Are Moral and Social Decline an Historical Imperative?

[SAXMAR]

How's that for a Philosophy Class question? Yesterday someone posed the question about our responsibility to care for those who refused to work.

So My subject line is today's topic for discussion. Like Rome and other great civilizations of the past are we becoming morally bankrupt and socially irresponsible and is that just our fate?

This is part of the reason the American Far Right religious folks justify their stance on homosexuality, sex on the airwaves,and other so called indicators of social decline.

Are we Liberals increasing the rate of decline or are we enjoying the ride as we try to help others?

[Az]

1. Moral decline?

The question seems to contain the implication that there is a fixed morality and that we are declining from this point. But in a progressive society new understanding concerning morality constantly springs forth as we learn more about human nature. Thus while things become moral which were once immoral this does not mean morality is declining. It just means we are learning new understandings.

Furthermore we are constantly discovering former positions which we now consider to be immoral. Morality is constantly being adjusted and adapted in our society.

Thus to answer your question. We liberals are on the cutting edge of progressive moral adaptation. We are the ones to first embrace a new understanding.

[The2ndWheel]

2. Entropy

Yes, it is our fate. It's the same cycle as the one we call life and death. You start out small(say, 13 colonies), grow up(like, Manifest Destiny), mature(something along the lines of uni-polar world power), and then die(you know, die).

It doesn't matter who is in charge, it's going to happen. We'll push it off into the future as far we can, thus complicating the problem when it finally does get us, but until we cure death, we can't escape it.

[Az]

4. Its not really death though

Yes, specific civilizations may die out. But thats just an organizing structure that we recognise from a historical perspective. The actual people that constitute such a thing don't suddenly vanish. Their lives continue on relatively smoothly.

Its a shift in social structures that occurs. Society adpats. It doesn't die unless people stop interacting. It can take on new forms or structures. But it doesn't die.

[The2ndWheel]

7. The question was about civilizations

"Like Rome and other great civilizations..."

Not people.

"Their lives continue on relatively smoothly."

That all depends on the circumstances.

[Az]

9. It still applies

We look in our history books and see how scholars have placed lines of demarkation telling us where one civlization ended and another began. It makes us think that there was something concrete that occurred or something everyone noticed. But thats really not how it works.

People within a civilization go on living and being who they are when that phantom moment comes along and their civilization ends. Its a label.

As to the smoothly comment that is why I included the word relatively. Near the centers of power there will be chaos. But the majority of people do not directly experience this sort of upheaval. They just adapt to new criteria.

The point I am trying to get at is that there is this notion that civilizations end and that this suggests something final for people as well. But its all just one continuum for the people living in it. Its historians that mark beginnings and ends of civlizations. Those living in it just notice that things are changing over time.

[ixion]

3. decline is a constant, not an imperative

Imperative implies that it 'must' happen for things to continue forward, which is quite the opposite of the rise and decline of civilizations. Great civilizations fail -- consistently -- because of a tendency in humans towards greed, power and control. It is this tendency that brings about the downfall, despite ample historical precedent.

Absolute power corrupts aboslutely, as the saying goes.

Must it happen? No. Does it happen? Yes, because humans, collectively speaking, just aren't that bright and noble at this point. And if history serves, I wouldn't look for changes to that behavior any time soon, unfortunately. :-(

[AlinPA]

5. "...for those who refused to work."??? What about those who can't? And who is

advocating not helping the latter? Its the R's and conservatives who say the hell with them - not "liberals".

[patricia92243]

6. Rome is only one example. How about all the other civilizations of the world that are old? China,

etc. Most are better, not worse. There have always been bad things in any society and always will be. If America goes through a decline, it will be lack of leadership. Even then, time will march on and we will rise again - unfortunately it may be a LONG time.

[lapfog_1]

8. Every society that ever existed has been in moral decline

for each and every generation.

America was on the road to hell in a hand basket in the 1920s (at least, according to the prudes and bluenoses of the time). Yet the young people of the 20s were the ones in charge in the depression and in WWII (the greatest generation)... so which is it? As for decline, well, yes, with bad management (in the times of Kings, an idiot son or daughter taking the throne was generally a bad sign for the kingdom or empire, now it's our "elected officials"), any country can decline. But even declines CAN be reversed (see Egypt or China).

So I have hope... the PNAC wanted to secure Americas role as the preeminent power for the 21st century, what they may have done instead is to ensure that we may have to wait a 100 years to regain that role (if it's even desirable).

[treestar]

10. Just because something was the case doesn't mean forever

It happened to the Romans but doesn't have to happen to us just because it happened to them. The world is a very different place than it was then, and we have learned something from history, one would hope, so that we don't have to decline just because. For example, we can learn from the Roman Empire and the British Empire not to bother with Empire, and that might be one way out of it.

The voters could be said to be rejecting the concept of an empire in the Middle East. Maybe we could just pay them for their oil or discover alternative energy sources. We know more than the Romans did.

[xchrom]

11. social conservatives, i.e. religious right, nazis, fascists, nationalist, etc --

when talking about ''moral decline'', decadence, etc -- define the terms and try to set the rules for the debate according to their rules.

it's not based on reality.

it's based on fear and their own search for power and control.

social conservatives have a goal on their way to pwer -- and that is to control peoples genitals.

it's effective, simple and it works -- at least in the short term.

but people being the creatures they are -- want to control their personal lives and bodies and simply resort to hiding their ''bsuiness.

in the mean time -- as evidensed by the preachers and priests today -- devolve to some pretty warped sexual practises -- mostly because they use the rules of ''puritanism'' to hide their own unhealthy sexual proclivities.

[Ms. Clio]

12. the only "imperative" of history is change

people have been moaning about moral and social decline since the first greedy, lazy English "gentlemen" founded Jamestown and promptly began starving to death.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

13. hubris not sexual emancipation has been the fall of most civilizations

it will be wars like iraq/vietnam etc that will be the downfall of america

not homosexuality and feminism

[Bridget Burke]

14. Some who've studied the Fall of Rome....

See the rise of Christianity as one of the causes. Economic, demographic & public health issues probably had more to do with the Fall than any "moral" factors. It's a complex topic that inspired at least one book.

Of course, when the Empire was new, Romans looked back with nostalgia to the Republic--when men were men & women knew their place.

Ask the idiot in your class for more information on "those who refused to work." Since the subject is Philosophy, perhaps you should compare & contrast philosophers of Classical through Medieval times. (Boethius is right on the borderline.) Review the results of Justinian's suppression of non-Christian religion & philosophy. (Never forget the Eastern Empire!)