Kryachkov 2!indd

ix Modern Society!
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Английский язык для магистратуры
READING 1 
LEAD-IN
1. Brainstorm to draw up a list of ills our society is plagued by. Which of them do you find the 
most worrisome? Are all of these problems “universal”, or are there any only Russia has to 
grapple with? Which of the problems can be easily solved? Why? Why have the other prob-
lems been keeping a tenacious grip on society? 
2. What is morality? What role do morality and values play in our life? Does “the loss of moral 
depth to life” so widely spoken about these days have anything to do with the growing num-
ber of problems?
3. In 1931 German existentialist Karl Jaspers published his work The Spiritual Situation of the 
Time
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. How would you define the spiritual situation of the modern age? 
Skim the text based on a lecture given by Christina Hoff Sommers, a former 
philosophy professor who taught ethics, to find out what she thinks about the 
moral state of today’s youth. 
How would you answer the questions the author addresses at the end of the 
excerpt? 
ARE WE LIVING IN A MORAL STONE AGE?
We would think that as we develop greater intelligence, with time, and at a period when scientific 
advancement has reached its apogee that our social and moral understanding would follow a similar 
trend. But is this really the scenario? The evidence around us and that which has been assembled 
over the past decades tells us a different story, one that many of us will most certainly find disturbing.
This was demonstrated by Jay Leno’s show. He frequently does “man-on-the-street” interviews, 
and one night he collared some young people to ask them questions about the Bible. “Can you 
name one of the Ten Commandments?” he asked two college-age women. One replied, “Freedom 
of speech?” Mr. Leno said to the other, “Complete this sentence: Let he who is without sin…” Her 
response was “have a good time?” Mr. Leno then turned to a young man and asked “Who, accord-
ing to the Bible, was eaten by a whale?” The confident answer was “Pinocchio.”
As with many humorous anecdotes, the underlying reality is not funny at all. These young peo-
ple are morally confused. They are the students I and other teachers of ethics see every day. Like 
most professors, I am acutely aware of the “hole in the moral ozone.” One of the best things our 
schools can do for America is to set about repairing it — by confronting the moral nihilism that is 
now the norm for so many students.
Conceptually and culturally today’s young people live in a moral haze. Ask one of them if there 
are such things as “right” and “wrong,” and suddenly you are confronted with a confused, tongue-
tied, nervous, and insecure individual. The same person who works weekends for Meals on Wheels, 
who volunteers for a suicide prevention hotline or a domestic violence shelter might tell you, “Well, 
there really is no such thing as right or wrong. It’s kind of like whatever works best for the indi-
vidual. Each person has to work it out for himself.” The trouble is that this kind of answer, which is 
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Die geistige Situation der Zeit (In English, this work is usually entitled Man in the Modern Age)

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