America's Victim Culture Lacks Moral Values (From America's Victims: Opposing Viewpoints, P 29-35, 1996, David Bender, Bruno Leone et al, eds. -- See NCJ-165502)

• NCJ Number: 165505
• Author(s): A Etzioni
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 7 pages
• Sale Source: Greenhaven Press
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Opposing Viewpoints Series

Annotation

In the context of counteracting the victimhood trend, the author argues that a moral reawakening can be accomplished if communities impose moral claims on their members and that Americans are too reluctant to voice moral indignation at the offensive behavior of others.

Abstract

Morality in the Western tradition has always depended on the idea of individual responsibility or accountability but has been collectively established. In the strictest sense, individual morality in isolation is meaningless. An individual is moral only in the extent to which he or she conforms to prevailing community standards. Communities need to endorse certain social virtues and basic values, and community responses to those who disregard shared values should be appropriate. The disinclination to lay moral claims undermines the routine social functioning of morality. Further, to object to the moral voice of the community and to the moral encouragement it provides is to oppose the social glue that holds the moral order together.