Hello again, Dear Readers! Happy 2009 to one and all! This month, I am going to present material that for the first time yours truly did not write. I am presenting an article by a very well respected retired police officer in the South Bay area of Los Angeles County. Jeff Haire was not only a line officer for twenty years, after retiring he earned his Master’s Degree in Psychology from Pepperdine University. When he worked the streets, Jeff was known as a very intuitive, hard working and extremely intelligent officer. He knew how to approach crime problems of all types in his beat. What set him apart from the vast majority of uniformed personnel in law enforcement was his unrelenting follow up to these problems. He didn’t just “handle the call” as so many of us do, he put in place the long term solution to the problem that caused the call to the police in the first place. He was the embodiment that the “Broken Window Theory” has tremendous validity (much more on that in future articles). He has always exhibited a very keen eye for the workings of society. This article has appeared in several other publications and I proudly present it to you here on Copcorner.net. I hope you enjoy the perspective and I hope it inspires you, as always, to do your own thinking on the subject. Enjoy!
America needs a moral makeover
Our current national economic problems are not simply the result of market forces, political policies, or greedy brokers. Rather, our predicament is the logical culmination of the American morality and lifestyle of the last fifty years. We have been living a largely unhealthy lifestyle of materialism (based largely on credit), combined with a mindless emphasis on individual expression. These obsessions have corrupted our business and personal lives and weakened our nation. We’ve become too materialistic and amoral to be a positive example to the world of a nation living in prosperity and peace.
The South Bay area of Los Angeles is a microcosm of our national pursuit of materialism, and the obsessive desire for personal expression.
I grew up on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, south of Los Angeles, in the mid-sixties when things were relatively clear in regard to behavior and family and values. There was the Vietnam War, drugs, feminism, inflation, and the sexual revolution, but Americans were generally still respectful of others, and, we still seemed to share a collective understanding about what was good—and what was harmful behavior— to one’s self, the community, and to the nation. People were more careful and conservative in their behavior, cautious to how they were perceived by others. Moral behavior was fostered by family and church. Despite the turmoil of the sixties, Americans generally behaved according to moral guidelines of respect for others, honesty, hard work and self- discipline, and our prosperity grew because of this.
By the 1980’s, a national theme had developed that “each generation should be better off than the previous”— a theme that turned out to be unsustainable and created unrealistic expectations, and credit problems, for many people.
In the early nineties, I noticed that things exploded in regard to personal spending and personal expression. Both these issues seemed really important to people, whether it was buying real estate or cars, getting tattoos, or having a “lifestyle”. I noticed it first with the late baby boomers, and then with their children. South Bay kids were showered with material goods (in keeping with the “better than my childhood” philosophy); yet, personal discipline and values seemed to be missing. I often heard “boomer” parents state proudly,” I’m going to do things differently than my parents.”
We are seeing the results of that now. Many young people today resent their parents for giving them everything. Permissiveness breeds contempt in children, and this is evident to me in the many South Bay teens that are angry and openly defiant of their parents. Parents found it easy to provide material things, yet difficult to provide the boundaries and discipline that children need (and expect) growing up. Discipline at home and in the public schools largely disappeared in favor of a more permissive style of parenting and education.
Personal expression has become terribly important at the expense of the normative behaviors of respect and rule observance. Traditional educational performance in our universities has been traded for emphasis on “personal experience”. All these changes became common in the early nineties and coincided with the affluence of the technology boom, and the Clintonian themes of personal gratification, personal expression, and acceptance of diversity.
How did all this happen? Since the years following World War II, Americans have lived in relative affluence without any true national challenges or crises that demanded significant personal sacrifice. World War II was the last time Americans had a moral consensus on a national goal, and worked together to achieve it. Without true sacrifice or challenge there is no context for the affluence which the last two generations have enjoyed. I am not sure that this current generation could handle a challenge as significant as World War II, or even agree about what is morally right and wrong.
Today, morality seems to have become less important than financial success and personal achievement, and one can see how this has affected business ethics, as well as personal behavior. Lack of self- discipline is reflected in excessive spending and borrowing, as well as in the corruption of people in government and financial institutions. Now, we are paying the price.
Institutions collapse without a moral foundation.
How do we turn this around? Sadly, I believe Americans will have to face a crisis more serious than 9/11, or the current economic downturn, to restore our greatness. This next, great challenge will require a collective return to personal discipline, selflessness, and sacrifice. We must reject materialism as a way of life, and stop celebrating individual expression at the expense of all else in society.
The nation we need— a nation of caring, honest, and responsible people— can only come from the collective commitment to living a moral life.
Jeffrey Haire
Author is a retired police officer with a Master’s Degree in Psychology.
As always, your comments are welcome here at Copcorner.net.
Until next time, all the best.
Tim
3 Responses to “Does America Need A Moral Makeover?”
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Thank you!
I read a article under the same title some time ago, but this articles quality is much, much better. How you do this?
This theme is simply matchless
, it is very interesting to me)))