Okay, I know there are millions of people in America who are perfectly decent. But there is a notion being pushed in American society today that it is somehow old-fashioned to be decent. Daily, I see infidelity, inconstancy, and mendacity dressed up a something harmless, and I observe that people have been seduced by this mistaken idea. Through endless repetition, Americans are being desensitized to what faithlessness really means, and the result is an assault on American moral tradition.

For example, some 60 years ago, the film actress Ingrid Bergman was shunned by American audiences when she had an affair with, and had a child by, Italian director Roberto Rossellini while both were still married to other people. Americans were scandalized. She did not make movies in the United States for a number of years afterward, and those foreign films she did make were box office bombs in the United States.

Some 50 years later, in 1998, President Clinton was caught having had an affair with a White House intern. When many Americans, and particularly his political foes, expressed outrage, Clinton apologists responded with a two-fold argument: first, they engaged in a “scorched earth” policy of digging up and exposing every instance of infidelity ever engaged in by an opposition politician; and second, concluded with the astounding assertion that “everybody does it.”

Here’s the problem: Ingrid Bergman and President Clinton did something gravely immoral. And even if you reject the idea that morality is constituted of a fixed set of rules, there is no way to paint faithlessness as harmless. But Americans are told constantly that moral judgment has no place in modern society: in movies, in television shows, in books, everywhere.

Today, if you read a biography of Ingrid Bergman on her official website, it will describe her rejection by the American public as a moral relic of the period, and then justify her conduct on the basis that she and Rossellini were estranged from their respective spouses. I say: so what? What she did was wrong.

And President Clinton behaved despicably. So did every other congressman and senator who cheated on his or her spouse and family, whatever their political affiliation. I find it disgusting that the phrase “everybody does it” was seriously contended as a justification for President Clinton’s conduct, rather than a condemnation of the whole sleazy bunch.

In fact, the tactic revealed a great deal about the state of the apologists’ corrupt morality: they purported to support the Clintons, but, gee, guys, I somehow doubt that the contention that the argument “everybody is unfaithful” was particularly consoling to Hillary and Chelsea.

And that’s really the point, isn’t it? People are partially right in saying that infidelity is someone else’s private business, because the lives that are hurt and the families that are damaged are of the people actually touched by the behavior. But moral judgment is not private business. It is the role of American society to establish social standards, and it should be our responsibility to apply social pressure that forcefully discourages and condemns conduct that is destructive and hurtful. Even President Clinton conceded that he committed a “terrible moral error” and his reasons for engaging in it were “morally indefensible.” That is not a personal judgment, and it should not be. He should be ashamed, and we should be ashamed of him because he was the President of our country, whether or not you agree with his politics. Is his conduct really excusable just because you and he may be democrats?

Today, every time I walk up to a grocery store check-out, I am exposed to the “news” that all manner of celebrities—politicians, actors, musicians, businesspeople—treat the other people like fungible goods, casting off relationships—parents, spouses, children, friends—as often as they cast off used bath towels. The reporting is done in such a way as to relish the predicament, as though the public is observing lab rats in an experiment to see how they will behave.

But faithlessness is not an abstract idea. Real people are affected, and it is those affects which demand our attention. We should not blithely accept a nation full of conscienceless sleazebags; they ought to be made to feel ashamed of themselves, and those who suffer at their hands ought to receive our compassion and sympathy.

Now, there may be Americans who think that what I am saying is antiquated. They are dead wrong. We are perfectly entitled to pass moral judgment: look how strongly and quickly racist statements are condemned and redressed by American society. How ironic that the American public will raise a stink every time some random bigot makes an offensive remark, and yet will piously claim “it’s none of our business” when a man engages in disgraceful conduct that tears up the life of his wife and children.

Don’t kid yourself that the distinction is morally meaningful. The sad part is that, if anything, Americans ought to express more vehement disapproval of faithlessness, since moral responsibilities flow more directly to those around us: spouses, families, friends. Instead, today, the merely offended are vindicated, but the seriously injured are met with a moral wasteland in American society.

Americans need to reclaim the high road, and not get cowed by people who want to destroy America’s moral traditions. All they are really doing is trying to dictate a different morality—one that gives no weight to America’s traditional values.

The moral health of American society is not someone else’s responsibility, it is yours. Be an American.

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