America's Disaffected Youth: And why we can’t let reactionary conservatives take the moral high ground

A friend of mine suggested I check out David Brooks’ latest essay in the New York Times (which can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/opinion/if-it-feels-right.html) and I’m very glad she did. Brooks is writing about a new book called “Lost in Translation” which deals with the moral compass of the American teenager and young adult. The book, written by Notre Dame’s Christian Smith, describes a very real problem––the listlessness that has come with an extreme adoption of moral relativism. Far too few young people are willing to take a stand on any issue, preferring the non-committal answer of ‘it just depends on your perspective.’  More information on the book can be found in an interview that Smith did with Christianity Today at www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/october/21.34.html?start=4 .

The entire article left a bad taste in my mouth, but I didn’t realize quite why until the last paragraph. For all of the truths that seem to be identified in this book, namely that America’s youth doesn’t seem to have the words or education to describe moral judgements, the conclusions drawn by Brooks, Smith, and the rest of the crew are dangerously reactionary in nature. Rather than really delving into why young people today feel this way, they turn to the old standstill––the decline of religion, religious teachings, and the morals and standards of the days of yore. Ever since there have been people defining morals, there have been people decrying their downfall. It is an argument that has also traditionally been used by those in power to keep down those without it. 

The general bent of this argument is that the future of the world is in peril, morality is crumbling and we really need to go back to the way things were when things weren’t so crumbling. Since this argument has been seen in basically every generation, one has to wonder just how far back these reactionaries really want to go. What exactly do they want to go back to?

Above perhaps any other interest, I love history. My childhood memories are filled with stalking around ruins, reading “Horrible Histories,” and collecting figurines from every possible time period. The one of the first things I learned about history was that the further back you went, the cooler everything seemed to be. Imaginative religions, powerful warlords, exploration, the list goes on. As I began to actually study history, I learned that this ‘coolness’ didn’t really count for much in terms of quality of life. As much as I may have wanted to try being a Norse Warrior or  a Roman Emperor, there were plenty of people in those time periods that I knew I didn’t want to be. I didn’t want to be a boy crucified by the Romans just for stealing bread, one of the thousands of women raped by Genghis Khan, or anyone who encountered one of the famed European explorers (really, encountering most explorers seemed like a seriously bad idea).

Modern reactionary conservatives can probably laugh those examples off with an “of course we don’t want to go back that far!”. Then how far? Back far enough where there are rules blatantly denying citizens of this country the right to vote? Back to where it was nearly impossible, socially and legally, for women to get a divorce even from an abusive husband? Back to where there where sewage ran through the streets, our skies were clouded with smog and children worked twelve hour days? Historically, most average people’s lives were nasty, brutish, and short. It wasn’t until quite recently that anybody seemed to think of this as a bad thing and until even more recently that anyone began to do something about it. Where exactly is this morality of bygone years that the reactionary conservatives are yearning for? 

Of course, when it comes down to it, the Genghis Khan comparison is more apt than they realize. What these people really want is the structure of that the majority of pre-democratic societies had and still have today. They want the many to listen to the orders of the few as wholeheartedly as possible. The unspoken side of this argument is that it doesn’t really matter how the few acted as long as the many listened to their precepts, and that is why this model for society is an outdated failure. This is an argument that can be brought back to Plato’s Philosopher Kings. If there were truly a group of people who were clearly more wise, more moral, and far more incorruptible than the rest of us, then a very strong argument could be made that they alone should be given the power to decide what is right and what is wrong. However, if there is any lesson of history it is that these people are few and far between and are more likely to be hunted down and killed by their governments than to rise to rule them. This brings us back to what exactly is wrong with the moral compass of young adults in America.  America’s youth has not rejected morality outright, we have simply rejected having to follow the same paths that consigned our forebears to lives of unquestioning submission to an arbitrary authority. 

The problem, if we should really call it that, that Smith’s book is actually describing is that the old fashioned top-down version of morality hasn’t really been replaced with anything yet. We know a lot of what we do not want, but we have not yet found a suitable replacement. As long as the two choices seem to be continuing in moralistic isolation and returning to the flock (which, by nature, means constantly listening to the Shepherd, or his far more hands-on friend, the sheep-dog) much of America’s youth will remain in this moral limbo. It is the role of Progressives in society to define this as our generation’s great task and to show us that we do not have to go it alone. Individually it is impossible to create an idea for morality, but together a new type of morality can emerge. One where war crimes are punished more severely than posting a sexually explicit picture of yourself online, where transparency in the public and private sector is seen as a necessity, not an imposition, and where everyone has truly has power over themselves and their destiny.