by John A. Howard, Ph.D.

I shall address our topic question by entering through the side door.

You will recall that two young men, Dylan Kliebold and Eric Harris, planned and then carried out the slaughter of fellow students at Colombine High School in Colorado. It was an utterly horrifying crime. The American people were stunned. Clearly action had to be taken to put a stop to the recurrent school ground shootings. The resulting provision of metal detectors and video monitors, increased counseling and security personnel and vigorous campaigns for gun control are among the many remedial efforts that were undertaken. They were unfortunately directed at symptoms, only symptoms. The fundamental fact is that Eric Harris and Dylan Kliebold are savages, incapable of recognizing and refraining from an act of absolute evil. They are moral ciphers, devoid of any controlling sense of right or wrong.

They were also the hapless victims of their country's default in its most fundamental obligation to its children. Every nation, large or small, tribal or industrialized, must train each new generation how to live responsibly in its own society. Human beings are not born with inclinations to live as cooperative members of a group. The young must be taught what is right and what is wrong. If they are successfully taught these things, they turn out to be people of good character.

The President of Kenyan College, Gordon Keith Chalmers, wrote what is arguably the most important work of educational philosophy to appear in America in the 20th century. It was published by Henry Regnery. He told me it was one of the best books he had published. Its title was The Republic and the Person. The title is significant. The foremost obligation of schooling is to prepare the student to be a responsible member of the society, to be an active and valuable participant in the republic. The second obligation of education is to prepare the student to be a competent individual. The republic and then the person. Chalmers concluded his book by stating the aim of education is moral majority.

The United States educational system performed this task of acculturation quite effectively for 150 years, but withdrew from that critically necessary function about the middle of the twentieth century. The result of that tragic lapse is that we have at least two generations of cultural orphans who were never successfully introduced to their political and moral heritage. They have not come to understand the importance of, and embrace, the ideals and standards of behavior that make it possible for people to live together amicably and productively in a free society.

Except in those situations where families or churches or communities have managed to perpetuate the proper acculturation of the young, the U.S. people have increasingly become obtuse about behavioral standards. They are, to be blunt once again, moral pygmies. They are the voters who four years ago reelected a president manifestly devoid of morals and integrity. Such a person could not have been reelected 50 years ago.

In 1940, Christopher Dawson wrote, "The idolatry of power has resulted in a new paganism that is destructive of all moral and intellectual values." Dawson, an Englishman, was referring to Nazism and Communism, but that observation about the idolatry of power applies now, in my judgment, to the Clinton Administration and its Vice President.

51 Million of America's morally-stunted people were glued to their TV sets to see the final episode of the Survival series. 50 years ago, I doubt if such tawdry junk could have been sold as a dime novel.

We have often been told that GIGO explains the limits of a computer. If you put garbage in, garbage is what comes out. The same is true of the human mind. A mind fed on junk food develops a comic book mentality. It is addicted to cheap thrill entertainment and falls into a deep decline when Princess Diana dies.

Last November at The World Congress of Families in Geneva, Switzerland, a landmark address was given by Dr. Margaret Ogola. She is a Kenya physician who heads a hospice for HIV-positive orphans. She spoke of the causes of the catastrophic AIDS epidemic in black Africa. She said that for generations religious taboos had effectively minimized sexual activity outside of marriage. Sexually transmitted diseases were not much of a problem. Those tribal norms of sexual morality were shattered, she said by influences from the Western nations. She mentioned three: the mass marketing of contraceptives, the promulgation of value-neutral and non-judgmental education, and what she called "Planet Hollywood" which disseminates throughout the world the message that pleasure is the ultimate good.

What she was saying loud and clear was that the amoral campaign of Planned Parenthood, and the products of the entertainment industry created by our morally-stunted impressarios, and the educational philosophy advocated by our morally-deficient academics are largely responsible for the spread of the pestilence in black Africa, where 70% of the world's AIDS cases are now found. What a terrible indictment! Do you suppose if this information were widely known in America that the people would sense any responsibility for their part in spreading the Aids plague or have any pangs of conscience?

Well as we have seen, the values of "Planet Hollywood" and the Clinton Administration have been virtually interchangeable. Nobody should be surprised that in this week's election the Gore column has California and the Eastern states where the amorality of "Planet Hollywood" is most warmly welcomed and is most powerfully reenforced by the dominant newspapers.

Nor should we be surprised to find in the Bush column a very large part of the huge heartland of America between the East and West coasts where churches and families and communities are still, to some extent, carrying on the traditional acculturation of the youth.

Character certainly counted in the 2000 election, but in my judgment, it is the very large and still expanding quotient of amorality in the American populace that deserves our utmost concern.