The total collapse of moral values in Europe and America. So what?

I’m not even gonna bring up America here—honestly, there isn't a single political party or group in this country that actually uses "family values" as a real platform unless they're just trying to suck up to the Church.
Look, I’m not a conservative myself, so "Christian values" don't really move the needle for me personally, but it's pretty obvious those values—whether you call them family-oriented, moral, whatever—are in a tailspin. And from what I can see, it's happening without any real fallout for society.

Sure, some people will point to rising crime rates or the economy tanking, but if you look at the stats in the US or across Europe, crime isn't actually spiking—it's often dropping—it just feels different because of how the media spins it. As for the economic mess? That's got its own set of issues, and the fallout hits "decadent" places just as hard as conservative ones.

The real question is: how much does this breakdown of moral values actually impact a country? Because if there aren't any negative consequences, then what's the whole point of social conservatism anyway?

Quincey

restlessfox5 said:I’m not even gonna bring up America here—honestly, there isn't a single political party or group in this country that actually uses "family values" as a real platform unless they're just trying to suck up to the Church.
Look, I’m not a conservative myself, so "Christian values" don't really move the needle for me personally, but it's pretty obvious those values—whether you call them family-oriented, moral, whatever—are in a tailspin. And from what I can see, it's happening without any real fallout for society.

Sure, some people will point to rising crime rates or the economy tanking, but if you look at the stats in the US or across Europe, crime isn't actually spiking—it's often dropping—it just feels different because of how the media spins it. As for the economic mess? That's got its own set of issues, and the fallout hits "decadent" places just as hard as conservative ones.

The real question is: how much does this breakdown of moral values actually impact a country? Because if there aren't any negative consequences, then what's the whole point of social conservatism anyway?

The fallout from declining moral values tends to unfold over a very long stretch of time...

Besides, what kind of "decay" in America are you actually talking about? Not too long ago, I was traveling through the States and spent time among folks who were essentially Christian Puritans. Even though they try their hardest to be politically correct, you can tell they’re deeply unsettled by how much sex is shoved in everyone's faces in the media.

Everything really hinges on the specific lens through which you view this supposed "decay" of social values. Take the Church, for instance—to them, the entire Renaissance was nothing more than a collapse of moral standards, yet that very shift was what ultimately propelled Europe forward. Fast forward to today, and you see a similar pattern: the Islamist regime in Iran would claim that women simply participating in society around unknown men, or choosing to dress more freely, represents a total breakdown of morality. This begs the question—what exactly should the US or the EU return to in order to live within a framework of "moral values"?

When we weigh the way of life in Iran against Germany, we’re looking at two completely different interpretations of what morality even means. I can't help but wonder—what do you think would actually happen if someone tried to swap the lifestyles of these two nations? Given that their people hold such fundamentally different views on morality, how would the local populations react to such an imposition?

What some consider decadent—driven by a tiny minority of extreme Christians and a fairly significant number of radical Muslims—is, for others, simply the natural progression of human development as we move past Middle Ages primitivism.

I honestly regret even popping up in this thread in the first place.

What a bunch of oversimplifiers...

vividrider3 said:What some consider decadent—driven by a tiny minority of extreme Christians and a fairly significant number of radical Muslims—is, for others, simply the natural progression of human development as we move past Middle Ages primitivism.

Hold on a second. Are you seriously trying to argue that the "natural progression of human development" means we all eventually turn into someone like Jozef Fritzl, who raped his own daughter?
I’m never going to buy that. You have to stop immorality in its tracks, otherwise, it just keeps spiraling into even more extreme versions of itself.

Larry Gray said:Hold on a second. Are you seriously trying to argue that the "natural progression of human development" means we all eventually turn into someone like Jozef Fritzl, who raped his own daughter?
I’m never going to buy that. You have to stop immorality in its tracks, otherwise, it just keeps spiraling into even more extreme versions of itself.

It seems to me that these self-proclaimed geniuses think this is just the "normal" way for a human being to develop. 🙄

As if pedophilia and debauchery haven't been part of history since the beginning of time... as if this is somehow some brand new "modern" phenomenon.

That’s what happens when you try to feed nonsense to the uneducated masses.

Larry Gray said:Hold on a second. Are you seriously trying to argue that the "natural progression of human development" means we all eventually turn into someone like Jozef Fritzl, who raped his own daughter?
I’m never going to buy that. You have to stop immorality in its tracks, otherwise, it just keeps spiraling into even more extreme versions of itself.

Basically—yeah. Throughout history, you'd have these barbarian tribes swoop in and "cleanse" a decadent civilization every once in a while, but in this day and age, that's just not an option anymore.

restlessfox5 said:I’m not even gonna bring up America here—honestly, there isn't a single political party or group in this country that actually uses "family values" as a real platform unless they're just trying to suck up to the Church.
Look, I’m not a conservative myself, so "Christian values" don't really move the needle for me personally, but it's pretty obvious those values—whether you call them family-oriented, moral, whatever—are in a tailspin. And from what I can see, it's happening without any real fallout for society.

Sure, some people will point to rising crime rates or the economy tanking, but if you look at the stats in the US or across Europe, crime isn't actually spiking—it's often dropping—it just feels different because of how the media spins it. As for the economic mess? That's got its own set of issues, and the fallout hits "decadent" places just as hard as conservative ones.

The real question is: how much does this breakdown of moral values actually impact a country? Because if there aren't any negative consequences, then what's the whole point of social conservatism anyway?

It’s not exactly 'business as usual,' though. Just because crime isn't surging across the board doesn't mean certain liberal policies aren't creating massive headaches. The lack of a crime spike (? maybe) could probably be explained by the sheer amount of government spending on things like increased policing and CCTV, etc. But you really have to look at the specific subgroups that result from these liberal policies. The consequences definitely exist, but nobody talks about them because once leftist activists think they've 'fixed' one 'problem,' they immediately pivot the noise toward some other 'problem.' Case in Point is the way the government subsidizes single motherhood in the UK. If you look at any available data, single motherhood is almost a statistical guarantee for a path toward delinquency and poverty. It should be treated as a genuine issue, not as some acceptable substitute for the traditional family unit, which is exactly how the PC establishment treats it today. A mother's love and a welfare check aren't enough, and that's something the American psychologist Charles Murray warned about back in the '80s. He got crucified by the PC brigade then, much like how climate change skeptics get crucified today. This policy of sponsoring the single-parent model and acting like it's a perfectly valid alternative has resulted in the emergence of an entire unproductive, essentially useless—and more importantly, socially and economically damaging—underclass in Britain known as NEETs (not in employment, education, or training). Even the Labour government in the UK eventually had to admit this, despite being the ones responsible for this whole social engineering project. The same thing happened in the US before it hit the UK, where the breakdown of the traditional family structure among the Black population triggered a wave of crime that only subsided after abortion was legalized following the Roe vs Wade decision, which allowed pregnant Black teenagers to effectively abort away an entire generation of future criminals. Not to mention, the traditional family model isn't even that "traditional" for Black people in Africa, so there was no need to lure them into the single-mother trap—Black men are statistically far less inclined toward nurturing and responsibility, which is one of the primary reasons why the African continent struggles to establish a stable, functioning society. I'll attach an excerpt from an article discussing this exact issue in the UK.

Last week Blair made a rare speech about faith and morality in which he asserted that single mothers were “piling up problems for the future”. The comment was striking from the leader of a party that has traditionally defended single mothers and vehemently condemned those who have sought to stigmatise them.

Blair’s comments barely scratched the surface of what the administration is actually sweating over. It’s been sixteen years since Charles Murray sounded the alarm about a massive new underclass on the horizon, and if you look past the official talking points—the stuff the politicians conveniently ignore—it turns out his prediction came true. We're looking at the rise of the NEETs.

We’re talking about a group of 1.1 million people between the ages of 16 and 24, and honestly, the weight they pull on our economy and social fabric is just... well, it's massive compared to how many of them there actually are.

I mean, according to some pretty conservative estimates from the Department of Education, every single kid who drops out of school at 16 becomes a permanent line item on the taxpayer's bill. We're looking at an average lifetime cost of $125,000 per person, and in the absolute worst-case scenarios? That number climbs north of $380,000.

The ripple effects on crime rates, public health, and general chaos in our neighborhoods are just staggering. One study suggested that just one single group of 157,000 teenagers—those aged 16 to 18—could end up draining $19 billion from the US treasury by the time this cohort reaches the end of its life cycle around 2060.

http://www.nytimes.com/news/article/438356.ece

Of course, whenever they need to back up an argument, liberals always have a handful of 'studies' tucked away in their back pockets, just like what we're seeing today with global warming.

Robin Ramos2 said:It’s not exactly 'business as usual,' though. Just because crime isn't surging across the board doesn't mean certain liberal policies aren't creating massive headaches. The lack of a crime spike (? maybe) could probably be explained by the sheer amount of government spending on things like increased policing and CCTV, etc. But you really have to look at the specific subgroups that result from these liberal policies. The consequences definitely exist, but nobody talks about them because once leftist activists think they've 'fixed' one 'problem,' they immediately pivot the noise toward some other 'problem.' Case in Point is the way the government subsidizes single motherhood in the UK. If you look at any available data, single motherhood is almost a statistical guarantee for a path toward delinquency and poverty. It should be treated as a genuine issue, not as some acceptable substitute for the traditional family unit, which is exactly how the PC establishment treats it today. A mother's love and a welfare check aren't enough, and that's something the American psychologist Charles Murray warned about back in the '80s. He got crucified by the PC brigade then, much like how climate change skeptics get crucified today. This policy of sponsoring the single-parent model and acting like it's a perfectly valid alternative has resulted in the emergence of an entire unproductive, essentially useless—and more importantly, socially and economically damaging—underclass in Britain known as NEETs (not in employment, education, or training). Even the Labour government in the UK eventually had to admit this, despite being the ones responsible for this whole social engineering project. The same thing happened in the US before it hit the UK, where the breakdown of the traditional family structure among the Black population triggered a wave of crime that only subsided after abortion was legalized following the Roe vs Wade decision, which allowed pregnant Black teenagers to effectively abort away an entire generation of future criminals. Not to mention, the traditional family model isn't even that "traditional" for Black people in Africa, so there was no need to lure them into the single-mother trap—Black men are statistically far less inclined toward nurturing and responsibility, which is one of the primary reasons why the African continent struggles to establish a stable, functioning society. I'll attach an excerpt from an article discussing this exact issue in the UK.

Last week Blair made a rare speech about faith and morality in which he asserted that single mothers were “piling up problems for the future”. The comment was striking from the leader of a party that has traditionally defended single mothers and vehemently condemned those who have sought to stigmatise them.

Blair’s comments barely scratched the surface of what the administration is actually sweating over. It’s been sixteen years since Charles Murray sounded the alarm about a massive new underclass on the horizon, and if you look past the official talking points—the stuff the politicians conveniently ignore—it turns out his prediction came true. We're looking at the rise of the NEETs.

We’re talking about a group of 1.1 million people between the ages of 16 and 24, and honestly, the weight they pull on our economy and social fabric is just... well, it's massive compared to how many of them there actually are.

I mean, according to some pretty conservative estimates from the Department of Education, every single kid who drops out of school at 16 becomes a permanent line item on the taxpayer's bill. We're looking at an average lifetime cost of $125,000 per person, and in the absolute worst-case scenarios? That number climbs north of $380,000.

The ripple effects on crime rates, public health, and general chaos in our neighborhoods are just staggering. One study suggested that just one single group of 157,000 teenagers—those aged 16 to 18—could end up draining $19 billion from the US treasury by the time this cohort reaches the end of its life cycle around 2060.

http://www.nytimes.com/news/article/438356.ece

Where exactly are you getting this from?
If we're talking about the US, sure, there's an argument to be made, but the root cause is slavery, which didn't just tear families apart—it actively prevented the very foundation of family life from ever taking hold.
Things only really started shifting back in the 80s, and you can't honestly expect all of that to just fix itself in twenty years...

But regarding Africa—what are your sources for that claim?

Alexander Barrett50 said:Where exactly are you getting this from?
If we're talking about the US, sure, there's an argument to be made, but the root cause is slavery, which didn't just tear families apart—it actively prevented the very foundation of family life from ever taking hold.
Things only really started shifting back in the 80s, and you can't honestly expect all of that to just fix itself in twenty years...

But regarding Africa—what are your sources for that claim?

There aren't any sources, because it’s just someone's take on things.

Maybe African Americans really are like that, but isn't that just totally normal when you're living in poverty? I mean, look at history here in the States—a hundred years ago, rural families used to have like ten kids! Who could possibly provide for all ten of them? Back then, white guys were probably pretty lousy fathers too.

Sam Jones4 said:There aren't any sources, because it’s just someone's take on things.

Maybe African Americans really are like that, but isn't that just totally normal when you're living in poverty? I mean, look at history here in the States—a hundred years ago, rural families used to have like ten kids! Who could possibly provide for all ten of them? Back then, white guys were probably pretty lousy fathers too.

I've had these exact same arguments before, and they can never produce a single shred of evidence, yet this nonsense gets spread around so efficiently. One guy even tried to claim we’re genetically more moral than Africans! I honestly couldn't believe what I was reading. So I told him, what's considered "moral" to you might be the opposite for someone else. There is absolutely no way we are more moral, let alone genetically. But it doesn't matter... it's useless.

Just pure idiots, honestly...

I mean, I don't know. Maybe I’m just overthinking it, but there’s something about the way things are being handled lately that feels... off. It’s like we’re constantly hitting these walls, only to find out the wall was actually a door that someone just decided to paint shut. I guess that’s just how it goes sometimes. You expect one thing, you prepare for it, and then—bam—everything shifts. It’s frustrating, honestly. I find myself sitting here, wondering if anyone else is even noticing the pattern, or if I'm just shouting into a void. It feels like we're all just circling the same drain, waiting for someone with actual authority to step up, but instead, we just get more bureaucracy. More red tape. More of the same. It’s exhausting, really. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, though. Expecting things to go smoothly in this day and age is probably my own fault. My mistake, really. Robin Ramos2 says:
Where exactly are you getting your sources for a claim like that? I mean, honestly...

What kind of claim are we even talking about here? Are we talking about the idea that African men just don't care about their offspring, or is it the argument that this general lack of parental responsibility is what leads to a dysfunctional society? I guess it depends on which way you look at it, maybe. It’s all a bit muddled, isn't it?

I suppose I should probably start by saying that things aren't exactly going according to plan lately... or maybe they were always meant to be this messy? I can't quite decide. It feels like everything is just... drifting. I was thinking about it earlier—well, more like obsessing over it, if I'm being honest—while I was stuck in traffic on the I-95 near Philadelphia. Just sitting there, staring at the brake lights, wondering why we even bother with schedules at all. It’s funny, in a dark sort of way. We spend so much energy trying to build these rigid structures, these little fortresses of order, only to watch them crumble because of some tiny, unforeseen variable. Maybe that's just human nature, I guess. Or maybe we're just bad at math. I don't know. I'm probably overthinking it. But then again, when you look at how things are moving in the country right now, it feels less like a controlled descent and more like a freefall. Not that I'm making any grand political statements here—I really am not—but it's hard to ignore the sheer chaos of it all. It’s exhausting. Truly. [Robin Ramos2] says:
If something like that actually existed in America... I don't know. I guess the real issue here is the legacy of slavery. It wasn't just about the cruelty itself, though that was horrific; it was how it systematically tore families apart. It practically made it impossible for people to even establish a foundation for a family in the first place. It just destroyed the very idea of building a home.
Things only really started shifting back in the 80s, I suppose. And you can't exactly expect everything to just flip overnight or transform completely within some arbitrary twenty-year window. It doesn't work like that. Maybe people want it to be faster, but history... well, history moves differently. You can't just rush decades of momentum.

You’re talking nonsense. If we're actually looking at the facts regarding single-parent households, things have been shifting for the last twenty or thirty years, but it’s all been a downward spiral. Back in the 70s, the percentage of single-parent families was hovering around 10%, but by the end of the last century, that number had spiked to nearly 25%. And when you look at the data, two-thirds of those single-parent homes in the US are African-American. I guess what I'm trying to say is that this whole era of liberalization has basically just encouraged a return to a state of natural promiscuity and a general sense of paternal irresponsibility among Black Americans. It's all falling apart.

I suppose I should probably say something here... though I’m not entirely sure if anyone actually cares about my take on this. It’s all just a bit much, isn't it? Everything feels so rushed lately. I was sitting there, thinking—well, more like staring blankly at my coffee—and it hit me how much things have shifted. It’s like we’re constantly being pushed to react before we even have time to process what happened five minutes ago. I guess that's just how things work now. Maybe I'm just being overly sensitive. Probably. But still... it's frustrating. Truly. Robin Ramos2 says:
Now, regarding this whole thing about Africa... where exactly are you getting your sources from? I mean, seriously.

Where am I supposed to find sources for that? It’s just common knowledge at this point—Africa has the highest percentage of single-parent households. And honestly, anyone with half a brain knows that having a teenage mother is basically a fast track to poverty. I don't see why I need to provide references for this... these are just established facts. Everyone knows this.

Larry Gray said:Hold on a second. Are you seriously trying to argue that the "natural progression of human development" means we all eventually turn into someone like Jozef Fritzl, who raped his own daughter?
I’m never going to buy that. You have to stop immorality in its tracks, otherwise, it just keeps spiraling into even more extreme versions of itself.

Nobody was ever holding up Fritzl as some sort of role model—no sane person considers his crimes to be anything other than monstrous. Why must you jump straight to such an extreme conclusion?

Donna Thompson2 said:Nobody was ever holding up Fritzl as some sort of role model—no sane person considers his crimes to be anything other than monstrous. Why must you jump straight to such an extreme conclusion?

Look, fine, nobody actually cited Fritzl before, but Kiowa argued that decadence is just the natural trajectory of human development. If Fritzl is the absolute peak of decadence, what does that imply about being at the "forefront" of progress?

Here’s my take: when a society’s moral compass starts spinning out of control, you get this specific mindset where people decide they won't lift a finger. Instead, they just dump everything into index funds and real estate, praying that passive income will magically sustain them.

When that mentality becomes the norm rather than the exception, you end up with an absurd ratio of idle speculators compared to the actual workers required to maintain the illusion that money is somehow generating its own value.

In the long run, that imbalance is a direct flight path toward runaway inflation and a total economic meltdown.

Alexander Barrett50 said:I've had these exact same arguments before, and they can never produce a single shred of evidence, yet this nonsense gets spread around so efficiently. One guy even tried to claim we’re genetically more moral than Africans! I honestly couldn't believe what I was reading. So I told him, what's considered "moral" to you might be the opposite for someone else. There is absolutely no way we are more moral, let alone genetically. But it doesn't matter... it's useless.

Just pure idiots, honestly...

We absolutely can be more moral if we subscribe to the superiority of our own value system. However, within the context of moral relativism—if everything is truly relative and there is no superior or inferior standard—then, I suppose, one could argue that something like female genital mutilation is just "cultural enrichment," or at least something we should show understanding toward because it belongs to a different, morally equivalent culture.

As far as genetics go, it's obvious there are genetic differences between races. That's just normal; different racial groups evolved under vastly different conditions. It’s clear that environment and surroundings are factors in the development of species and subspecies, and nobody would question the genetic differences between a North American Mustang or certain Arabian horse breeds. Yet, the moment you talk about humans, suddenly it becomes this massive taboo. It's plain to see that Black people are physically more capable than white people. Similarly, it’s clear they are less intelligent than white people, who in turn are less intelligent than Asian people. Regarding Black people, they also have a deficit in communication skills; over 80% of communication happens through facial expressions, yet in Black people, those facial expressions are far less developed. Etc, etc. Furthermore, regarding fidelity—which is tightly linked to the concept of responsibility toward offspring—it is known in the animal kingdom that individuals with a smaller ratio of penis size to body size tend to be more faithful. Black men, on average, have a larger ratio of penis size to body, and that reflects in their approach to monogamy. Studies of Black cultures indicate, with very few exceptions, an emphasis on reproductive success and an alpha-male culture of dominance, where the goal is to see who can fertilize more women and spread their seed.

In any case, you can claim that among white people there are bad fathers and that poor fatherhood is a consequence of poverty (is it really?? Or perhaps poverty is the logical consequence of a broken value system—this isn't meant to be a moral condemnation, just a techno-economic observation)—but it's clear that Africa has an extremely high number of single-parent households. It's also clear that Black Americans make up more than half of all single-parent households in the USA. Slavery is a common excuse, even though today's Black Americans are two or three generations removed from slavery (roughly how far we are from the end of the Turk invasions), and even though it's clear that Black people had much better family lives in the conservative 50s and 60s than they have in recent liberal decades. It's quite clear that children from single-parent families are more likely to end up as criminals or face milder or more severe socialization issues.

Larry Gray said:Look, fine, nobody actually cited Fritzl before, but Kiowa argued that decadence is just the natural trajectory of human development. If Fritzl is the absolute peak of decadence, what does that imply about being at the "forefront" of progress?

He didn't actually say that decadence is the inevitable path of human development—rather, his point was that what extreme Christians or Muslims view as decadent is considered a standard evolutionary progression by everyone else. Different cultures possess vastly different frameworks for morality. It really comes down to this: for whom is the Islamist regime in Iran considered moral, and for whom is a democracy in Germany viewed as immoral?

I'd love to see some specific examples of decadence within Western civilization.

Fritzl isn't some example of decadence. I mean, if you look at how the Encyclopædia Britannica defines the term, it's more about 'luxurious indulgence.' What happened there—raping his own kids while they were locked in a basement—is just pure criminality, even by the standards of the Kaligulin Rim.