Respect for law and order and legal procedures is declining. Commitment to the work ethic is diminishing. Discipline is being undermined. The family is disintegrating. Religion and moral values are no longer as influential as they used to be.
Tradition is ridiculed.
Conservatism, with its emphasis on considering what is tried and tested before rejection, is a value considered to be outdated. The idea of gradual change is being rejected by a growing group of arrogant politicians, bureaucrats, academics, trade unionists, feminists, environmentalists and others, who believe that they have the answers to complicated human problems and whose reforms are often counter productive. The attack focuses on both the area of freedom and the restrictions on freedom. The explanation lies in a distorted critical spirit which, without evaluation, proceeds to analyse specific problems. Where the system permitted freedom, that area of freedom is under attack.