uhh... I hope you're joking cause if you aren't you really need to ejumakate yourself!
I got your reference ;P My point was that morals don't stem from rationality. I guess you don't need to term "gut instincts" and "feelings", that whole "because it just seems right" as supernatural causalities for people who base their behaviour on them independent of a religious or spiritual code, but they are in the sense that they stem from beliefs founded in something other than rational observation and consideration of consequences. In some cases these can be related to right-brain pattern recognition, where a spontaneous impulse results from life experience. You can recognize a situation that seems wrong in that sense without being able to rationalize it on the spot, and it's good to listen to those instincts because they are often right. However if you can't articulate them you can't present a fair argument that others should apply them. Perhaps the feeling stems from a highly personal experience that has little application to a normal person - for instance a traumatic or incredibly positive experience that you associate with some stimulus, but that would not apply similar trauma or benefit to society at large.
rey meustrus
Sponsor
This thread got a LOT of replies since the last time I was here. I just want to point out this part, that I think may have been missed in the bible-smashing:
Seems like? Seems like there's more "destruction, depression, and death?" That does not mean there is more. I feel like I have one argument here, but it's a really good one, and that's that we need to stop looking at the past through rose-colored glasses. We need to realize that there is genocide, racism, and witch hunting in our past. This is just the last hundred years. Farther back, there's institutionalized slavery, constant war, religious persecution leading to genocide, and crusades. Don't forget non-human things like plague and famine, which we've managed to quell in our own countries through progress (though it still exists in less developed areas, where our progress has left them behind and incapable of sustaining themselves--but it's not like morals have anything to do with it. There are plenty of "moral" people trying to help them, and they're failing, because obviously the problems still exist). If it "seems like" these horrible things are more prominent now, you can't blame that on them really increasing. I would blame it on the internet, if we're that recent. Even newspapers when they were invented, though, made it seem like the world was a much worse place than it was before. When there is more available information, we will learn about more horrible, terrible things around us.Diaforetikos":1ca3jtcp said:
You also have to remember that it seems like there's more of that now because there is such a thing as mass media and free media.
In the Cruscades, when "noble knights serving God" went and killed thousands of innocent women and children throughout the middle east and beyond, no one really knew about it because the only thing that was officially reported back were the victories.
And you think that we're worse off than people in The Great Depression or in the middle of the Revolutionary War or the Hundred Years War or the Black Death??? Really????
You don't know about the global climate of those times because
a.) We only have CLEARLY real-time videotaped+audiorecorded history of the last 50-60 years--only about 30 of which have been actually FREE MEDIA
b.) You are young and you live NOW, not THEN.
every generation back to the beginning of time wonders where things went bad. it's not going bad, it's changing.
adapt.
In the Cruscades, when "noble knights serving God" went and killed thousands of innocent women and children throughout the middle east and beyond, no one really knew about it because the only thing that was officially reported back were the victories.
And you think that we're worse off than people in The Great Depression or in the middle of the Revolutionary War or the Hundred Years War or the Black Death??? Really????
You don't know about the global climate of those times because
a.) We only have CLEARLY real-time videotaped+audiorecorded history of the last 50-60 years--only about 30 of which have been actually FREE MEDIA
b.) You are young and you live NOW, not THEN.
every generation back to the beginning of time wonders where things went bad. it's not going bad, it's changing.
adapt.
sixtyandaquarter
Member
I have two parents. They lived through the same era, through different means.
My mother was a hippy, and will tell you that everyone loved each other. And that there were no great wrongs among the common people - and she's ignorant enough to believe that in the 1960's there WAS NO RACISM. People loved and cared for each other, and crime was little.
My father would've been a hippy, but he was a bit older than my mother and ended up in Vietnam. And he speaks about how everyone was screwed up, and he's smart enough to say the cops were complete bullshit, there was rampent racism, and how things were so much worse.
The major difference is that for my mother, these were her glory years. My father already had his, and moved on, and saw things in a much different way. He wasn't the 14 or 16 year old my mother was, and he was a bit more jaded and cynical. He already lost that big eyed glistening starry hopeful stare. He remembers things one way, my mother another way. She also lives in the past, where he is almost completely apathetic.
See, no generation is going to admit - unless they want to prove things are better, that things were worse. You get people like my dad, who want to prove things are better, mention how he couldn't walk past a certain street because he was white, and how his old friend couldn't hang out with him in his neighborhood because the friend was Mexican. He'll go on about having to walk places, and stuff in a constant state of awareness - like me, he often carried a blade. I may have used mine to greater decrees, but he certainly used his more. He WANTS you to know things sucked. My mother is so caught up in her life, she absolutely refuses to believe things were worse off.
Racism? In her day? Ha - "didn't exist."
People turn a blind eye to how bad things were, when they fear things are worse. They forget what it was really like, little tidbits disappear from my mother's stories every few years, until her little picture perfect view is truly picture perfect. Talk to me about my high school, best years of my life. My positive thinking will undersell every wrong in my generation for those few years.
You either remember the good, or the bad. You rarely remember both, and that's true for generation gaps. The world seems worse because your being told it is, by a group of people too caught up in their past to realize how shitty things truly were. Different world, different morals. "Racism didn't exist, in the 60's when I was a kid."
My mother was a hippy, and will tell you that everyone loved each other. And that there were no great wrongs among the common people - and she's ignorant enough to believe that in the 1960's there WAS NO RACISM. People loved and cared for each other, and crime was little.
My father would've been a hippy, but he was a bit older than my mother and ended up in Vietnam. And he speaks about how everyone was screwed up, and he's smart enough to say the cops were complete bullshit, there was rampent racism, and how things were so much worse.
The major difference is that for my mother, these were her glory years. My father already had his, and moved on, and saw things in a much different way. He wasn't the 14 or 16 year old my mother was, and he was a bit more jaded and cynical. He already lost that big eyed glistening starry hopeful stare. He remembers things one way, my mother another way. She also lives in the past, where he is almost completely apathetic.
See, no generation is going to admit - unless they want to prove things are better, that things were worse. You get people like my dad, who want to prove things are better, mention how he couldn't walk past a certain street because he was white, and how his old friend couldn't hang out with him in his neighborhood because the friend was Mexican. He'll go on about having to walk places, and stuff in a constant state of awareness - like me, he often carried a blade. I may have used mine to greater decrees, but he certainly used his more. He WANTS you to know things sucked. My mother is so caught up in her life, she absolutely refuses to believe things were worse off.
Racism? In her day? Ha - "didn't exist."
People turn a blind eye to how bad things were, when they fear things are worse. They forget what it was really like, little tidbits disappear from my mother's stories every few years, until her little picture perfect view is truly picture perfect. Talk to me about my high school, best years of my life. My positive thinking will undersell every wrong in my generation for those few years.
You either remember the good, or the bad. You rarely remember both, and that's true for generation gaps. The world seems worse because your being told it is, by a group of people too caught up in their past to realize how shitty things truly were. Different world, different morals. "Racism didn't exist, in the 60's when I was a kid."
Incognitus
Member
Your parents sound like a good basis for a sitcom, 39.75.
You're absolutely right though. I work with a lot of human rights groups and that sort of stuff, and people are actually amazed that there are human rights abuses outside of the media-friendly Axis of Pure-and-Undeniable-Evil-Who-Are-About-To-Rape-Your-Children.
Obviously I blame the media there for making things seem... I want to say "better" or "worse" than they actually are, but I don't think that's a decent qualification, so I'll just say "different".
More people are surprised about casualities and incidents in the Congo and Somalia and that pound for pound (although this shouldn't matter) the situation there is worse than, say, Darfur because they have not been told about it.
They'll just have their nice rose-tinted view that people in Africa are mostly dying of poverty or the Chinese. :|
You're absolutely right though. I work with a lot of human rights groups and that sort of stuff, and people are actually amazed that there are human rights abuses outside of the media-friendly Axis of Pure-and-Undeniable-Evil-Who-Are-About-To-Rape-Your-Children.
Obviously I blame the media there for making things seem... I want to say "better" or "worse" than they actually are, but I don't think that's a decent qualification, so I'll just say "different".
More people are surprised about casualities and incidents in the Congo and Somalia and that pound for pound (although this shouldn't matter) the situation there is worse than, say, Darfur because they have not been told about it.
They'll just have their nice rose-tinted view that people in Africa are mostly dying of poverty or the Chinese. :|
rey meustrus
Sponsor
I wouldn't go about calling them "the media." It's oversimplifying the masses of journalism. I will admit, however, that news as a whole does not cover important things unless they are forced to. They will wait for the public to be interested in something before reporting on it, rather than try to generate interest in an unknown thing like they should. It's a corruption of journalism that came about naturally, as news organizations needed to compete with each other and were able to find ways around each other that were not necessarily about telling better stories. Tabloids in particular get high ratings, and are a great example of what I mean--somebody made people interested in indecent celebrities a long time ago, and now it's easy to make people watch your news because they're already "interested."
But this chain of thought will lead me into politics (mainly because of Fox News) and I don't think we want to debate disagree about argue about attack each other on that subject...
But this chain of thought will lead me into politics (mainly because of Fox News) and I don't think we want to debate disagree about argue about attack each other on that subject...
Incognitus
Member
mewsterus":1ts6tu81 said:
I agree with you. I only didn't write that because I wanted to keep the post short, and that seemed like good short hand
. The media, especially the so-called "liberal" media is one of those things which I could rant about for days.Anyway... back on topic:
Things aren't as good as they used to be and nobody follows God anymore.
sixtyandaquarter
Member
I personally live in the US, and I'm not without morales like some scum who does what he wants because he doesn't care about others or the consequences. I live in NYC at that, and I've never met anyone - including the crime groups - who were like that.
Actually most of the crime groups, including gangs, are actually better behaving then they've been in decades - including when Regan was in office, and beforehand.
Times Square isn't a den of whores and thieves anymore, you can feel safe walking down it alone at night. Unlike when Regan was in office.
Actually most of the crime groups, including gangs, are actually better behaving then they've been in decades - including when Regan was in office, and beforehand.
Times Square isn't a den of whores and thieves anymore, you can feel safe walking down it alone at night. Unlike when Regan was in office.
I guess I have a really strange worldview, but a lot of this discussion seems kind of odd, especially "morals are not based on rationality" and "morals are relative."
I've always thought that morals are objective and recently I've been thinking that they're based (or should be) on rationality. Because what higher device do humans have than rationality? I can't think of anything; "intuition" and "faith" don't have any bearing on a material world, unless we put them into action.
Anyway, I don't think that morals are something that people have to follow, or that you somehow have to deny yourself in order to be moral. Morals would be the lack of infringing on others' rights (of course, I have plenty of radical ideas about this as well: all rights are inalienable and include the right to property, and rights such as "the right to have food/roof over head" are not valid etc.), which really doesn't take much effort at all.
Anyway, those are my thoughts, however disjointed they may be.
I've always thought that morals are objective and recently I've been thinking that they're based (or should be) on rationality. Because what higher device do humans have than rationality? I can't think of anything; "intuition" and "faith" don't have any bearing on a material world, unless we put them into action.
Anyway, I don't think that morals are something that people have to follow, or that you somehow have to deny yourself in order to be moral. Morals would be the lack of infringing on others' rights (of course, I have plenty of radical ideas about this as well: all rights are inalienable and include the right to property, and rights such as "the right to have food/roof over head" are not valid etc.), which really doesn't take much effort at all.
Anyway, those are my thoughts, however disjointed they may be.
decemberfox
Member
If morals are objective, then why doesn't everybody have the same ones? You think that if millions of people hold one view and millions another, that one of those groups is 'wrong'?