By Patrick Robinson

You already understand that part of the function of everything from daycare, to laws, regulations, church sermons, street signs, and your mother’s admonitions as a child are means by which to control human behavior.

Human beings are fundamentally flawed of course, something that is part of who we are. Hence accountability, being held responsible for our actions and facing the consequences are the flip side of wrong behavior.

But you’ve likely noticed that with the rise of social media, the decline of traditional media, and the strictures imposed by the pandemic people across the board seem prone to more bad behavior.

It didn’t help to have people in positions of power apparently behave terribly and yet face no accountability.

Is it bad parenting?  Absent parents or the idea that children are too coddled and never allowed to fail? Is it the decline of church attendance? Is it the relaxation of laws about drugs, sex and more permissiveness? Or is it the demonization of personal choices about how to live your life?

Is it a widespread frustration with rising prices, dissatisfaction with leadership choices or something more fundamental?

Is it the spread of misinformation as traditional media loses power?

The ideas behind ethics, morals, regulations and laws seem to be fading, apparently escalating that feeling of loss of order.

We used to be able to trust that people would drive reasonably, that we could pay a reasonable price for things, that we could believe what we were told. Now the erosion of trust in all those things has led to more division, more anger, more societal angst.

Yet we all still know one thing. 

Wrong is wrong. 

At some level that can mean different things to different people of course. But what we do agree on needs reinforcement.

Everything people get away with, we can all see and agree is wrong. Even those doing it know what they are doing is wrong. Certainly people going 40 in a 25 mile per hour zone know they shouldn’t. The solution is not necessarily to punish people (though in the case of traffic violations that might help a little). People cheat on their taxes, steal things from stores, lie to each other, hurt each other all completely aware of how wrong it is.

We have collectively lost the understanding of what this epidemic of wrong is doing to us. That understanding is born in what we are told, what we can know to be true. The lack of reliable and agreed upon truth leads us all to more division. We don’t widely teach ethics, or human psychology, or how to have empathy.

Perhaps what we need is an effort led by the government but joined by organizations, agencies, and neighborhood groups to pull us all back a bit. A campaign that’s something more than reminders to drive safely. A reminder that wrong is wrong. A clear and constant message reminding everyone to be kind to each other, to remember that humans are flawed, to slow down, to work together for the common good.

It would have to be a cross media program, from social media to billboards, aimed at all demographics. It should and could involve everything from educators to business. A core message about humanity and the need to take a serious look at where we are going together.

A promotion of caring for each other not driven by guilt or fear of punishment but by the awareness that it’s the right thing to do.

After all, right is right too.