When did young people become such moral absolutists?

[marshwiggle]

Read before you decide if this is just more "Get off my lawn!"

It used to be that young people felt that their parents were outdated. Indeed, adolescent rebellion was basically a requirement of growing up. The parents' views were outdated because they came from an earlier era. This did not make the parents evil, merely old-fashioned. Historical figures were similarly viewed as products of their time, so it was possible to recognize merit in some domain for a person in the past while noting that the views they held which were common for their age in other domains would not be acceptable today. Again these people were not automatically evil for the views they held which were common in their time.

In the last decade or two, this has changed dramatically. Now young people vilify anyone who does not hold "correct" views. This includes historical figures. Even if someone had "advanced" views in one domain, if they expressed views of their time in another, they cannot be remembered with anything but contempt. It is as though there was an implicit moral law that is universal in time and space that people in other times and places actually knew about but chose to ignore out of malicious intent.

That kind of thinking is essentially religious, even though many young people would consider themselves completely non-religious.

So to rephrase my question, when (and how) did young people completely abandon any sense of moral relativism and replace it with a view of absolutely clear good and evil and moral certainty?

[Parasaurolophus]

It sounds to me like you're (ironically) offering a rather uncharitable analysis of the "kids these days".

It looks to me like we used to give historical figures who did something important a moral free pass, no matter how much harm they caused. What is happening today is that we're finally presenting a more balanced analysis of these figures. So, for example, we conveniently ignored the fact that John A. Macdonald engineered a famine, because he had the distinction of being our first prime minister and getting the trans-Canada railway built. If we talked about his flaws at all, it was his alcoholism. But really, intentionally starving thousands of people so that you can take their land and build on it is much worse than a mere character flaw. And we're not wrong to condemn him and his contemporaries for doing so, even though they thought Indigenous people were subhumans whose interests didn't matter, because they should have known better. It makes a difference that they didn't do that sort of thing to each other (i.e. white people).

Similarly, we used to give Jefferson a pass because he was one of the original rebels, a key Framer of the Holy Constitution, and a president. But he was a slave owner and rapist. And even though such things were accepted at the time, people like him were in a position to have known better. He talked a good talk about equal creation, after all, and didn't go around raping white women.

I teach ethics to around 300 students a year. They definitely aren't absolutists. In fact, most come in thinking they're relativists, only to realize that that's untenable, and that moral evaluation is more complicated than relativism allows. What most discover is that they have stronger consequentialist or deontological leanings. The challenge is to get them to really understand the shortcomings of those views.

Incidentally, moral relativism is not a particularly coherent view. I wouldn't champion it as something to aspire to.

[Myword]

  This probably depends where you are teaching and the kind of college, etc. Ten years ago students were relativists, traditionally. They do not understand what that means or entails, even after I explain it at length to them. You must be willing to spend a lot of time on this subject for most students to get it. Some never will. I know...I taught Ethics my whole career, including older professionals. I retired. Older students did not vilify historical figures. Ethics was just a word to them.No more.
Even back then, community college students sometimes said that historical figures were bad or no good because they held views that were not politically correct, besides being slave-owners.  they did not understand their own views, only superficially and with circular reasoning.

This is due to Liberal indoctrination and weaker students cannot discern fact from opinion.  I taught Martin Luther King many times by the way.
     I am a moderate absolutist, meaning that I hold some moral absolutes qualified in ways I cannot say here. But it is also essential to consider the time period, especially more than a century ago and cross-culturally. To deny that is fallacious, and rejects opinions with a broad sweep only because of contemporary liberal opinion. Slavery is wrong,  but it is misleading and denigrating to call all slave-owners racists. These labels do not clarify, inform or educate. It is part of a social agenda to criticize and belittle famous white men...character assasination bordering on ad hominem , usually. Jefferson was an outstanding man (slavery aside) And nice to women. Those who vilify must show documented unequivocal PROOFin accurate evidence, not merely in written letters or a diary. But feminism and PC get a Free Pass on their discourse. They argue that the establishment patriarchy-whites got a free pass. True, but 2 wrongs dont make it right, but this kindergarten rule means nothing today.
     Ask your students how they would feel if they were called bad or evil by people a century from now, or further? Future citizens may decide that their beliefs were stupid or evil. (I am NOT saying they are)

Thanks for reading this blog.

   I am not reading replies-- and will leave the forum indefinitely. Not because of this



 


Post reply
Subject
Re: When did young people become such moral absolutists?
Message icon