Nothing New Under the Sun

Sometimes wisdom is needed but, if it is being uttered at all, it is drowned out by the cacophony of yapping "experts." One need only reach back for some saner perspective.

To that end, I will relate these words from the best book I have read in years:

An immense change in manners and morals had been slowly creeping through society since well before the war, and was now reaching its fruition. Moral standards especially were changing -- or were going out altogether. This was evident in business as well as in social circles. The old business ethics were well nigh shot to pieces -- especially in big business -- during that era of greed. All sorts of practices which would have been utterly taboo a quarter century before, were now becoming commonplace. The question, "Is it honest?" became more and more overshadowed by the other question, "Can we get away with it?"...I have told of an instance where, many years ago, a large corporation was ready to hand me a substantial bribe to help them fool the government...such methods seemed as common in big business as snowflakes in Labrador, and were scarcely questioned as being illegitimate...

...Such had become our modern temper; and with it life was speeding up. Though the whole world was bankrupt and none of the major...problems had been settled; though racketeering, bootlegging, business rascality, and political corruption flourished as never before; though morality between the sexes was more and more being laughed to scorn -- yet we all thought we were living in an era of splendid progress and great spiritual awakening...

...Yes, it was a golden age while it lasted. We did not know how speedily we were riding for a fall; how we were heading, ever faster, toward an economic cataclysm such as the modern world had never dreamed could be.

-- John Moody, The Long Road Home, 1933

If you read this blog you ought to get that book.