I spent some time criticizing the environment for students these days at modern universities here. This article in the New York Times can add some fire to the debate.
It appears to be newsworthy in the New York Times that there are a few people at Princeton who don’t have sex until they are married. Of course, until recently, such an article would never have been newsworthy because that was the societal standard. So, the first point is simply a wake-up call to indicate the shifting sands on which we precariously stand as a society.
But the other side of this situation is a trend that I am noticing more and more: there are also reasons to be optimistic about society. There are still many people who maintain basic standards of decency and insist on them. So, it appears there are two trends going on: rapid decay and decadence on the one hand and increasing righteousness despite the hurdles on the other. As President Hinckley always says, there are reasons for real optimism. I’m wondering: shouldn’t we as Latter-day Saints do a better job concentrating on the reasons for being optimistic?