A Social Series: Who Is Responsible for the Moral Decline? (2) What Does Mr. Youssef Nowayhed Say?

Who is responsible for the moral decline in our society? And what are the earnest ways of averting this danger that faces our young people?

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What does Mr. Youssef Nowayhed say?

The one responsible for this moral decline in our society is those very people who make up this society; it is: I, and you, and they — the men and the women!

And let it not occur to your mind that I lay this responsibility upon all equally; truly no — for people in this respect resemble a ladder of many rungs: each class of them stands as a rung, and each bears of the responsibility what corresponds to the height or the lowness of that very rung.

Lebanese society is like an orchard in which tares sprout beside the wheat, thorns beside the violets, fleabane near the vineyard, and parasitic weeds at the roots of the fragrant shrubs; and each of these two kinds of growth answers to a human element of this society. When the gardeners neglected to root the harmful out of the orchard, growth ceased in the plants, wilting and wasting crept in, the rate of yield declined — and there was the moral decline of which we complain.

This neglect that has taken place may be the result of laziness, or of ignorance of the principles of gardening; but in my belief it comes from the gardeners' lack of love for this orchard: they did not tend it faithfully, and so the harmful overran the beneficial in it.

The weakness of love, in my opinion, is among the causes of the moral decline, for it is accompanied by inward shrinking and lack of cooperation; mutual hatred and mutual envy walk alongside it; with it respect and obedience are lost, the water of the face dries up, and shame grows scarce — and when a man feels no shame he does as he pleases, in ways that bring no honor to his homeland. Yes, I said love, because I attach the greatest importance to it. Love of others keeps us far from unbridled selfishness — itself among the causes of our decline — so that we live in an atmosphere of solidarity; sectarian fanaticism is done away with, and fellowship prevails among the different elements. Through love the official performs his duty in the best manner and is sincere in serving his fellow citizens; it is love that spurs the judge to hold to the ways of justice among the litigants before him; it is love that makes the merchant contented, satisfied with a reasonable profit, so that he does not corner goods in order to exploit the poor and the middling among those he lives with, nor drive them to fight him and intrigue against him. And it is love that makes the people's representative look upon all citizens with the gaze of a gentle father toward his children, making no distinction among them; he does not harness his influence, drawn from the people, to his private interests, nor violate the regulations and laws which he himself enacted and whose lines his own hands traced for the good of society.

Among the causes that have worked, and still work, to increase the moral decline is "idleness" in the lives of the many young men who do not work — and I single out among them the educated and the half-educated, whom vanity has so hemmed in that it made them disdain to take up manual occupations; so they sat back from work and wasted their hours in places that corrupted them, where their morals declined and their souls sickened, and they became a dangerous element, a germ whose infection passes on to the rest of the people. They came to resemble the orchard's parasitic plants that injure the useful crop — and in all this lies danger to the future of the rising generation and of the homeland.

As for how to avert this danger, there are many effective ways, of which the most important are three: civic education in the home and the school; the application of the regulations and laws with no deference and no favoritism toward anyone save by right; and the fighting of idleness.

The first — education — constitutes the foundation element in halting the current of this decline; but it is slow in its working, since it rests on the element of encouragement, persuasion, and logic, and its effect does not appear until after a school generation — and this on the assumption that home and school possess all the ingredients of sound upbringing: a good mother, a good father, and a good teacher. But, alas, I do not see, in our present day, that the two environments, of home and of school, are equal to raising the moral level until it reaches the station that a refined society wants and hopes for. For the school to perform its noble service and give the young a sound moral upbringing, the character of commerce must be stripped from it and it must be turned into a nursery of men — not left as shops for exploiters, stuffing heads with defective learning and leaving a moral void that will be an ill omen for our future.

As for the second — the application of the regulations and laws without dallying or favoritism — it is in my view the swiftest and the most comprehensive of the ways, even though it rests on the element of fear, force, and punishment; but this element is necessary to deter the aggressors and those who make light of order and of human values — that is, the causers of this decline. This work is among the functions of the state. If the state acts resolutely in it, and makes all people feel the necessity of a real and effective respect for the law, and strikes with hands of iron at every violator, without a glance at the rung to which he belongs, and prevents the classes of the high rungs from intervening to spoil the working of the regulations — so that the weak man and the poor man feel that they obtain their right without the mediation of any intermediary, and that they are in fact equal before the courts with the strong and the rich — then confidence will take command of souls, and people's inclination toward good example and the love of virtue will grow strong.

As for the third — the fighting of idleness — it rests on securing work for all who are capable of it and providing the means of livelihood and of security for everyone. This too, today, falls as a charge upon the state, and it must be dealt with in partnership with the wealthy, as is the case in the other advanced countries.

And when all this has been made ready, you will see the wheel of moral decline stop, then shatter against the rock of the principles I have mentioned, and you will behold our society as the best and the most advanced that societies can be — because it dwells in a soil in which, however many its thorns and however its strange weeds grow, its fragrant herbs and its good plants, if faithful hands tend them, will remain the uppermost and the prevailing.