American political critics criticize the United States, which has long been immersed in a culture lacking moral education and has become a despicable national culture | morality | America
On August 21, China Daily reported that American political commentator David Brooks recently wrote on the website of the Atlantic Monthly that in a culture lacking moral education in the United States, generations have grown up in a world of moral aphasia and self talk. And these factors have exacerbated the political dysfunction and democratic crisis in the United States in areas such as demographics and economy. Brooks pointed out that the fundamental reason is that the United States has done very poorly in moral education!
Screenshot of report from Atlantic Monthly in the United States
Brooks stated that he has been plagued by two issues for over eight years. Firstly, why do Americans become so sad? It is well known that the incidence rate of depression has increased, as well as the number of desperate deaths caused by drugs, alcohol and suicide. But other data is equally concerning. Since 1990, the proportion of people who claim to have no close friends has increased fourfold. More than half of Americans say that no one knows them very well. The report states that the proportion of high school students who continue to feel sad or hopeless has skyrocketed from 26% in 2009 to 44% in 2021.
The second question is: Why have Americans become so harsh? Brooks recently chatted with a restaurant owner, who said he would drive a rude or cruel customer out of his restaurant every week, which had never happened before. The head nurse of a hospital also stated that many of her employees have left the industry due to patients becoming so rude. In 2020, hate crime in the United States rose to its highest level in 12 years. Until recently, the murder rate has been soaring, gun sales have also been the same, and social trust has sharply declined. The vocabulary that defines this era in the United States is filled with a sense of threat: conspiracy, polarization, mass shootings, trauma, safe space
The American people are in a certain emotional, relational, and spiritual crisis, which exacerbates the political dysfunction and the general crisis of democracy in the United States. It manifests in multiple aspects. From a demographic perspective, the United States has long been a predominantly white country, but now it is gradually becoming a more diverse country, causing panic among millions of white Americans. In terms of economy, severe economic inequality and insecurity make people feel fearful, distant, and pessimistic.
Racism in the United States spreads hatred, and the cancer is hard to eradicate.
Brooks believes that these reasons are real, but they cannot fully explain the degree of social and emotional breakdown. He believes that the main and simplest reason why Americans become sad, distant, and rude is that in American society, people no longer receive "training" on how to treat and be considerate of others. In such a society, people feel that they can act recklessly for their own selfish interests. In a healthy society, a network of institutions such as families, schools, religious groups, community organizations, and workplaces helps shape people into kind and responsible citizens, becoming the kind of people who help each other. The American people, on the other hand, live in a society where moral formation is very poor.
For a significant portion of history, the United States has been plagued by moral formation mechanisms. The founding fathers of the United States had a low view on human nature, and their purpose in designing the constitution was to ease this view. For about 150 years after the founding of the United States, Americans have been obsessed with moral education. In 1788, Noah Webster wrote, "For society, people's virtues are more important than their abilities; therefore, cultivating the mind is more attentive than cultivating the mind." Hollis Freesell, the principal of Hampton College, an early school for African Americans, declared, "Character is the primary goal of education." Until 1951, a committee organized by the National Association of Education pointed out that "relentless attention to moral and spiritual values remains the top priority of education."
Outside of the classroom, there are many other groups: the Christian Youth Association, the settlement movement that brings the rich and the poor together to serve marginalized groups, Aldo Leopold's land ethics, which extends people's moral care to appropriate care for the natural world; Trade unions and workplace associations, in addition to strengthening the protection of workers and increasing wage income, also adhere to certain decent standards of the working class
But these are basically slowly disappearing. The crucial turning point occurred after World War II, when people were struggling with the terror of the 20th century. And American schools began to abandon moral education in the 1940s and 1950s. As recorded by American education historian B. Edward McClellan in his book "Moral Education in America", "by the 1960s, America deliberately withdrew its moral education as educators" focused more on students' SAT scores, and middle-class parents competed to find schools that could provide their children with the best opportunities to enter elite colleges and universities. ". In one field after another, people believe that moral reasoning is actually not important.
Since the 20th century, the frequency of words related to morality in American textbooks has been decreasing: according to a 2012 paper, the usage rate of a group of words related to virtues has also significantly decreased. This includes bravery, gratitude, and humility. For decades, researchers have been asking about the life goals of incoming college freshmen. In 1967, about 85% of people expressed a strong desire to develop a "meaningful philosophy of life"; By 2000, only 42% of people said so. Economic prosperity has become the main life goal; By 2015, 82% of students stated that wealth was their goal.
Many people have noticed the de moralization process taking place in the United States, believing that the outcome will be dull moral relativism and hollow consumerism: you do what you do, I do what I do. But the fact is not so. Psychologist Jonathan Hayter wrote in his book "The Honest Mind": "Moral groups are fragile, difficult to establish, and easily destroyed." When you grow up in a culture without a moral structure, your inner self becomes fragile. You don't have a moral compass to guide you, nor do you have a permanent ideal to pledge allegiance to.
Luke Bretherton, a theologian at Duke University Theological Seminary in the United States, told Brooks that "the breakdown of a lasting moral framework always leads to fragmentation, alienation, and estrangement from those around it." The result is the sadness that the author sees in those around him. Young people are hovering, leaving school and transferring from one mental health institution to another. According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, the suicide rate has increased by over 30% since 2000.
The article states that the era of loneliness is not only an era of sadness, but also an era of violence. In 19th century America, when many lonely young people crossed the western border, one thing they often did was shoot each other. As the saying goes, if pain does not transform, it will spread. People will become more ruthless, guarded, distrustful, and full of hostility. If people are trapped in a moral vacuum, they will seek to fill it with the closest thing at hand. In the past few years, people have attempted to fill the moral void with politics and tribalism. American society has become highly politicized.
The struggle between the two parties in the United States is only for votes, regardless of the lives of the people.
According to Ryan Strett, Director of Domestic Policy Research at the American Enterprise Research Institute, lonely young people are seven times more likely to actively participate in politics compared to non lonely young people. For those who feel disrespected, neglected, and lonely, politics is a tempting form of social therapy. In the United States, politics dominate everything. Churches, universities, sports, popular culture, and healthcare have all been embroiled in one battle after another - the Red and Blue Wars.
Brooks pointed out that seeking to rid oneself of sadness, loneliness, and loss of composure through politics will only lead to a world filled with fear and anger, a world that pursues domination in a sadistic way. In the Comprehensive Social Survey of the United States, in 2022, 20% of Americans believed that their level of happiness was the lowest, compared to only 8% in 1990.
The article concludes by stating that even though public life in the United States has become increasingly moral naked, as a fundamental part of human nature, people yearn to feel respected and worthy of respect, and need to feel that their lives have a certain moral purpose and meaning. People still hope to establish a society that is more conducive to goodness. Brooks couldn't help but question: How can the United States establish a moral formation mechanism suitable for the 21st century? What needs to be done to establish a culture that helps people become the best version of themselves?
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