Our Faulty Moral Compass

One of the subjects I teach at Kennesaw State University is the sociology of morality.  This often includes a small demonstration intended to help my students understand the nature of moral rules.  It goes as follows.

Apropos of nothing, using my finger as a weapon, I pretend to shoot someone in the first row.  “Bang, bang, you’re dead!”  Then I immediately switch to an entirely different topic.  The students are a little confused, but otherwise unruffled.

But then I again switch gears.  “How would you have reacted,” I ask, “had I really shot someone?”  It is obvious to all that there would have been pandemonium.  Besides being terrified, the class would have been outraged by a cold-blooded act of murder.

And that is my point.  Had I committed a nakedly immoral act, they would have been incensed.  Most would have been furious and demanded that I be punished—if not immediately, then shortly thereafter.  Business as usual would have abruptly ceased.

At this juncture, I observe that when a moral rule is broken, we generally get angry.  We do not simply carry on as if nothing had happened.  In fact, if we do not get angry, then we do not really believe that a rule was violated.

Moral rules are important rules.  Hence they are resolutely enforced.  At the minimum, we use anger to inform the offender that this conduct is unacceptable.  We do not remain neutral.

If this is true, then how are we to understand the state of contemporary American politics?  On the one hand, we have a candidate who was derelict in her duty to protect national secrets.  On the other, we have one who brags about having bribed public officials.

So where is the outrage?  Do ordinary Americans truly perceive this sort of behavior to be wrong?  Evidently not!  They plainly take it in stride.  So accustomed are they to moral corruption that they are no longer offended when it is rubbed in their faces.

Surely one of the strangest phenomena of this very strange political season was Dr. Ben Carson endorsing Donald Trump.  A man who grounded his campaign in asking the nation to return to its moral roots, suddenly found Trump’s vulgarity and dishonesty “business as usual.”   We were actually told that we shouldn’t get upset because this is the way politics is played.

And what about those Democrats who know that Hillary is a confirmed liar?  They keep voting for her anyway.  Why?  Because she has experience—and is a woman.  Apparently being female and a practiced dissembler are now sufficient qualifications to be an American president.

What too of those Christian evangelicals who voted for Trump?  They knew that he was morally sleazy, but didn’t seem to care because they perceived him to be strong.  Does this mean that his alleged strength canceled out his lack of personal integrity?

Americans time and again complain about lies.  They likewise grumble about the dreadful condition of political affairs.  But then they vote for the liars and demagogues.  Clearly they do not consider this sort of behavior reprehensible.  As a result, we keep getting more of it.

There were good candidates this cycle, yet we brushed them aside as unworthy of support.  And so we will get what we deserve.  If we have become an amoral society, then we ought not be surprised by the mischief created by the devious leaders we choose.

As I see it, too many Americans have lost their moral compass.  To judge by their actions, they can no longer tell right from wrong.  Although they protest the current situation, it is what they have wrought.

My conclusion: we need a moral reformation!  We need one desperately!  Our democracy, prosperity, and national survival all depend on an ethical revival, yet there is none in sight.  As long as we attempt to counter the immorality of Barack Obama with that of a Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, there is little hope.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University