An inconvenient truth

Miranda Devine hits the unfortunate nail on the head:

Judeo-Christian ethics underpinned our society and gave people a code of behaviour to live by.

But along with religion, we have been dispensing with manners and mores as if they are quaint and unnecessary in a modern connected world, when they probably have never been more needed.

As society becomes less harmonious we have had to invent all sorts of new laws to stop us irritating each other. They are the imperfect artificial replacement of social norms, which only heighten aggravation. And now all sorts of impolite and anti-social behaviour once forbidden by community consensus must be tolerated, from swearing in public and spitting to road rage and cheating.

We are witnessing the Boratisation of our culture, where decent people are deliberately offended and taken advantage of to enhance the social standing of their tormentors. In the movie Borat, a fictional journalist from Kazakhstan travels around America being rude and making fun of real people. He pulls such pranks as defecating in plastic bags and pretending it is the custom in his country so that his hosts seem ridiculous when they are courteous in return.

The movie’s contemptible schtick was to exploit the politeness and hospitality of Americans and show them up as gullible rubes. It divides the world between the cool insiders who are in on the joke and the excluded idiots who aren’t.

The movie was hailed a great hit but it was peppered with lawsuits by people who felt humiliated. Once we understood that to humiliate and shame those in a less powerful position was bullying behaviour. Now it is just harmless fun.

After all, the whole point of a radio prank call is to hold up to ridicule people who are trusting or gullible, exploiting good will for a cheap laugh, corroding the bonds of trust and friendship in society.

In our rush to free ourselves of the constrictions of morality, we have created a society increasingly overrun by laws and regulations, less free than ever, and certainly less gentle.    (this truth illustrates the paradox in 2 Peter 2:19) 
 

You don't have to think of yourself as a grumpy old man (or women) to notice that the level of manners/discipline/civility and/or common decency within the public at large has deteriorated significantly. Sure there are still good 'kids' and decent adults in the community, lots of them, but in general I do not think that it is being to pessimistic to notice the general decline in culture.

Perhaps those who desire the church to return to a 1st century dynamic are about to have their wishes granted.