By and large, the resolve that we humans have to do what is morally right and to refrain from doing what is morally wrong is tied to social approbation and disapprobation.  Accordingly, a society that deems social disapprobation inappropriate on the grounds that disapprobation causes psychological harm—it injures the self-esteem, as we now say—is one that effectively lowers the moral bar of excellence in society, with the result being that people live in greater fear of being harmed because society has in fact become more immoral and, consequently, more violent.  No one likes being a victim of violence; no likes living in an environment of violence.  Everyone decries it. 

So how is that modern societies have become increasingly violent?  The answer, I am afraid is very simple: We in fact tolerate immorality and violence.  Indeed, we have become masterfully creative at excusing it.  So much so that in many instances a person who does wrong can be reasonably confident that the penalty will be lowered if not waived entirely.  What is more, there is next to no disapprobation nowadays for wrongdoing.  There is in fact very little public humiliation nowadays.  Why, atrocious enough behavior is just as likely to occasion a book contract as it is a jail sentence. 

Now, I am confident that you think my explanation for the increase in violence is way too simple.  But I now intend to prove to you otherwise. 

Modern societies have become something of a paradox in that societies have become more immoral and violent even as they have become more tolerant of diversity across ethnicities.  Let me hasten to add that I do not hold that there is a correlation here; after all, lots of the violence in society does not have anything to do with ethnic disharmony.  The elderly, for instance, are now preyed upon in a fiendish way.  Just so, it is worth pointing out that once upon a time no one would have thought that there would be greater ethnic tolerance, on the one hand, and greater immorality and violence, on the other.

Now, we seem to have thing akin to zero-tolerance with respect to racist behavior.  With respect to blacks, the word du jour is now the expression the “N-word”, because no white wants to be caught uttering the word “nigger” no matter what the context, even if it is a matter of repeating in court what someone said.  People lose their jobs and their powerful positions for saying things that are deemed racist, as the cases of Trent Lott and Rush Limbaugh show.  So guess what?  Slips of this sort are few and far between.  And when they occur, there is public outcry and a great many people trip over themselves to distance themselves from the person and to criticize the individual, lest it be thought that they are lacking in sufficient racial sensibilities.

So imagine a society in which there was a like zero tolerance for immoral behavior generally.  If a student were caught cheating, then she or he was pretty much ostracized by fellow students.  If an individual robbed an elderly person: well, the robber’s very own mother publicly expressed her disappointment—to say nothing of trying to find a court appointed lawyer to defend the robber.  And don’t even think about trying to pull off a “hit-and-run” accident; for people would come out the woodwork to identify your car.  And if you killed someone while driving drunk, then the family might as well move out of state. 

Obviously, these are drastic measures.  Zero-tolerance is, indeed, a drastic approach.  But the simple truth of the matter is that the results are astounding. 

Now the interesting question is this: Why is it that we tolerate immorality and violence to a considerable degree, but have a near zero-tolerance attitude towards racism?  After all, violence is extremely scarring.  And violence in the context of racial equality is not any less so.  Why is that we have next to no compassion for those who make remarks deemed racist (as opposed to some concrete act of violence), and are generally move to disassociate ourselves from them, but are often full of compassion for those who commit other acts of horror?  The answer simply cannot be that a racist remark is always the more horrific deed.  Not at all.  If an elderly person is robbed, beaten, and left for dead, this is a horror that far outstrips the pain of a racial epithet.  Again, the horror of being raped far exceeds anything that Limbaugh said for the brief moment that he was in sports broadcasting.