In her groundbreaking "Demoralisation of Society", Professor Gertrude Himmelfarb makes an unarguable point regarding the destruction of social positives in the post Victorian world.Largely blaming the soul-aching negativism of Friedrich Nietsche for a change in vocabulary by the philosopher who wished to abolish God and went on to be a major philosophical force behind the rise of Hitler, she attributes the rise of modern relativism to this false prophet.
One word subtlely is changed into another. 'Virtues' turn into 'values' - and at what cost!
'Virtues' in Victorian Britain were immutable; cast in stone; grounded in Christianity and were socially positive ideals shared by the bulk of society from top to bottom.
'Values' however, are based on an absence of absolutes; shifting moralities dependent on individualistic points of view; fads and fashions; self-serving attitudes; justifications of the unjustifiable; godlessness; nihilism; egocentricity and sham claims of benevolence.
A society does not turn into the moral wreckage that we must endure today without first the ship being holed below the waterline.
Nietsche made the first and most important breach as Man made the shift from being largely immoral to the far more terrifying - AMORAL.
Perhaps a good time to recall precisely why we so need the Saviour born in Bethlehem!
