The corrosion of social norms without religion

Most clearly in the United States, but significantly so, too, in most WEIRD nations, "shared ideas about norms, about decency, have been seriously corroded". In this there is a correlation with disengagement from participation in religion by the young, the university educated, and those captured by the self-invention promoted by the morality-denying ideology at the core of Critical Theory.   

Hard-headed journalist Jesse Singal is the dismayed source of the quoted view of much of the social discourse on the likes of Twitter. In his latest Substack post he examines a particularly nasty episode of vicious responses from those who opposed the victim's views. His exposition of the implications for Americans of this widespread moral corrosion, evidenced by the abusive language used on social media, come as Australian broadcaster Stan Grant, of Aboriginal parentage, has responded to a deluge of gutter language and threats by stepping away from his roles, making the comment:

"To those who have abused me and my family, I would just say — if your aim was to hurt me, well, you've succeeded."  

One can also think of JK Rowling, so bravely enduring slanderous harassment.

For Singal, the corrosion of traditional social standards is to be observed particularly in those most strongly bound by what has been described as the cult of left-wing activism:

Progressive organizations all over the country are in the midst of wave after wave of embarrassing, time- and money-wasting meltdowns, largely because shared ideas about norms, about decency, have been seriously corroded. Antisocial behavior — both outright, obvious bullying and the more subtle, manipulative variants that tend to weaponize shared lefty contempt for oppression and various -isms and -phobias — is, if not endorsed, certainly endorsed tacitly by the silence of a lot of people who are otherwise super concerned about bullying and meanness and online harassment. At least theoretically.

The Pew Research Center reports:

Seven-in-ten adults who were raised Christian but are now unaffiliated [also termed "nones"] are Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents, compared with 43% of those who remained Christian and 51% of U.S. adults overall. Some scholars argue that disaffiliation from Christianity is driven by an association between Christianity and political conservatism that has intensified in recent decades.

Singal finds that the foul language, and the urge to inflict pain, are "unfortunately characteristic of a broad swath of the online lefty world, which is just a miserable, deranged, angry place". 

See this Twitter post here.

However, Stan Grant's experience of harassment, presumably from the Right after statements on colonial treatment of Aborigines and present-day racism, illustrates how a society can become desensitised and lose sight of the value of moral guardrails in trying to undertake a peaceful examination of controversial issues. See his article: For years I've been a media target for racism and paid a heavy price. For now, I want no part of it – I'm stepping away

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