"The Morals of Our Youth"

This is a recent essay that I was assigned for my Sociology class. It was to be a reflection of the topics that we have been discussing in class. Here is is:

The Morals of Our Youth

    In a recent study, the renowned sociologist, Christian Smith, interviewed a large number of young adults about how they feel about certain moral issues. Along with his colleagues, Smith was surprised that most had no idea on how they would deal with certain moral issues. Honestly, this doesn’t surprise me one bit. Most of today’s youth probably don’t even know what the word “moral” means, let alone know how to feel about them.

     They may have morals, but I feel that they can sometimes be misguided because of where they originate from. Most youth, that I know, have morals based off of “how they feel”, because they have no “moral framework” from which to base their morals. The article states “Many were quick to talk about their moral feelings but hesitant to link to a shared moral framework. As one put it, “I mean, I guess what makes something right is how I feel about it. But different people feel different ways.” I very much disagree with the ideas behind this statement; the ideas of moral relativism. These ideas would work, in a perfect world; alas one in which we do not live.

     If we do not have a moral framework, than how could our morals be very “moral”? What ensures that these morals are what is right? I would argue that there is absolutely nothing that insures the morality of these “self-felt” morals. Joseph Ratzinger, or later known as Pope Benedict XVI once stated that “We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.” I feel that if we fall into this “dictatorship” then we will become selfish, and when has selfishness ever benefited any society? If we all only cared about ourselves, then we would cease to exist. If the Founding Fathers only cared about their own selves, would they have put themselves through the struggle to establish this nation?    

     “Nothing is as it seems.” People might try and think that the world is perfect, but it isn’t. On the outside, the U.S. has looked like paradise to those living in third world countries. But when one looks deeper into our society and sees all the moral dilemmas that we face, then, they would put up with poverty and drought for the sake of not being associated with a nation that thinks its right to kill babies. And so here comes the topic of abortion. (Didn’t you see it coming?). Some feel that women have the right to decide whether or not they should keep their unborn child. They ‘assume’ that because a baby is still in the womb, then it is not ‘life’ yet. But on the other hand, science has proven that life does, in fact, begin at conception. It might be the woman’s right to have an abortion, but does that make it ‘right’? If the government handed out guns to everyone and said “it’s your right to go and kill five people for no reason” does that make it ‘right’? Murder is murder, and without a moral framework to define for us what is truly right, then, morals cannot exist.

     Right now, our country is in a period of immense moral crisis. Although, I am only human and I could be very wrong. You never can truly know, because “things are not what they seem”.