The De-Moralization of Society

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Sept, 1995 by Gerald F. Kreyche

by Gertrude Himmelfarb / Alfred A. Knopf, 1995, pp. 314, $24.00

Reviewed by GERALD F. KREYCHE American Thought Editor, USA Today, and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, DePaul University, Chicago, IL

Everyone agrees that America is in a moral mess. Churches, schools, even the government seek to shore up values and restore morals. Yet, by way of contradiction, we are told to be nonjudgmental about the actions of others and to recognize the rights of each's chosen lifestyle. Today, the meaning of family--the basis for nearly all societal mores--has been emasculated. Currently, it includes unwed mothers, as well as gay and lesbian relationships, and as a result has become a reflection of immorality itself.

The focus of this book is to trace the present breakdown of U.S. society to its abandonment of the virtues that governed Victorian times in England and America. Many will scoff at this, saying that such times were more a paradigm of hypocrisy than societal virtue, as evidenced by second-class citizenship of women, exploitation of children, and the pauperization of the masses.

Yet, Himmelfarb, an emeritus professor of history from The City University of New York and a specialist on Victorian times, while not denying such charges, maintains that they merely are stereotypical. She argues her case effectively, supporting her claim that the last 200 years have produced a social change which has abandoned virtues, replacing them with values.

Virtues bespeak permanence. Essentially unchanging, they are authoritative, viewed as nearly universal, and carry a sense of gravity about them. On the other hand, values are subjective and relative, based more on belief, feeling, opinion, convention, and even idiosyncrasy.

The virtues that typified the Victorian milieu were respectability, good manners (including civility), self-help, self-discipline, orderliness, patriotism, and especially cleanliness. They accepted fully the dictum of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, that cleanliness was next to godliness. (They also hewed to his urging, "Gain all you can . . . Save all you can . . . Give all you can.") Of course, these were not necessarily achieved by all--human flesh was weak then as now. Nevertheless, they made up an ideal moral code that cut across both privileged and underprivileged classes. The transmutation of these perennial virtues, the pillars of Victorian society, to 20th-century values began with criticism by socialist Karl Marx and philosopher Frederick Nietzsche.

Himmelfarb shows how religion, for many the basis of being good, was replaced by a secularization of the above virtues, a kind of pseudo-religion. In her historical journey through the 19th century, she compares the role of women in that time and today. In so doing, she shows how current feminism has misunderstood earlier times, when women were complete in their lives. In many cases, the world of man and wife was that of a separate, but equal, status.

She also devotes a chapter to Jews in England, showing that their adversities helped produce and sustain their virtues and religion. This promoted both self-reliance and mutual help, made their orthodoxy a cornerstone of life, and produced community.

One can not praise this book too highly. It is profound, yet an easy read. It even might be seen as a historical and philosophical companion to William Bennett's best seller, The Book of Virtues.