“What is wrong is wrong, even if everybody is doing it. Right is still right even if no one is doing it.” – William Penn
There are two issues that have engaged the attention of the Barbadian populace for some time.
The first is crime and its impact on our sense of self, safety and security. The second is the issue of the breakdown in the moral fabric of the society.
Recently, the Laymen’s League of the Moravian Church (Barbados Conference) held a panel discussion on the topic Declining Morals In The Society.
The organizers must be commended for this focus since declining morals are at the heart of much of the social dislocation evident in our society.
The panel comprised Rev. Alban St Hill, probation officer Angela Odle and this writer. Without intending to summarize two hours of very intense discussion, it did challenge us to recognize that there are many factors that continue to impact on our perception of and attitude to morality.
Rev. St Hill saw the issue of morals in relation to our relationship with God and our neighbours, and our sense of right and wrong. He challenged that as a society we should hate evil and love good and insisted that each of us must be held responsible for his action and that deviation must be punished.
He condemned hypocrisy in his assertion that we should practise what we preached but remained hopeful that all was not lost.
Ms Odle, my schoolmate, associated morals with values and, in her perception, they represented principles that guide our actions and practice.
She insisted that morals could not be assumed; they must be taught first and foremost in the home. She cautioned that while morals were both individual and societal, failure to punish deviance would eat away at the cohesive fibre of the society, leading to chaos.
So what do we mean by morals? Morals are defined as principles of behaviour in accordance with standards of right and wrong. Words that speak to the concept include decent, ethical, honest, righteous, virtuous and upright. It is derived from the Latin word moralis which means relating to morals or customs and conforming to a standard of what is right and wrong.
As ethical principles, morals are always the same since they represent the standard code to which we all aspire. The values, our perceptions and our behavioural practices informed by those moral codes may change and differ from generation to generation and across social, cultural, historical and other contexts, but morals remain the same.
The question, therefore, is whether our morals are declining or simply changing. Many social commentators have said that moral standards are falling. It is my view that while a decline is a change, every change is not a decline.
Cheryl Willoughby, director of the National Task Force on Crime Prevention, recently drew attention to what she called “a serious crisis in the country”.
She said our value system that was laid down by our forefathers had to be looked at because it was being replaced, and that the family structure had totally broken down (Saturday Sun, October 29).
Commissioner of Police Darwin Dottin is concerned about the breakdown in societal standards, given the crime statistics. It is his view, however, that “the sky is not falling”.
Minister of Social Care and Constituency Empowerment Steve Blackett, speaking at the launch of DanceFest 2011, lamented a decline in morals. According to him: “The popular music culture and the adoption of bling and glitzy lifestyles have already been responsible for the increase in social decay in our communities.”
Ormond Mayers, in commenting on “solutions to crime problems”, believes that the “root cause of mankind’s social problems originates in his separation from God, causing us to lack the ability to separate right from wrong”. He laments that strong morals are replaced by greed, which fuels wrong desires, which gives birth to the crime rate in Barbados (Sunday Sun, October 16).
It is my considered view that our moral codes have remained as our standard. The fact that more and more people are committing acts of theft does not mean the code against stealing has declined. The fact that many relationships are fraught with infidelity and the divorce rate is high does not mean that marriage is no longer the standard.
The fact that lewdness and vulgarity are pervasive should not elevate them as new moral codes. Our behavioural standards, our attitude to morality and perception of what is right and wrong have declined but mankind still knows what is right and wrong.
I agree with William Penn: “Right is still right even if no one is doing it.”
Matthew D. Farley is a secondary school principal, chairman of the National Forum on Education, and a social commentator. email laceyprinci@yahoo.com