The Crisis of Our Age: An Update

John Calvin recognized the moral hazard that arises when people are induced to act contrary to their consciences. Perhaps all the buzzing, blooming confusion of our modern media culture has become simply a mechanism for demoralizing the population, by making all of us accomplices in people’s bad behavior, by assaulting, weakening, and gradually undermining our moral defenses. As David Chilton characterized it: “If this is a culture, it belongs in a Petri dish.” People with bad consciences are more easily manipulated as they become fatalistic and slavish in their attitudes.