MORAL EDUCATION: Whose Responsibility Is It?

            In his article, The Violent Heart, in the 2010 Winter Issue of Vision Magazine, David Hulme reviews Jonathan Glover’s, Humanity: A Moral History of the 20^th Century. Hulme agrees with Glover that “knowing what is right and exercising the will to do it” is grounded in “the early and continuous formation of character, [and that] a moral identity is one relevant fact of character”.

           Glover cites an emotional lack, somewhere in the background, of those capable of “humiliating, tormenting, wounding and killing others”. He claims this emotional lack, leads to a moral lack, which gives license to violent behavior.

            Hulme investigates this thread, using Bible passages. He concludes that “religious belief is no indication of a right spirit”, pointing out that throughout history many have justified killing, by their devotion to their notion of God. He finds that violence need not necessarily be physical; verbal abuse can be just as punishing as a slap in the face, or a punch in the ribs, as many an abused individual could tell you from experience. He also calls gossip another weapon in the arsenal of cruelty. He quite rightly defines ‘violence of the tongue’ as “slander, gossip, insolence, anger, [and even] passivity – the failure to speak out against such abuses. He quotes Glover: “the festival of cruelty is in full swing”.

            In the same issue of Vision, Brian Orchard, in The Teaching of Moral Values, cites a complaint by VOICE, a British union of teaching professionals: their classrooms have become chaotic because youngsters, entering the primary classes, are showing up with little or no moral training and are disruptively undisciplined. Philip Parkin, the general secretary of VOICE, bemoans the fact that the present state of familial life, and the oft shifting state of the relationships of the parental generation, bodes ill for the over-taxed staff of the education system and the moral state of the generation now attending primary schools.

            In The Book of Virtues, Bennett says that to “respond is to answer, and to be responsible is to be accountable”. In the parent/child relationship, the onus of responsibility, by reason of maturity, lies with the parent. As psychological studies have shown, a child’s character is formed during the first five years of their existence. It is quite obvious then, that the primary opportunity to build a solid foundation of character is rooted in infancy and early childhood, in the home.

            Mayhap, the “emotional lack” Glover writes about, in the background of those who choose violence and cruelty as a form of relating to others, is the failure of some parents to instill a sense of morality in their children, before the shutters are closed on the window of opportunity, and the soul loses some of the brighter illumination that comes along with higher standards of morality.