Is the World Morally Bankrupt?

“THE little skinny girl on the movie screen is about 6 years old. She wears her hair in a shiny bob. In her cotton dress, knee socks and laced-up oxfords, she looks . . . like a kid dressed up for her first day of school. But this child is the unwilling star of a kiddie porn film.”​—The Toronto Star.

Appalling? Yes! That victimized “little skinny girl” could have been your next-door neighbor​—or a close relative. An isolated incident? No! In the United States alone, an estimated 300,000 children a year become trapped in pornography. ‘Yes, but things aren’t that bad all over, are they? It doesn’t mean that the whole world is morally bankrupt,’ some say.

However, consider this illustration: Your neighbor, lacking sound economic judgment, suffers an economic reversal, becomes financially ruined and declares bankruptcy. Yet, on the surface, he puts on the appearance that it is “business as usual”​—until suddenly creditors foreclose on his estate. It is similar with the world’s present system of things. On the surface it may appear morally sound, but a closer examination reveals irreparable cracks deep down to its very foundation.

Indicators of Bankrupt Morals

The world is morally destitute​—bankrupt—​ripe for a total collapse. Why do we say that? As you look at the indicators of moral failure listed below, think about whom and what they represent. Do they represent only the uneducated? or the poor? or the hardened criminal? or the irreligious? Or is moral impoverishment so permeating society, from its leaders straight to their followers, that the entire system is becoming corrupted?

● Fraud in research by scientists, doctors and journalists is discovered at a disturbing rate.

● More than 17,000 corrupt police officers have been dismissed in Mexico City since 1976.

● Two priests, more than 540 businessmen and dozens of tax officials have been charged with cheating Italy out of $2.2 billion (U.S.) in petroleum taxes.

● A recent poll disclosed that 200 chief executive officers for some of the world’s largest corporations consider the maintaining of ethical standards unimportant to the public image of business.

● Citizens cheat Italy out of 20 percent of its potential taxes; in Germany it amounts to an estimated $10 billion (U.S.). On the average, each Swedish adult cheats the government out of $720 (U.S.) a year in taxes. In the United States cheating (deliberate and inadvertent) on federal taxes totaled $29 billion a decade ago, now $100 billion. “If the situation continues to worsen, it could lead to the disruption of our economy and even to a breakdown in society,” states The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

● The director of the UN Division of Narcotic Drugs described the alarming increase in the world demand for illicit drugs as “an evil miasma of smuggling and crime, tax evasion, bribery, and corruption.”

● The World Health Organization estimates that pesticides poison some 500,000 people worldwide each year, often due to the unethical distribution of dangerous chemicals. Safety is sacrificed on the altar of company profits. Many foreign chemical companies “dump” banned pesticides on Third World countries, prompting Kenya’s deputy environment minister to cry: “We are victims of the industrial world.”

● Each year 55 million women get abortions, estimates International Planned Parenthood Federation. This figure represents a destruction of a potential population greater than the individual populations of Argentina, Australia, Canada, South Africa, France, Poland or 145 other nations.

● At one time venereal disease lurked only in the back alley. Now, licentious life-styles have caused its proliferation. Millions are infected each year, including children. New, bizarre sex diseases pop up, spread rapidly and baffle doctors.

● In their pastoral letters, West German and American Roman Catholic bishops support the “just war” theory.

● Large food surpluses are wasted while malnutrition spells death to millions. Many Third World nations neglect food production in favor of export cash crops, such as tobacco or coffee, thereby often filling the pockets of the elite.

● Out of 164 nations, 45 are engaged in some kind of armed conflict, involving over four million soldiers in combat. And what makes war different today when compared to the past? The shocking increase in civilian deaths. On the average, three civilians are killed for every combatant death.

● “Some 500,000 scientists all over the world are devoting their knowledge to the search for weaponry more sophisticated and more deadly,” states the UN secretary-general.

● The world spends $19,300 (U.S.) annually per soldier but only $380 per school-age child. At the same time, 25,000 people die every day because of lack of clean water, and 100,000 children go blind each year because of a lack of vitamin A in their diet.

● In order to enrich their coffers, the industrial nations export their arms to nations who can least afford them​—the all-too-eager developing countries—​who often use those weapons against their poor. “No other form of exploitation, imperialist or otherwise,” says former U.S. Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith, “has been so damaging or dangerous as this.”

True, a person​—politician, businessman, next-door neighbor or other—​may start off with a high personal moral code. However, unless he is highly motivated to resist, the system around him can lock him into a pattern drained of any virtue and can make him its prisoner. An ancient proverb sums up the moral situation by saying: “That which is made crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot possibly be counted.” Like a stick grown crooked and brittle, the world’s morals are so twisted that in order to straighten them out they must be broken.​—Ecclesiastes 1:15.

Another aspect of moral bankruptcy is reflected in entertainment. The culture of a society, especially its entertainment, can reveal much about its moral standards. How does today’s entertainment reflect present morals?

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In the United States alone, an estimated 300,000 children a year become trapped in pornography

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Large food surpluses are wasted while malnutrition brings death to millions

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About a quarter of the world’s nations are now involved in armed conflict

The Moral Twist in Today’s Entertainment

“Good authors, too, who once knew better words

Now only use four-letter words

Writing prose . . .

Anything goes.

The world has gone mad today

And good’s bad today

And black’s white today

And day’s night today . . .

Anything goes.”​—Words by American lyricist Cole Porter, 1934.

“Woe to those who are saying that good is bad

And bad is good,

Those who are putting darkness for light

And light for darkness.”​—Words by Israelite prophet Isaiah, 732 B.C.E.​—Isaiah 5:20.

MORE than 26 centuries separate the above quotes. Each was written for a different purpose, one to entertain audiences on Broadway, the other to explore the lawlessness of the inhabitants of ancient Judah. Yet, both are pertinent to our decade. Today, as concepts of right and wrong constantly change, seemingly “anything goes.”

Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in the twist that entertainment has taken. Entertainment is a part of culture, and culture is the characteristic way a society has learned to act, think and feel. It is a people’s whole way of life. Therefore, a society’s moral views can be seen through its culture.

Likely no other art has multiplied as much in this century or is as popular and influential as motion pictures and television. Some say that films mirror life. Yet at the same time, because movie stars are modern folk heroes, films can amplify, give authority to and mark as approved new moral habits. The motion-picture industry realizes this enormous manipulative power. Its “Code of Production” states: “Entertainment can be of a character either HELPFUL or HARMFUL to the human race.” What does modern entertainment tell you about the world’s morals and where the human race is headed?

In 1939 the Academy Award winning movie Gone With the Wind used a four-letter word that shocked many. Today it would not even cause a ripple. Entertainment, in a few short decades, jumped from an innocent family affair to “adults only.” Some justify this drastic twist as innocent escapism. But is it? The fact is that three things have drained most of modern entertainment of any moral value it might have had​—illegal drugs, excessive violence and graphic sex.

Drugs, Blood and Gore

For decades soap operas have been daily fare on radio and TV. Now we have “dope operas.” On the stage, movie screen and television the prolific spread of illegal drugs into the mainstream of society is depicted as normal, as part of everyday life. No longer are users and peddlers of illicit drugs automatically identified as losers, degenerates and villains. Rather, they often have become the heroes, the winners, the stars, to be imitated by young and old. And the shows’ producers shift the blame for this change to the public and cry: ‘We give them what they want!’

The entertainment business is also wallowing in “blood-and-gore operas.” Never before in movie history has violence been as explicit or as numbing. Literal bloodbaths flash before the eyes of movie viewers. Electric saws dismember body parts, drills bore holes into the heads of victims as blood spurts forth, the sound of cannibalistic munching on body parts is heard. Often this ugly carnage is mixed with some type of erotic situation. These scenes and even more revolting ones have become part and parcel of what many people crave in entertainment.

Today people do not have to sneak into movie houses to see this type of horror film. If they have a home video machine, they can rent or buy their own. One video film was advertised as “92 minutes of rape and massacre”! The market for such debasing violent films is rapidly expanding. For example, one British video trade journal, after reviewing one of the new video horrors or “nasties” in which victims are hacked to death, predicted: “A must for every dealer. This one won’t stay on the shelves for very long.”

What conclusion about life can regular viewers of these “blood-and-gore operas” have other than this​—that normal life is filled with frequent and routine violence. Is it any wonder that real world violence has become more acceptable to more and more people? In short, this type of entertainment is violent pornography.

Video Rock Violence

Now, in the United States especially, we have “video rock operas.” In a growing number of cities it is possible for cable-television subscribers not only to hear hard rock music with its menacing beat but to see accompanying violence too. Video rock can be purchased on cassette or viewed on a large screen in a rock club.

One viewer, stunned by the video rock-music program he saw, describes it in The Wall Street Journal as “the vilest and most revolting performance of sadism I have ever seen.” The newspaper’s account continues: “Interspersed between rock numbers were short vignettes, such as one showing a woman, screaming hysterically, being forced to eat a dead rat.” Few viewers complain.

Since music can stir emotions, this new form of rock music has the potential of reinforcing distorted views of life. Why? Because two human senses are directly involved​—hearing and sight. When listening to music, the hearer supplies his own image of the music’s meaning. By combining music with video, the individual has forfeited his imagination to the moral values of someone else​—the creator of the video rock. Newsweek magazine comments: “One of the signal virtues of music is its power to evoke deep, wordless sensations​—effects that vary from one hearing to the next. Video decides what your fantasy will be and fixes it on the screen every time the song is played.”

Pornography

Another form of base titillation is the “sex operas.” Pornography is not new. Its public display is. The walls hiding pornography from the eyes of the people in general began crumbling in the 1960’s, when Denmark became the first country to legalize all kinds of pornography. Since then, like pus oozing from an infected ulcer, pornography has spread its ugly stain the world over.

In some countries pornography is still a hidden, although lucrative, business. In others, it is blatantly open to all, even the young. Explicit and depraved sex scenes are read in novels or seen in magazines, television or movies at an explosive rate of increase. People often swarm to X-rated movie houses like flies to dung heaps.

For example, Spain’s newsstands are rife with erotic publications. And some of its newspapers carry pornographic advertisements such as this: “Sex, depravation and aberrations in a film that seems to be made by the Devil.” In Britain the Daily Telegraph reports: “The fact is that sex shops are about the only growth industry in modern Britain.” And in Japan “the pornographic businesses are steadily on the rise,” reports the Mainichi Daily News. “They offer more and more lurid services.” Last year, in the United States alone, pornography grossed an estimated seven billion dollars!

Why does pornography flourish? Because of the age-old law of supply and demand. As reported in The Manchester Guardian Weekly, a French former pornographic film star pointed to one answer: “Pornography, however mediocre, has a future because the demand is there.” And now clientele who would feel embarrassed about being seen going into a pornographic movie house become avid customers via video cassettes in the privacy of their own home. Thus, it seems, demand justifies the supply.

Sexual decadence even entraps the young​—from infants to teenagers. “Sex acts on infants as young as eight months are being filmed and photographed by underground dealers catering to a growing kiddie-porn subculture,” reports the New York Daily News. The same source adds that in the United States “an estimated 50,000 children a year disappear and are never accounted for.” Many are forced into sexual exploitation and pornography. Porn films are sent to Scandinavian countries for printing and worldwide distribution to satisfy the lurid taste of an increasing number of perverts.

Therefore, entertainment, whether it depicts explicit sex between adults or youths, or it depicts violence, makes the “bad,” the degraded, appear to be the “good,” the acceptable.

Can this system of things survive with such corrupting influences corroding its foundations? “Can a man rake together fire into his bosom and yet his very garments not be burned?” (Proverbs 6:27) Just where are today’s morals leading the world?

Moral Bankruptcy​—Where Is It Leading?

IT WAS the night of July 25, 1956. The sleek, white motor ship Stockholm left New York on its 103rd eastbound crossing of the North Atlantic. There was fog around the Nantucket Shoals, but that was normal.

From the opposite direction came Italy’s finest liner, the Andrea Doria, cutting a path through the fog. Since both ships were equipped with radar, no one was unduly worried. In fact, most of the passengers were in bed. The duty officers were on watch. The Andrea Doria was traveling at about 22 knots. Suddenly the Stockholm loomed into view. The Italian captain barked out the order, “All left!” But with the Andrea Doria’s momentum and weight it was too late.

At 11:09 p.m. the Stockholm struck the Italian liner amidships. Only a few officers and seamen had been aware of what was about to happen, and their evasive action was in vain. They were powerless to prevent the collision. Eleven hours later the “unsinkable” Andrea Doria plunged to the bottom.

Likewise today, world morals are on a disaster course. A few people with principles realize it. So they try to change the direction of things. But it is too little, too late. The world corruption stymies world leaders who find that this system has a momentum and direction beyond their control. Others see no difference in the worldwide moral climate; some even revel in it.

In such a situation, what hope for the future can honest-hearted people have? Two ancient models provide an answer.

Pattern of Things to Come

The two examples of a society depleted of moral character, and what happened to them, are: the pre-Flood world of Noah’s day and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. Jesus Christ’s words at Luke 17:26-30 show that these examples have a modern-day counterpart. As God’s chief executional officer, Jesus will hold a worldwide accounting. We read:

“Moreover, just as it occurred in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of man [Jesus Christ]: they were eating, they were drinking, men were marrying, women were being given in marriage, until that day when Noah entered into the ark, and the flood arrived and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it occurred in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building. But on the day that Lot came out of Sodom it rained fire and sulphur from heaven and destroyed them all. The same way it will be on that day when the Son of man is to be revealed.”

In both cases, the normal activities of eating, drinking, marrying, building, and so forth, took on a sinister look because God’s warning was ignored. People failed to notice the significance of what happened to their moral environment. For them it was “business as usual.” Let us take a closer look at these two patterns.

“The Days of Noah”

The 24th century B.C.E. found badness overwhelming the earth. Moral standards were out of control. The historical record of Genesis 6:5 relates: “Consequently Jehovah saw that the badness of man was abundant in the earth and every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only bad all the time.” In what way was it bad, and why?

Badness manifested itself in two bold ways. One, by its violence. Two, by its perverted sex. Notice how this is alluded to in Genesis 6:4: “The Nephilim proved to be in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of the true God continued to have relations with the daughters of men and they bore sons to them, they were the mighty ones who were of old, the men of fame.”

The word “Nephilim” means “fellers,” or “fallers.” The Nephilim were bullies. They caused others to fall down violently. No doubt many followed their violent example or joined with them in plundering weak victims. The Nephilim were hybrid offspring from sex acts between materialized rebellious angels, who were at one time “sons of the true God,” and earthly women. Such sex between angels and humans was unnatural, perverted. (For additional information, please read 1 Peter 3:19, 20; Jude 6, 7.)

To what did this moral bankruptcy lead? “So Jehovah said: ‘I am going to wipe men whom I have created off the surface of the ground, from man to domestic animal, to moving animal and to flying creature of the heavens, because I do regret that I have made them.’ But Noah found favor in the eyes of Jehovah.” (Genesis 6:7, 8) Jehovah foreclosed on that morally degenerate system by means of the greatest cataclysm in all human history up to that time. Noah and his immediate family were the only humans to escape that deluge.

Why did Noah and his family find favor in the eyes of God? “Noah was a righteous man. He proved himself faultless among his contemporaries,” says Genesis 6:9. How did he do it? “Noah walked with the true God,” states the conclusion of that verse. Noah was courageous and distinguished himself from his immoral contemporaries by allowing Jehovah’s moral principles to set the boundaries for the way he and his family would walk through life. Noah flatly refused to let the world squeeze him into its mold of corrupted conduct.

“The Days of Lot”

The other example occurred over 400 years later. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which some believe are submerged beneath the southern part of the Dead Sea, persisted in a course of life defiant of God’s moral standards. “The cry of complaint about Sodom and Gomorrah, yes, it is loud, and their sin, yes, it is very heavy,” states Genesis 18:20.

What made the inhabitants so reprehensible in the eyes of God? They were morally bankrupt. Degraded sex practices dominated their way of life. “From boy to old man . . . they kept calling out to Lot and saying to him: ‘Where are the men who came in to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have intercourse with them [“rape them,” The Living Bible].’” (Genesis 19:4, 5) The “we” included the youths as well as the adults!

When Jehovah foreclosed on that morally polluted system, only three souls were spared the fiery destruction​—Lot and his two daughters. Why them? Because Lot was a “righteous man” “who was greatly distressed by the indulgence of the law-defying people in loose conduct” and refused to copy their debased way of life.​—2 Peter 2:7, 8.

In Our Day

The moral account of today’s world is completely drained and ready for total foreclosure. In no way can it raise its moral standards. ‘The ruler of this immoral world,’ Satan the Devil, has most of mankind locked into his pattern of misconduct. (John 12:31) They are like passengers on a ship that is on a collision course. Their leaders, like a ship’s captain, are trying to avoid a disaster but cannot. The momentum of the world under Satan’s control makes a catastrophe inevitable.

But lovers of righteousness, like Noah and Lot, can cut out for themselves a different pattern of life​—a godly one—​by following the course of moral conduct set forth in the Bible. When Jehovah and his Son Jesus Christ soon foreclose on this world’s immoral system, the account of the righteous will show a credit balance. God will then give them title to life everlasting in a righteous world. Will you qualify to be among the righteous?​—Psalm 37:27-29; 2 Peter 2:9.

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Noah’s Day

Lot’s Day

Our Day