Mirror Mirror on the Wall...

There was a comment on the last post about morals being universal, and not being dependant upon social mores. That statement would have been correct if 'universally' we all held ourselves accountable to a higher authority. In that case, it wouldn’t be up to how man ‘felt’ about a particular situation – there would have been instructions to dictate the appropriate course of action.

Once it is up to man to decide what is moral and what is not, then morality is what the current generation deems it to be. It is always easy to look back in judgment and declare what wasn’t moral in the past. Being that we live in a different era and we value different things, it is easy for us to view things differently. It would nonetheless be foolish and highly presumptuous of us to cast aspersions on the past.

All we can do is look at the here and now, and see so obviously how far we’ve fallen.

Today’s society, that some so want to defend as a wonderfully colorful world – while indeed exciting, it has lost sight of the basic fundamentals of life.

It is difficult to reason with modern man’s thinking – and his ability to rationalize behavior. But while the rationalization works, the life it dictates doesn’t. We’ve taken Descartes’ "Cogito ergo sum” and turned it into the new gospel. It has become the daily mantra of so many who want to believe that they are the creators of original thought. Yet all the while they are bound to believing that they can’t rely on reason they don’t understand – not taking into account that just maybe certain concepts go beyond reason. Regardless of how well one can justify the wrong - it doesn’t become right.

So while we all are certain to understand and know why we do what we do, we fail to take note of the side effects that are disastrous!

At one point the term ‘premarital sex’ encompassed a behavior deemed ‘immoral’ yet it slowly became more prevalent and acceptable. Under the guise of that name, adults that were dating and knew that it would eventually lead to marriage decided that they could wait no longer and consummated the relationship a short time prior to the actual joiner, the wedding. It went from those relationships that would lead to marriage, to those that possibly could lead… Once that idea became the norm, and sex was no longer relegated to the marriage institution, premarital sex turned into something that can only be called ‘casual sex’ or ‘recreational sex’. It no longer was even reserved for an exclusive relationship. As a matter of fact, an interactive relationship wasn’t necessarily required prior to, or even after. Sadder than anything is the fact that today’s youth do not see what is so wrong with this change in direction.

The fact remains though, that young adults remain unmarried for a lot longer, if not indefinitely. Single women raise children on their own. And traditional family life, once the cornerstone of a society, is deemed old-fashioned and a thing of the past.

Take this other example: Of course it makes sense that if people are unhappy in marriage they are entitled to divorce. Without going into detail of what constitutes an ‘unhappy’ marriage – let us just look around at the prevalence of single parent families. There is no doubt that many of the divorces were legitimately called for, just as there is no doubt that too many were hastily made decisions. As soo many statistics have proven, children raised in a one-parent home suffer through grade school and ultimately suffer in adult life in general – and in their future relationships in particular. No amount of reasoning for the parents decisions will change the basic fact that today’s youth has more children raised in a single home environment, thus ensuring that the future generation will be one of emotionally thwarted adults attempting to form relationships to resemble that elusive traditional family life – which they know not how to emulate.

This is not based on, as Hella Winston described it, our erroneous assumptions that the secular world is engaged in sex 24/7. And while it is so simple to justify the ‘freedom’ of people doing as they pleased – we need to remember that even when reason can defend, it does little to make our reflection look better in the proverbial mirror.

There are so many other directions to go with this topic - to point out the prevalent immorality. Although I might do that at a later date – I believe I’ve made my point.