A Social Series — What Do Rose Ghorayeb and Widad Cortas Answer?

Who is responsible for the moral decline in our society? And what are the serious ways to avert this danger that faces our youth?

The world: a force and a human being.
A force that dwindles as the features of dissolution and weakness take hold, and a human being within whom the lights of the feeling soul and of an integrated idealism interact.

And since morals are a foundation in the appraisal of these values, and the measure by which the soundness of society is judged, the workings of influence have had their way in shaping morals and straightening souls.

Our society, in this stretch of time, is exposed to an active moral upheaval, in which there is corruption and there is deviation, as a result of direct and indirect contact with foreign and Eastern currents alike.

And those who interact most with this upheaval, and are most affected by it, are "our children" — our own flesh and blood... Out of our concern to keep matters in their proper place and to preserve these tender saplings from twisting, we addressed this inquiry to a respected company of our women and men educators — perhaps in their answers lies the healing remedy for a disease that has not yet grown grave..

1 — Who is responsible for the moral decline in our society, and what are its causes?
2 — What are the serious ways to avert this danger that faces our youth?

We put these two questions, in our first round, to the two able educators Miss Rose Ghorayeb and Mrs. Widad Cortas.

Your question reminds me of al-Hamadhani's answer to a friend of his, concerning a letter in which the friend complained of the corruption of the age. He replied: "And when was the age ever good?.. Was it in the Jahiliyya, when Labid said:

Gone are those in whose shelter one could live,
and I remain among a remnant like the skin of the mangy beast

Or before that, when the angels said: 'Will You place therein one who will work corruption in it and shed blood?' People have not grown corrupt; the pattern has simply held."

And we, hundreds of years after al-Hamadhani and Labid, repeat something like what they said in pessimism over the state of society.

Are the children of the present generation worse in morals than their forebears? It is difficult to arrive at a decisive answer, because statistics are not available, especially on so delicate a subject as the measurement of morals. What appears to me is that the children of this generation have merits their forebears did not have. Thanks to the freedom granted them, they are bolder and more confident in themselves. And thanks to the spread of learning and the multiplication of its means — newspapers, books, travel, radio stations, laboratories, and musical instruments — we find them broader in knowledge and wider in horizon, even if they are not deeper in learning, or more patient in study, than those who came before them.

But freedom and learning have faults to set against the merits. Both have an ill effect on whoever misuses them. When I see, at a literary gathering attended by an audience of the educated, young men chewing gum, shoving one another with their hands, and giving free rein to agitation and shouting because they are incapable of keeping order; when I see young men flocking to the bars, forming circles of vulgar dancing and sessions of noisy amusement; and when I see the political parties feeding in them the spirit of hatred, mutual rancor, and place-seeking instead of love of order and an understanding of the principles of true patriotism — I do not doubt that the deviant freedom now within their reach is more harmful than the pressure and constraint that were imposed upon the past generation.

As for the second question, I shall answer it from my own corner — that is, from the educational side, in which I have gained some experience.

I hold that the cure for this condition lies in treating the causes of the disease — that is, in taking a middle course between pressure and freedom in the methods of upbringing, since excess in either is a cause of moral decline. If I wished to be specific, I would say there must be supervision of the motion pictures shown to adolescents; a ban on the spread of books that make the faces of licentiousness attractive to them; a ban on secondary-school students enrolling in political parties; and the use of the means of vocational guidance, which direct the student to the profession that suits him and smooth his way to success by other than the path of cheating, deception, and the scramble for a government post.

And if I wished to generalize, I would say that the most important means of improving morals is the establishment of social justice and the removal of the causes of anxiety and complaint in society. This depends on the rulers and on those connected with them among the men of the press and the leaders of thought. So we must choose well our deputies, our rulers, and our teachers; and above all this, we must strive to reform education and to raise the teacher's standing financially and socially, so that this profession is not left open to the ignorant and the morally degenerate, who raise up a generation in their own image.

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As for Mrs. Widad Cortas, she set about analyzing the causes of the moral collapse with deliberation and knowledge, laying the greatest responsibility upon the home; for upbringing, in her view, is a foundation among the constituents of morals, and this foundation goes back to the home, on which the first imitation and the lasting impressions depend.

The unsteadiness now present in the family structure, and the neglect that crouches between the two covers of this disintegration, which stretches on and multiplies in the very heart of the family, have their far-reaching effect on the mentality of the children.

Then the parents must watch over their children, especially at the age of adolescence; for this stage has its perils — it is the mold made ready for the strong inclinations to settle into and take root. Among the most important means of curbing the danger that faces the children are: watching them in their hours of leisure, keeping abreast of their means of amusement, and knowing their companions. For bad company corrupts morals and destroys what the home has prepared, by planting and by counsel, throughout their tender years — so that the child grows twisted before his stalk has hardened in strength and toughness, and before the strong morals in him have become firm and governing.

Among the causes of children slipping loose from the shackle of supervision is the parents' clinging to the husks of conservatism, without any regard for the demands of the age and of the generation. Conscious guidance reaches a commendable measure when the parents merge with the child's inner self, taking heed of its inclinations and its aims; otherwise this obstinate clinging is one of the things that drive the children to do forbidden things in secret — and they may even reach thereby the point of a sudden breakaway.

Then they must open to their children the breadth of affection, without any fear holding them back from hearing their inclinations, their desires, and their complaints, until formality is lifted between them and confidence is exchanged. In this way the children feel a pressing urge to tell their parents of all their problems, so as to receive from them the necessary guidance. By such treatment the child becomes his parents' little friend.