Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Gallup 2011 Values and Beliefs Poll
With all due qualifications about the limits of such polling, the results of Gallup's 2011 Values and Beliefs Poll are interesting for many reasons. I'll highlight two and leave others to weigh in with their favorites in the comments:
1. I'm disturbed by the high (45%) level of moral acceptance of physician-assisted suicide. That number has fallen very slightly over the past few years, but it's a reminder that the physician-assisted suicide debate isn't going away anytime soon.
2. I'm also disturbed by trends on the moral acceptability of pornography. Though pornography is viewed as morally wrong by 66% of the respondents, there's a significant generational difference. 42% of 18 to 34 year-olds think pornography is morally acceptable, which makes the moral acceptablity of pornography the issue with the greatest variation among age groups (just 19% of those over age 55 think it's morally acceptable).
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2011/06/gallup-2011-values-and-beliefs-poll.html
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Michael,
Very disturbing, but I am not surprised. I think it has been an increasing trend in our culture, towards "pornification" (e.g. http://www.newsweek.com/2008/10/07/the-pornification-of-a-generation.html). Walking through the mall, one sees images displayed that one would be horrified to find one's own daughter wearing, yet there are many women such stores of various ages buying just those clothes, from 18 (or younger) on up. Girls as young as middle school wear skrts in church (in the midwest where I live) that cover barely below mid-thigh. I am stunned that fathers and mothers allow it.
John Haldane (whom I rarely grow tired of quoting) noted in an article "Dueling Dualism" published in First Things that the prevailing Western ethic is that "Human beings are subjects of consciousness residing in the extended bodies that also serve as instruments for the production of gratifying experiences."
And, our current cultural trend is that food (which has it's own pornographic feeling about it, lately) and sex are the means to gratification. (See: Ancient Rome.) Once one is incapable, or less than capable, of such enjoyment, then there is really no reason to carry on whatever it is that is preventing enjoyment, whether marriage, parenthood, etc. And if there is no way to change one's life to achieve gratification, then one ought to end it, for it has become useless in the eyes of such an ethic.
--Jonathan