Listening to Steve Hsu interview Rob Henderson (both on my sidebar), they began discussing moral idealism and high moral dudgeon of the young. Both mentioned the quote attributed to Winston Churchill about being on the left when young and on the right when older and did have interesting things to say about cohort effects (the world is changed and the young do not grow up with the values, especially the church values that those of my generation and those before did) versus developmental effects versus the physical effects of better personal behavior because of less energy.
Yet a piece was missing that was better-known in such discussions in the 1970s. I have mentioned it here myself, but not often and not for some time. So in the age of wokeness, which is PC culture squared, which was itself 60s flower child culture squared, I think it still applies and is less noticed.
There is much less judgement among the young about pleasure issues - sexual behavior, drug use, and public display issues such as noise and clothing (sex, drugs and rock 'n roll in the 60s and 70s). Because those were the things we wanted to do and not be called to account for. Even before I returned to the church I had become aware of how often my agemates claimed to have left for intellectual reasons, but conversation revealed threadbare excuses about not being a bad person just because they weren't a virgin anymore, or wanting to sleep with their girlfriend without criticism from anyone, even implied.
They were morally outraged about issues of money - because they didn't have any cash but were quite materialistic without noticing - or of politics, like war or racism or brotherhood.
It was clear to many that the one was a replacement for the other. Trying to get out from under the sting of criticism about their personal morality, they changed the subject and reversed the accusations on less personal, more collective topics, insisting that these were the greater morality. It's not untrue, of course. there is a lot to be said (and the Bible does indeed say it) about group morality and societal actions being of great importance.
What we see now is the same thing all over again. People who see no need to be faithful to a romantic partner, be polite or even kind to others, or listen to a contrary view are those most accusing of the societal sins. It's the same replacement. It's not fully idealistic or wanting to change society. It is resisting anyone accusing them.
Again, a balanced morality has both, and I don't claim otherwise.
4 comments:
This pattern has been around for a long time. An old Jewish sage used to say, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
A very long time. Has there been a culture that didn't have "young hotheads?"
And from the Medical Muse by Richard Armour:
Who knows each illness, knows each cure?
Who never doubts, is always sure?
Who gives advice to learned scholars
And shrugs aside their thanks and dollars?
Who is this awesome fellow, friends?
Who is the chap who condescends
To chat with men like Mayo? Who?
It is the intern, young and new,
Who knows more than all other men.
He'll never know so much again.
Even "Judge not lest ye be judged" can be delivered judgmentally.
There never was any condemnation of the use of Judgment. "Judge not lest you be judged" means "Don't judge in a way that brings judgment upon yourself", that is, don't be a hypocrite when you judge. Matthew 7:1-5 is a teaching against hypocrisy, nothing more. The very same teaching is found in Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 2, verses one through three. We need to lose the comma that we keep mentally inserting after "judge not". It's one continuous phrase, not two distinct phrases. Christians should judge well and judge often.
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