‘Peak Of Permissiveness’: Is America Really Morally Bankrupt?
(ANALYSIS) To believe a lot of the commentary, especially on the political right, you would think America is headed, if not already sinking, into a bottomless moral abyss. The narrative is as familiar as it is apocalyptic: A godless, hyper-permissive wasteland where traditional values have been completely incinerated.
But a recent report by political scientist John Sides, analyzing Gallup’s long-running moral acceptability data, tells a rather different story. If America was on an immoral path, it is now slowly correcting course. Emphasize slowly. Think less of a race car making a sharp U-turn and more of a massive, rusted oil tanker laboriously turning around in a crowded harbor.
For over a quarter of a century, Gallup has tracked how Americans view everything from gambling to polyamory. According to Sides’ breakdown, the “peak of permissiveness” — the historical high-water mark for what Americans find morally acceptable — is officially over across a staggering array of behaviors. We are seeing a widespread retreat from the cultural frontier, hinting that the hyper-liberalization of the early 2000s has finally hit its ceiling.
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The data shows clear, unmistakable declines in the moral acceptance of issues involving sex, reproduction, and relationships. Birth control, divorce, sex outside of marriage and gay or lesbian relations have all seen their moral acceptability numbers dip.
The same goes for embryonic stem cell research, having children out of wedlock, abortion and changing one's gender. Even the fringe topics aren’t immune; approval for pornography, polygamy and teenage sex is down, alongside non-sexual vices like gambling and doctor-assisted suicide. It seems Americans are collectively looking at the modern buffet of absolute personal liberties and actively pushing the plate away.
Predictably, some cultural observers have jumped to brand this as a “rising puritanical streak.” It’s an easy headline, evoking images of a nation suddenly eager to don pilgrim hats, burn their old vinyl records and start hunting witches. But before we assume America is transforming into a society of Ned Flanders clones, we need to look more closely at how this giant oil tanker is actually moving.
This is where the caveats roll in, and they are substantial. First, the data represent a gentle cooling-off, not a deep freeze. For heavyweight cultural staples like divorce and birth control, overwhelming majorities still deem them perfectly moral. The shifts are modest, often hovering within a few percentage points, which means some of this "moral awakening" might just be, for lack of a better term, a mathematical ghost in the machine.
Furthermore, this supposed puritanical shift is strangely skin-deep. It hasn’t triggered a broader wave of political conservatism or institutional reform. Gallup’s data shows absolutely no surge in the percentage of Americans self-identifying as conservative, nor is there renewed bloodlust for capital punishment — a traditional baseline for conservative moral retributivism. It appears people are souring on certain modern behaviors in theory without actually adopting the rigid political ideology that screams about them on cable news.
Then there is the gaping, hilarious gap between what people tell a pollster and what they do when the lights go out. Survey responses are often just cheap talk, a phenomenon social scientists have groaned about for a century. Declaring to a stranger over the phone that pornography or gambling is “morally wrong” costs a respondent absolutely nothing. In fact, it provides a quick, risk-free hit of righteousness that lets them feel better about themselves.
But does a five-point drop in the moral acceptability of porn mean citizens are actually shutting their laptops? Hardly.
History suggests that what people condemn on paper, they frequently indulge in within the private, unmonitored sanctuary of their own homes.
People are entirely capable of shaking their heads at the breakdown of the nuclear family while splitting assets with their second divorce attorney. They will lament the tragic decay of youthful innocence in public, right before slipping a credit card to their teenager to fund contraceptives. The modern conscience is beautifully elastic like that.
Ultimately, Sides’ report doesn’t signal the dawn of a new Gilead, nor does it vindicate the doomsday prophets of the right. Instead, it reveals a society experiencing a mild bout of cultural exhaustion. More Americans, it seems, are just staring at the endless horizon of absolute personal freedom and feeling a slight case of vertigo.
The oil tanker is turning, but it’s doing so with agonizing slowness, driven more by a vague, collective hangover than a sudden burst of religious piety. America isn't falling into the abyss, but it isn't exactly lining up for a giant societal audit either. It’s simply edging back toward the middle, one beautifully hypocritical survey response at a time.
John Mac Ghlionn is a researcher and essayist. He covers psychology and social relations. His writing has appeared in places such as UnHerd, The US Sun and The Spectator World.