IanBoyne

The sheer indiscipline and self-indulgence on our roads which result in such gruesome deaths. The corruption of our cops which facilitates such lawlessness. The greed which makes it nigh impossible to eliminate the drug trade. The immorality of our political class which results in such cynicism about politicians.

All these are symptoms of a larger crisis. The media do a relatively good job at focusing on the symptoms, but are largely oblivious to the underlying issues. Those issues are not as sensational, sexy or as easily given to sound bytes. But they are crucial. Why should people be disciplined, put other people's interests before theirs, or care about the country more than their private interests?

If I had the opportunity as an inner-city youth without education, skills or social connections to make some good money (or bad money) through corruption, why shouldn't I? What reasons would you give me to resist? Would you discourage me only for pragmatic reasons, meaning that I might get caught and jailed? Is that the only reason for being moral? Suppose I had a good chance of getting away with the corruption or 'bandoolu', what reasons would you give me not to engage in it?

Moral wrong?

If I can get a bribe for allowing a businessman to come through customs without paying the Government some duties, whom would I be depriving if I accepted? If I hold that the Government is already wasting the country's taxes and squandering funds, then why I should give them more to waste with their fiends and 'combolo'? If I can take the money which the Government would get and help my family and get a house outside the ghetto, then what is immoral about that? How would you go about convincing me that I would be doing a moral wrong?

You could tell me what the Bible says about honesty, but who says the Bible is the source of moral authority? Suppose it was just written by some ignorant, nomadic Jews and some unenlightened first century zealots deluded by their religious faith? And haven't we proven some things in the Bible to be ridiculous and impracticable, anyway? I could make that point.

So what else are you going to appeal to? Many have not thought about these issues seriously, but when you do, you realise that it is hard to philosophically ground many of the things we take for granted. Many of the high-sounding moral pronouncements which are made by leaders of all stripes depend on assumptions, foundations and hypotheses which are religious or ideological.

Pragmatic grounds

Hedonistic Western society has not really assessed the consequences of the death of God. As I expected, some dyed-in-the-wool secularists have responded to my series ofarticles on sexual morality by pointing to real or imagined weaknesses in traditional religious ethics. It's not hard to do that.

Let's go on the assumption that biblical ethics is outmoded, even foolish. Cast that aside. So we can't use it to judge whether gay people should get married, whether heterosexuals should have sex before marriage, whether abortion is wrong, whether adultery is OK or whether prostitution is wrong. How would we now decided what is acceptable sexually? Would we judge that by the effects on the person or society - meaning purely on pragmatic grounds?

Well, on pragmatic grounds it seems the nuclear family model, for example, has much going for it. The May 25 issue of the respected Economist magazine has a fascinating article titled 'The Frayed Knot', giving some interesting statistics about the economic social and psychological benefits of marriage. The article shows that a major reason for the income gap in America is explained by the marriage gap.

Kay Hymowitz in her book, Marriage and Caste in America, shows that the marriage gap is the chief source of America's widening inequality. Says the Economist: "Those who marry 'till death do us part' end up, on average, four times richer than those who never marry - Changes in family structure thus have a large impact on the economy."

Continues the Economist: "A study by Adam Thomas and Isabel Sawhill concluded that if the black family had not collapsed between 1960 and 1998, the black child-poverty rate would have been 28.4 per cent rather than 45.6 per cent. And, if white families had stayed like they were in 1960, the white child poverty rate would have been 11.4 per cent rather than 15.4 per cent today." People on the Left typically say that conservatives who make much of these facts ignore the debilitating and destabilising effects of poverty and class oppression.

Conservative values

So, it is the poverty and marginalisation which leads people to have dysfunctional families, get pregnant early, go ondrugs, and drop out of school, etc. But what cannot be denied is that whenever poor people adopt certain values, they are more likely to escape certain social and psychological consequences. So, it is the values and norms which are decisive, not environmental factors such as poverty, oppression and marginalisation, as crucial and influential as those certainly are.

With the crisis in values in Western society it is the poor and marginalised who lose more. They need the conservative values. The rich kids and their parents can mess up for they have surpluses and support systems to fall back on. The Sexual Revolution has not been the unmitigated success its marketing suggests. And contrary to the supposition of most feminists, it is the women who have lost the most from the Sexual Revolution. The pill has not freed women as much as some have been touted.

Dinesh D'Souza puts it well in his new book The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11: "Many men realised that feminists were championing something men have always sought, something that the ethic of the nuclear family denied them. Men discovered women's liberation as a means to have sex with many women without having to marry or support any of them. This was even better than polygamy. Consequently, many men - especially rich, powerful men - enthusiastically backed the feminist goal of liberation."

D'Souza continues: "Relationships between men and women have been unhooked from the old social constraints and now largely subject to the market. Many men now feel free to leave their wives and find younger women who are attracted to their status and power. Call it men's liberation. The women who are left behind rarely have the same options that the men have. The law of nature, which neither liberalism nor feminism can repeal, has decreed that men of all ages generally prefer a sexy woman in her twenties or early thirties to the charms of an ageing career woman."

And who can declare that unjust and wicked? By whose standards of morality? If individual gratification and the primacy of the self is the prevailing ideology, then what can trump that? Why shouldn't man be as ruthless as nature? as Hitler once asked.

As Dostoevsky once proclaimed famously, "If God is dead, all things are permitted." Nietzsche also saw the tragic consequences of the death of God to society, though he was an atheist.

Twenty-first century society is experiencing what Nietzsche merely saw as a brilliant philosopher. The consequences of this new morality on children have been devastating. As D'Souza says, "As people in traditional societies have always recognised, the real victims of women's liberation and men's liberation are the children."

Back to the Economist article. It says children in single-parent homes are more than five times as likely to be poor as those who live with two biological parents, and twice as likely to drop out of high school and exhibit behavioural or psychological problems. "Even after controlling for race, family background and IQ, children of single mothers do worse in school than children of married parents." And, adds the Economist, "Children whose father was never around face the toughest problems." Is it any wonder Jamaica, with such high rate of female-headed homes and fatherlesness, have such serious social and economic problems and feature so poorly in the international peace index? These crucial issues are not getting the attention they demand, because they don't provide the high drama to which the media are addicted.

Divorce

Let's talk further about Jamaica's problems and the case for conservative mortality. The Economist says that those living in cohabiting relationships are more likely to divorce after eventual marriage. "Many people will find this surprising," says the Economist. "A survey of teenagers by the University of Michigan found that 64 per cent of boys and 57 per cent of girls agreed that 'it is usually a good idea for a couple to live together before getting married in orderto find out whether that really get along'. Research suggests otherwise. Two-thirds of American children born to cohabiting parents who later marry will see their parents split by the time they are 10. Those born in wedlock face only half that risk."

Yeah, national and cross-country statistics are OK, but when I have my decisions to make, who can convince me not to make them in my own selfisish, self-centred interests? If I feel like bribing the police, a politician or buying a prostitute, why the hell should I consider what you or society think?

If I can get by as a corrupt politician or regular citizen; if I can have sex with as many women as possible (and other men with men!) and if I can get away with sex with a 15-year-old, why should I be concerned about society's laws or the fact that AIDS and what people call carnal abuse is increasing?

The problem, my secular friends, is not that only religion provides a basis for morality. I don't have to argue that. The question is: Having dethroned God, which moral authority can take His place and command broad support?

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.com.