People have long complained about the supposed decline of American morality. They play a game of connect the dots with pornographic images, newspaper headlines of school shootings, rampant sex in high school, bad manners and the swindling coworkers to an overall picture of Sodom and Gomorrah. Then they try to play detective and figure out the cause.
People always have an answer, always have someone to blame - and often it is the liberals with their baby-eating, homosexual agendas. Not to burst these people's bubbles, but I think it's entirely likely the conservative end of the spectrum is much more responsible for the decline of morality, and it can be traced all the way to the overly capitalistic culture we are all victims of.
A big concern for many Republicans and conservatives is the disappearance of American family as a source for support and moral character. Humorously, they blame this decline on everything from sex education in schools to gay marriage.
However silly this might seem, keep in mind this is the opinion of a very large segment of the American population. Let's be generous and concede, for a moment, that the American family, is, indeed, disappearing. Again, a better explanation, by far, would be overworked parents.
Overworked and underpaid, parents are made to work 40 hours, and oftentimes more, just to support a family. Hardly ever coming into actual contact with their parents, a lot of children become alienated from their very own family.
The house becomes a roof over common strangers. This leads to a very artificial, materialistic life. The parents try to compensate their time with material possessions and bribe their kids with promises of PlayStations and iPods.
Of course, this leaves the kids without any moral support. The parents often adopt a "let-them-figure-it-out-for-themselves" attitude. When that child reaches high school, they will be without an identity, a dead leaf thrown about by the winds of peer pressure. Without any moral roots, and without a caring home, many will replace the lost attention of their parents with the attention of sex and drugs.
The ones that don't become losers adopt a harsh ideology. It is the ideology of "survival of the fittest," that there are two kinds of people in this world - winners and losers.
Sound familiar? It should, because it's the backbone of what our children are taught from the time they are toddlers.
Like cubs learning how to pounce, children are taught from an early age, the "values" of competition through the use of sports. In basketball, football or baseball, children are inculcated early on to think like a "winner" and compete to win.
So fanatical is this concept, it almost has a tribal, religious following. People put on war paint at sporting events. People follow sports daily and yell at their kids for losing. It really is quite sad because it provides a very limited worldview.
It isn't any wonder that when these people grow up, a lot of them have a hedonistic, materialistic worldview, in which they only look after "No. 1." They'll objectify women, worship their "bling," get wasted and still have enough time to watch the evening sports.
In other words, a characterless, immoral society has just been born - and we wonder where all the corrupt lawyers, politicians and athletes come from.
Perhaps all of this could be different if we followed Europe's example a little more. For instance, people there have 35-hour, or less, work weeks (a lot of times working overtime is prohibited), college is paid for, job security is guaranteed and they have universal health care. If we had this, people would stop economically cutting each other's throats, sit down with their family and just enjoy life. All that energy to get money for college and retirement would be much better spent on family and friends.
This isn't just an opinion on family, it's an opinion about our society altogether. People shouldn't live artificial lives governed by their organizers; they should live life according to their relationships with other people.
Every great civilization in history that has enjoyed our affluence sooner or later became too consumed by material gain (Rome, for example), and lost themselves in hedonistic abandon rather than respecting the glue that keeps societies stable. Let's finally understand that we work to live, don't live to work and it's time to spend more time at home than the workplace.
Suddenly, with our families and friends, the world will seem like a much nicer place to live.
Isaac DeVille is an MSU English junior and a State News columnist. Reach him at devillei@msu.edu.