In a nation where war, deceit, destruction and death are glorified as societal goods – where success depends oftentimes upon the failure of others and its object is measured ephemerally only in terms of riches, it is ever so in the affairs of men that the putative masters of wealth and of status are accorded far greater deference and respect than the nobilities of character and of deeds. Will America’s youth on some certain day recall with wonder and joy that ever there were a time when even the simplest could aspire to great deeds of honor and service, the very pinnacles of character which all of us at some point harbor somewhere within the dark recesses our being?
For this, they need role models – teachers who keep their eyes on things above. A re-thinking of who our young people are and what they are doing is called for. The youth have all but struck down the nexus of character and character is needed perhaps nowhere more than in the nation’s schools.
Indeed they have forsaken the importance of listening and so immaturity, irresponsibility and inconsiderate behavior pervade. Learning gives way to confusion, benevolence and forbearance to cruelty, violence ensues and escalates – all harbingers of anarchy then tyranny and ultimately chaos.
The public complain that in a social vacuum of moral relativism, the schools and even the families do little to align the moral compasses of our children. People of prominence in business, law, politics, journalism, professional sports and many others teach our children little else it seems than to dissemble the immutability of truth. Such thinking has long since left our country and now the world rudderless. It need not be so.