Decline of Morality in the West

DESIGNATED as the CENTRAL PAGE for this topic; should link to all relevant material. Every relevant article should link back to this page.

For newspaper articles which dispute standard Western accounts of progress, see LINK.

A crucial theme is the Breakdown of the Family and Its consequences. Se also: Is Development the Accumulation of Wealth? Islamic Views. This offers paradigm changing alternatives to dominant Eurocentric views.

• 1. Jonathan Glover: Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century

  2. Barbara Tuchman: The Proud Tower --- alternative link to book

  3. Julie Reuben: The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Morality.

  4. Gertrude Himmelfarb: The De-Moralization of Society; Himmelfarb, professor emeritus of history at CUNY and the author of several works on Victorian England, including most recently Poverty and Compassion: The Moral Imagination of the Late Victorians (LJ 7/91), here contrasts the Victorian "virtues" of respectability, self-help, orderliness, cleanliness, and obedience with today's vague concept of "values." The author debunks the popular perception of Victorians as repressed and materialistic. Instead, according to Himmelfarb, their "manners and morals" created a society that emphasized a strong family life for all classes and gave rise to a prosperous economy and the early feminist and social service movements. Furthermore, the influence of these virtues caused the incidence of illegitimate births and violent crimes to drop significantly and remain low until the 1960s. This provocative and important book is recommended for all academic and large public libraries.

1. Presidents are now Murderers -- try, convict and kill without any legal process at all. Torture used routinely on innocents. See Obama's Legacy: Secrecy, Drones & Prisons. According to the new book “Double Down,” in which journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemannchronicle the 2012 presidential election, President Barack Obama told his aides that he’s “really good at killing people” while discussing drone strikes. See also numerous Counterpunch articles on drones, for example: Drones: The Moral Challenge of Our Times.

   1. Authorization of Torture -- see stench of American hypocrisy

2. The Decline of Morality in Our Society, by Pete Fisher

3. The Truth About Decline of Morals in the West, by Ursula Seiler

4. When asked to testify about the effects of the atom bomb, physicist Oppenheimer described the brilliant light show that would result first and the carnage in terms of human lives later.[see Science & Religion]

5. The CULT OF THE SELF which is killing USA.

6. An upbeat article in the Economist: Our Great Moral Decline.

7. Cheating at Harvard -- Should be combined with Teaching Immorality at Harvard.

8. Book: Mammon's Kingdom -- An Essay on Britain Now, Dvid Marquand. The follies and failures of bankers, regulators and governments have loomed large in public debate over the past five years. In this passionate and hard-hitting book, David Marquand digs deeper. At the heart of our predicament, he argues, lies a profound crisis of our moral economy, our public culture and our democracy. The empire of money has grown remorselessly for three decades, narrowing the space for a common life without which democratic institutions are empty shells. Increasingly, worth is equated with wealth and greed is thought to be good. Inequality has soared as a narrow elite of the super-rich has raced away from the rest of us. Humiliation at the bottom of the pile is matched by callous indifference at the top. The better angels of our nature survive, but they have taken a heavy hit. We are sleepwalking towards a seedy barbarism.

9. Selfie Economics: So what if more people live in poverty than at any time in history, while more than 40% of all corporate profits go to the financial industry?As we face extraordinary challenges of inequality, global indebtedness, and staggering world poverty amidst obscene wealth, we must decide if we want to maximize financial gains for the already wealthy or improve the life of those with none. Is selfishness to be rewarded? Do GDP and bond yields mark the health of a person, a nation, a world?

• 1. Greed is not good. It is not evolutionary, efficient, or right. Greed is bad, and it’s destroying our world.