Is Not Recycling More Immoral Than Porn? Teens Say Yes.

According to a recent study by the Barna Group a majority of teens say yes:

When asked to rank a series of action statements (lying, over-eating, stealing, etc) according to a five-point scale: "always OK," "usually OK," "neither wrong nor OK," "usually wrong" and "always wrong," teens and young adults rank "not recycling" as more immoral than viewing pornographic images. Combining the percentages of those who chose always and usually wrong for each statement, theft (taking something that belongs to someone else) ranked #1 at almost nine in 10 (88%). Not recycling ranked #4 at 56 percent, and porn was all the way down at #9 with only a third (32%) of teens and young adults ranking it as morally wrong.

Note that here they're talking about just viewing pr0n (it would be interesting to see how they judge actually being in pr0n). The key takeaway is that recycling is now viewed in moral terms and not practicing it is judged more harshly than more um, traditional sins.

Ed Driscoll points out that Dennis Prager was surprised over a decade ago that when he asked parents whether they would rather their teenager smoke or cheat on a test, the parents chose cheating on a test:

Decades of lecturing around America and of speaking with parents on my radio show have led me to an incredible conclusion: More American parents would be upset with their teenage children if they smoked a cigarette than if they cheated on a test.

How has this come about? This is, after all, an entirely new phenomenon. Almost no member of my generation (those who became teenagers in the 1960s), let alone a member of any previous generation, could ever have imagined that parents would be angrier with their teenage child for smoking than for cheating.

There has been a profound change in American values. In a nutshell, health has overtaken morality. Or, if you prefer, health has become our morality.

posted by Maetenloch at 03:09 PM

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