I don't want to be the wacky guy walking around with the "THE END IS NEAR SO REPENT" sign. Yet I can't refrain from stating an obvious fact. Lately I've noticed, as I'm sure have many others, that sweeping lifestyle changes are taking place just about everywhere around us. Our fundamental core values are evolving at an alarming rate and not for the better. It's starting to have consequences that are very troubling, indeed. Signs of this change are showing up all around us and on a daily basis. There has been a virtual epidemic of so-called successful individuals that achieved positions of trust only to betray that trust for personal aggrandisement and hedonistic goals.
Yes I know that, to some extent, it has always been so but lately this phenomenon seems to have grown exponentially. No area of society has been spared. As our hard-earned savings dwindle and politicians and journalists keep telling us that everything is fine or will be fine, we cannot help thinking that it is not and never again will be. Our hearts are turning to steel and we no longer trust anyone. We have and continue to be betrayed by politicians, CEO's, financial brokers, religious leaders, professors, journalists and yes, even the local contractor who we call to fix our house or supply services.
It used to be that hard work, honesty and sacrifice were honored as virtuous ideals. On the other hand, traits like indifference, laziness, narcissism, greed, dishonesty and their resulting degradation and blight on society was considered to be shameful and thus to be avoided at all cost.
Unfortunately, not anymore.
Betrayal of the public trust has become ubiquitous and most of us are already de-sensitized to it.
Outrage when experienced on a daily basis loses its very meaning.
Many of us might point the whole blame at society's gradual abandonment of religious foundations but that's not at all the whole story. We know that secularism has been on the rise for centuries. I suspect it's more to do with today's postmodern progressive liberal ideals and a sense of moral relativism which has stealthily gained inroads into our culture. I recall a time when most responsible adults identified virtues like integrity, honesty, respect and sacrifice as extremely necessary and fundamental for good citizenship. In a general sense, the perception was that these core basic values and character traits would naturally and logically result in a happier lifestyle for their offspring. A foremost and essential instructing goal, "job one"..so to speak, for most parents was to devote the time and instill these virtues into their offspring during their formative years. Alas, it all started to unravel back in the late sixties and early seventies. In order to maintain a middle income or better lifestyle it became customary and in many cases, necessary, for both parents to be gainfully employed. The time-trusted and fundamental responsibility of child-rearing was either put on the back burner or leased out to others for the most part. Even now, many parents actually believe that our schools and child-care "professionals" have somehow fully assumed the responsibility of guiding children onto the path of good citizenship and virtuous ideals. It appears that the failure to maintain a majority of caring and responsible adults has reached and surpassed a critical mass of societal instability and no one seems to care.
Are our chickens coming home to roost?
The signs are all around us.
