A NEW research published in “Nature”, looking across 60 nations and covering a span of at least 70 years, reveals a widespread belief that we’re in moral decline.

Although based on anecdotal evidence, this is a belief that is so prevalent. Each generation in almost every nation shares this common perception. 

In fact, the historian Livy, had bemoaned the “sinking of the foundations of morality” affecting the Roman citizens some 2,000 years ago, which led to what he described as the “dark dawning of our modern day”. 

Aptly, this is a complaint that is not unlike grievances commonly aired around dinner tables and in taxi rides worldwide today.

The study reported that many of the survey respondents believe the decline began around the time they were born, regardless of when that was, and they perceive it to continue until today. 

Reportedly, people feel that the decline is a result of both, (1) individuals becoming less moral as they age with time, and (2) the replacement of more moral people by less moral people through successive generations.

Despite the perception of moral decline, analyses of numerous surveys conducted from 1965 to 2020 revealed that people’s reports of the morality of their contemporaries in each survey year were actually stable over the span of 55 years. In fact, in a separate study, researchers were also able to show people today are more willing to cooperate than those in the past.

This suggests the perception of moral decline is likely an illusion, which is rather apt considering the overall progress the world has made throughout history on many objective indicators.

However, objective measurements of morality is not easy. Societies keep reasonably good records of extremely immoral behaviours: slaughter and conquest, slavery and subjugation, war and torture, or murder and rape. Careful analyses of these historical records would suggest that these objective indicators of immorality have decreased significantly over the last few centuries. 

Whilst there are still a lot of room to improve, and in some places we may have even seen a backslide on several progressive values, on average, modern humans treat each other far better than our predecessors ever did. This is not what one would expect if honesty, kindness, niceness and goodness had been decreasing steadily over time. 

Not surprisingly, though, a lot of the respondents also believe the decline in morality does not apply to them and their immediate circle of family, friends, and associates: many reported that the people in their personal worlds have not degenerated morally. Quite the contrary, in fact in some cases people even reported an increase in honesty, kindness, niceness and goodness when contemplating about the people they personally know.

This means people associate this perceived decline in morality to the general “others”, the strangers in our lives we have never interacted with and don’t really know that well to begin with.

So, why do we have this perception?

There are two possible reasons, among what can only be a complex mix of possible causes.

First, is the biased exposure that we have. The media (conventional and new) thrives on bad news. We are all not just victims but also peddlers of bad news. We are constantly bombarded by the worst possible contemporary news, regardless of how rare it is. 

Second, in the long run, we are better at remembering the good than the bad. Our tendency to have a rosier memory of the past means that we remember the past as better than it really was. In other words, we idealise the illusion of a past that never was.

Together, this leads to the illusion of moral degeneration: from a rosy past to an immoral present. 

So why is this important?

The illusion of moral decline seems to be a robust phenomenon that may have troubling consequences. 

Some psychologists think that if individuals feel surrounded by people with declining morality, then this pessimism might risk them lowering their own moral standards, which may actually turn the perception of moral decline into a reality.

Furthermore, despite other more pressing issues, people believe their governments should devote scarce resources to reversing this imaginary trend of declining morality. 

Even worse, the illusion of moral decline may also leave people dangerously susceptible to manipulation. Manipulative populist leaders who promise to halt and reverse the illusory moral decline, to restore the nation to an imagined glory of the past, may have an outsized appeal. 

Hence, enabling the rise of self-serving populist leaders, like what we have seen globally in recent years, on the pretext of moral salvation. – July 23, 2023.

* Dr Amir Faizal Abdul Manan reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.