What has happened to society? The news is filled with all kinds of articles concerning violence and negligence. Too often we see people in power, authority figures, in the media for doing something wrong. Sometimes we justify it because it takes place in the grown up world or in places that are far away from here, but not anymore. In this great state of ours, in just the past five years, 42 different teachers have been penalized in some way for sexual misconduct on the part of the teacher. In the Lincoln Journal Star there is an article filled with different statistics on sexual misconduct incidents in Nebraska, a place where students are praised for their accolades where the average teacher salary is near the lowest in the United States. What does this mean? Does this mean that because the teachers are paid lower than their colleagues from other states, that we justify their illegal and morally wrong behavior? Of course it doesn’t mean this but why does type of thing always seem to be present with ever growing frequency? Should we blame the teachers? Should we blame society and their upbringing? Who or what do we point the finger at in this situation? This is also not an isolated issue; this is taking place around the country. In the same time period where this has taken place in Nebraska, combined in the United States there have been 2,570 different cases of sexual misconduct. That is 2,570 individuals whose lives have been forcefully altered beyond repair. Once again I raise the question of who is to be blamed for this societal trend of collectively moving away from traditional values and morals. It seems that every generation takes it upon themselves to push and stress social norms to their limits. Each and every day there seems to be something that makes you cringe more than you thought would be possible. Each time you think you’ve seen the worst and you’re always surprised to find you’re wrong. What do we need to do to bring society to its senses? What do we do to snap people out of this horrific daydream? That is the answer to the question that we have to find to save humanity.
