“When asked to describe a moral dilemma they had faced, two-thirds of the young people either couldn’t answer the question or described problems that are not moral at all, like whether they could afford to rent a certain apartment or whether they had enough quarters to feed the meter at a parking spot.”

I usually either flat-out disagree with conservative columnist David Brooks or find his analyses naive and short-sighted. But he’s an intelligent, well-meaning person, which is more than I can say about most Republicans in the public eye at this point. And he’s spot-on in this recent column about the broader social implications of the lack of clear moral values amongst “the younger generation.” As happens on a cyclical basis in American culture, the proverbial chickens are coming home to roost.