We are at least teetering on the brink of tolerating the unacceptable and focusing the full force of our moral outrage on the trivial. We live in a society that not only tolerates but rewards Jerry Springer and Larry Flynt, while simultaneously removing Huckleberry Finn and Shakespeare from the curricula of some of our schools and universities, lest they offend. We permit the archdeacons of political correctness to twist our language and behavior into parodies of sensitivity, while simultaneously, the language at large, our entertainment and our general behavior have become cruder, coarser and less sensitive than at any time in my memory.

When people, in large numbers, consistently reward bad behavior, then, inevitably, we perpetuate that sort of behavior. To suggest that a vibrant economy somehow renders questions of morality irrelevant reduces ethics to a business proposition; one set to be applied when things are going well, another when the economy is in trouble.

I believe that, ultimately, questions of what is right and wrong require the individual to measure himself against absolute standards of ethics and responsibility. Not that any one of us ever completely measures up to those standards; but you can't set your compass, moral or otherwise, by a shifting North Star.

We learn, according to the syndicated lesson taught by Jerry Springer, that while all of us are flawed, we who are watching are not nearly as flawed as the poor souls he parades in front of us. Which may, if the lesson is repeated often enough, teach us that, rather than struggling toward an ideal of perfect behavior, we can always console ourselves with the examples of those even weaker than we are.

By our failure to judge or act decisively on moral issues as individuals, we contribute to a collective caricature of tolerance; a universal lack of discrimination (in the qualitative sense of the word), in which almost everything is reduced to a form of entertainment: murder, suicide, theft, adultery, corruption, perjury, bigotry; and, of course, the efforts of law enforcement to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Ask yourselves how many middle-aged university presidents, or corporate vice presidents, or high school principals or network anchors could effectively defend themselves against even an unfounded allegation of this kind simply by insisting that the matter was private. If competence at one's job ­ that and a broad sense of public approval ­ were adequate protection against allegations of a dalliance with a young intern, then [we] could engage in that sort of behavior with impunity. We can choose to raise or lower our standards for what is generally acceptable, but those standards must be consistent. And depending on which course we choose, society at large will be either consistently better or consistently worse.

The responsibility to effect change remains, as it always has been, an individual responsibility.

We will not change what's wrong with our culture through legislation, or by choosing up sides on the basis of personal popularity or party affiliation. We will change it by small acts of courage and kindness; by recognizing, each of us, his or her own obligation to set a proper example.

Aspire to decency. Practice civility toward one another. Admire and emulate ethical behavior wherever you find it. Apply a rigid standard of morality to your lives; and if, periodically, you fail ­ as you surely will ­ adjust your lives, not the standards.