The moral decay of our time

In his historic speech at Harvard in 1978, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who courageously exposed the political repression in the former Soviet Union, especially the Gulag prison system, warned that "a decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today." This lack of courage is still relevant in our time. It is represented in silence and inaction when faced with social injustices, indifference to global crises, conformity to societal norms even when they are morally questionable, individual survivalism, and the lack of moral leadership.

In 1962, during the first nuclear crisis between the former Soviet Union and the US, the West was in moral, political, and emotional turmoil, horrified at the prospect of the destruction of all life on earth. Comparatively, the world, particularly the West, seems almost indifferent to the current looming nuclear threats posed by the ongoing war in Ukraine and the emerging conflict of the US-led West with Iran, both of which have the potential to trigger a nuclear war. Against this apocalyptical prospect, no big demonstrations are being organised globally, no political leader is advocating for de-escalation and peace, and no big debates are being arranged to address the danger of potential nuclear wars. Tragically, it seems that everybody may have already acquiesced to this collective suicide, sparing nobody, including warmongers and innocents alike.

We are facing not just the imminent threats of nuclear war but a moral decay that is alarmingly defining our time. The signs of this decay are all around us, and the consequences we must be prepared to face are grave.

Moral decay, in simpler terms, refers to a gradual decline in moral standards and a perceived deterioration, distortion, or abandonment of moral values within a society where previously unacceptable behaviours are accepted, normalised and promoted.

Morality is compromised when fear takes precedence in our lives. Fear, constantly amplified and consistently imposed, makes us scared, forcing us to compromise on our moral values and standards. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, fear of the virus and its consequences strangely turned into the widespread fear of being monitored by governments about our views on this crisis online and offline. We were alarmed to discover that our reactions to this crisis-critical, indifferent, or accepting-were too costly if we were not careful enough.

All moral considerations are based on the understanding, application, teachings, and wisdom of what is good and evil. In a digital world, we tend to prioritise performability, visibility, and acceptability, exacerbating our proclivity for narcissism, virtue signalling, and vanity. In such a world, we tend to alienate from our inner moral voices and conscience, which becomes shallow without depth, timid without courage, and selfish without honour.

It impairs our self-esteem. Previously, in the age of enlightenment and later, humans saw themselves as the centre of the universe because they were the only rational creatures in this vast, dark, and indifferent universe to entertain themselves with a vision of willpower and self-determination-a vision of secular sacredness. Kant's whole ethics is based on the idea that man is an end-in-itself, endowed with free will and rationality, making them law-abiding and lawgiving for their moral action. For him, sacredness lies in dignity, self-purpose, and rationality.

With the rise of atheism, the spread of ethical relativism, and the dominance of artificial intelligence, man's sacredness is neither holy nor glorious but mundane-or, better, all too arbitrary, purposeless, and insignificant.

All this goes to the heart of our spiritual crisis-the slow and agonising death of subjectivity. Without any sacred, spiritual, and everlasting foundation, a man is fragmented from within, becoming a whim or an anomaly, living in their own gradually narrowing world, losing a vital link with others and, more worryingly, within themselves.

Loneliness is now a social epidemic in the West, a price we must pay, to a certain extent, for our endless pursuit of individualism, promised with liberation from imaginary or real constraints. We are abandoned in ourselves, reduced to enjoying our unique tastes for materialistic well-being and preferences for local affairs, consuming endless Netflix shows to forget or numb our miseries, and unable or unwilling to see the big picture of the world. A man who can feel upset about the change in the menu of their local restaurant may not be worried about the decline in the quality of education, the increasing sense of political corruption, or the unlimited government spending and debts that may bring the whole nation down at the whim of gigantic corporations.

All this dulls moral imaginations-without seeing the consequences of the loss of what is good and the unlimited depth of the evil lurking around humanity beyond comprehension.

On the other hand, the gradual collapse of a moral foundation, be it divine, rational, or other, enables moral relativism. Relativism, which the social and political movement known as "Wokeism" aggressively endorses, rejects any universalistic moral system. It propagates a diversity of moral values that are equally valid without any objective moral guidance or rational reference points. It can lead to a society where every individual's moral compass is different, making it difficult to establish a shared understanding of right and wrong-a world of moral ambiguity, uncertainty and chaos.