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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, July 20, 1994
5
Public schools need discussion of deviancy, decency
In a country that continues to wander in a wasteland of moral relativism, one city has finally decided to apply a legal tourniquet to its social hemorrhaging.
New York City, frequently reported to have long ago abandoned any hope of having a "normal" urban environment, now looks to regain some of that normalcy.
The solution? Enforce the laws already on the books. Specifically, the city wants to crack down on many of the minor offenses for which New York has become notorious — including panhandling, public urination, and music blasting out of boom boxes.
There is a line that has to be drawn if you want to have a civilized city. This is the line." New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said. "The more you tolerate social deviancy, the more serious crime you have."
Giuliani and Police Commissioner William Bratton admitted that these crimes may not mean the difference
between life and death, but, they said, they set a moral tone for the rest of the urban society.
That moral tone rings hollow for far too many Americans these days. Even the mayor's term "social deviancy" seems archaic, especially with our increasing acceptance of even the most extreme behavior as a matter of lifestyle choices.
To save New York City and the rest of this country from further moral digression — what has been an almost imperceptible erosion of principles — a further, more radical step is needed; returning discussions of
ethics and values to America's classrooms.
For those who see this as a drastic measure, consider what one social observer has written of this country's redefining our acceptance of deviant behavior.
"We have been redefining deviancy so as to exempt much conduct previously stigmatized, and also quietly raising the 'normal' level in categories where behavior is now abnormal by any earlier standards."
The words are those of Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, from his article, "What is normal? Defining deviance down." Published in "The American Spectator" last year, Moynihan's 6,000-word treatise helped bring the state of moral decency and deviance back into the national conscience, if only briefly.
Moynihan postulated that this country's citizens have become so overwhelmed by violent crime, mental illness, and a crumbling family structure, that we now condition ourselves to accept what was the once
The senator's message now seems lost on its audience. Moral decline continues unimpeded.
unacceptable.
Spurred on by New York City's announcement, I would encourage our society to respond directly to this shifting sense of values by bringing the message of ethics to a new venue — the country's public schools.
The need for such a discussion is clear. Comparisons between conditions now and 30 years ago provide ample evidence of the decline of social standards.
One set of statistics, the Index of Cultural Indicators, shows an American society that has become increasingly antisocial over a 30-year span.
Since 1960, violent crime has gone up nearly six-fold. Our country leads the industrialized world for rape and murder rates. Our divorce rate has quadrupled in the last 30 years. So have illegitimate births. Suicide among adolescents has doubled. Three times as many children now
live in single-parent families.
Rather than decry the unwillingness of those at fault to accept the blame, the American public consistently chooses to ignore, or even worse, support the transgressors.
This willingness to justify even the most heinous acts comes from an acceptance of fuzzy ethics and victimology. Today's standards mean we can never blame the person responsible, but instead some outside force, no matter how irrelevant.
What is missing today is what many relativists fear most: a code of ethical principles. With its discussion in the nation's schools, such a code could become a framework for a broader discussion of values, a subject long absent in America's public schools.
The charges against such a code are many. Given the diverse and freethinking nature of our country, no one set of moral guidelines could possibly encompass all faiths, beliefs or philosophies.
Still, I would hope this proposed
code is not a mindless mandate from some Orwellian thought-police force. Actually, it's rather simple and in its simplicity, it is still known as golden:
"Do unto others as you would have done unto you." Or, as author Robert Fulghum once so succinctly wrote, "Benice."
Our society needs to look into our collective soul and find out what we believe. We should no longer be willing to forgive and forget every act of violence or cave into every criticism against a set of standards. At this point, it's not even a question of this country living well, but merely living in peace.
Like the tectonic plates that even now shift underneath our feet, the United States continues to slip; we are inauspiciously becoming a country without morals. A discussion of ethics may help America regain some much needed perspective.
David Stewart is a Lawrence senior in journalism.
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