Prayers are not allowed in school. Books against crime and against drugs are not welcome.
Our motion pictures and various forms of entertainment grow more grotesquely violent — and we wonder what causes brutalities among our youth, and bizarre bloody "thrill kills" reminiscent of the most horrifying of the science-fiction and murder movies.
The symptoms are there — they're all around us — but we don't like to admit our sickness.
What we need now — and that most urgently — is a healing of the broken, lost SPIRIT. We need to begin — NOW — building strong, righteous CHARACTER.
We need to stop the morals toboggan slide into nihilistic abandon, and totally reverse the present character drain into a dynamic buildup of CHARACTER.
A nation will be judged — and its future will be determined — not by its GNP, or its stockpiles of nuclear arms, or the size of its industries and technology, but by its CHARACTER.
Not only are we rapidly losing character, but we're losing the ability to discern our character loss.
In 1968, it was determined that forty-two percent of all Americans held the view that the United States was a "sick society."
Hopefully, even more than forty-two percent recognize this deepening malaise today.
A spokesman for Gallup, who conducted the poll, said those who think the nation is sick offered reasons of two types, causes and symptoms, such as the amount of rioting and killing, lack of sufficient law enforcement, laxity of courts, breakdown in morals, shunning of religion, poor upbringing, lack of individual initiative, and general selfishness.
The fifty-two percent who rejected the idea that their society is sick said only a "small number of individuals are to blame for crime," too much publicity is given to crime, and "society is no worse than it was in the past." They said the United States is no worse than other countries, and society is not sick, but merely confused.
In another poll by the Long Beach Press Telegram, several people were asked the question, "Do we live in a sick society?" A model answered, "I don't know about other people; I'm not. If people are happy doing their own thing, that's up to them."
An electrician's comment was, "There's nothing wrong with society as a whole." In answering the same question, "Do we live in a sick society?" a college student flatly stated, "I don't think so. Oh, you find an occasional dud in society, but generally things are just getting more modern." A laborer's view was, "No. Society is no different now than ever. If anything it's better . . ." Finally, an unemployed man asked. ”What's wrong with it [society]?"
Such delightfully uninformed euphoria may at least bring noninvolved tranquility to those holding such a hazy view — but the facts are otherwise. During the decade of the 60's, while population rose 11 percent, crime soared 122 percent! Arrests in 1968 for drug violations were over four times as high as in 1960. Arrests of youths increased during the same period 78 percent, while the number of persons in the age group rose only 25 percent.
About fifteen-and-a-half thousand Americans were murdered in 1970, alone.
Those who deny the grisly statistics are simply uninformed and living in their own dream world, where nothing is really true, until it touches their own personal lives.
So, while our deadly character drain continues, millions play a childish game of "make-believe," pretending all is well, and we're not really much worse than we ever were.
And this — this blind refusal to acknowledge our moral and spiritual poverty — is the worst sickness of all.
No Transcendental Goal
Our people don't know what they are — nor where they're going. We have no common goal.
This is a time when history's strongest single nation should be leading the world out of its terrible troubles, showing the world how to live, the way to peace, the way to happiness, the way to the really good life, NOT just materially, but qualitatively. But instead of responding to this greatest of challenges and discovering the real SOLUTIONS to this world's problems, our people seem determined to degenerate into a loosely knit agglomeration of self-seekers, engaged in a last frenzy of personal entertainment, interrupted only by temper tantrums against our own obnoxious environment.
We are losing CHARACTER.
And character results from a strong sense of purpose — a goal. Unless a person is striving toward something, he'll lack the drive and initiative to forego debilitating, passing pleasures. Unless he is inspired by a great CAUSE, he'll lack the willingness to sacrifice for that cause.
Character is the ability to determine the right from the wrong, and then to force the self to choose the right. But such a decision would never be made unless there were a desired result stemming from such choice.
Today, our people have no grand, global, historical mission which they feel obligated to fulfill. We're not sure who, or what, we are, not sure what our p/ace in this world should be, and not sure what lies ahead.
We have no great, supranational, transcendental GOAL that pushes us on, that unites us, that inspires us, that causes us to sacrifice.
While millions comfort themselves, pursuing their own selfish interests, the nation disintegrates. Powerful forces within the nation seek protection from the very laws of the nation they seek to destroy. Disruptive elements seek to create chaos, disorder, and violence — and are met with elaborately careful handling by authorities and are studiously ignored by the majority.
Millions hope that, if they pretend the chaos is not real, it will go away.
Because our only goals are intensely personal ones — greater wealth, greater possession, greater fame or attention, more leisure time, more enjoyment, more "fun" — we fail to care for greater, national or supranational goals.
A government that began enlarging American involvement in Vietnam under the catch-phrase "fulfilling our commitments" soon found itself plagued by a demonstrating public that neither recognized the meaning of the term "commitment" nor cared to learn its meaning, since being "committed" to ANY great cause or purpose beyond momentary pleasures obtained for self had become a concept beyond their sensual perception.
Lacking a great, single, unifying goal as a people, lacking a deep sense of responsibility toward each other, and toward all mankind, we may soon find our world filled with enemies who will unite behind a common goal we seem determined to achieve for them, by default — that of our own destruction.
For a time, a rich nation may indulge itself. It may be able, for a short span, to make its single goal and purpose the ever greater gratification of its own spoiled citizens.
But only for a time.
Then, finally, the enmities it will incur abroad, and the debilitating and enervating exhaustion it will experience at home, will bring it to disaster.
It's Not Too Late, Yet
It's not too late for America. But it's much, much later than we think! Unless something is done, and done quickly, to heal the spirit of our peoples — to unite us behind a common cause which has the stuff of GREATNESS, a challenge reaching to the stars for its all-consuming importance, a goal worthy of great individual and collective sacrifice — unless such a goal is captured by our peoples, and soon, then we are only writing another modern record of Sodom. We're another tottering Rome showing the decay of indulgence, stupidly failing to recognize the symptoms of our own sickness.
We, engaged in this worldwide WORK over television, radio, and via the printed page, are bending every effort to WARN our peoples of their incredible lethargy, and their shocking character drain. We cry out for a healing of the HOME and FAMILY. (You should write, immediately, for our free booklets on Your Marriage Can Be Happy, The Plain Truth About Child Rearing, and Modern Dating, Key to Success or Failure in Marriage)
We cry out about the terrible CRIME that plagues us like a dreaded national disease (write for our booklet on Crime) We strive to warn our peoples of the curse of DRUG ABUSE (write for the free booklet titled New Facts About Marijuana).
We try to continually deal with the ISSUES at hand, and to always see those issues in the light and perspective of carnal, selfish, self-seeking HUMAN NATURE.
We recognize the massiveness of our problems and fully understand that only a deeply aroused, rededicated, inspired, concerted effort among hundreds of thousands, and MILLIONS, in their homes and families, in their private lives — an effort to BUILD CHARACTER, to REPENT of our terrible moral degeneracy and sins, to CAPTURE the SPIRIT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS for our peoples — ONLY SUCH A TOTAL COMMITMENT BY ALL OUR PEOPLES CAN SAVE US FROM NATIONAL CALAMITY!
We know this to be true.
That's why Ambassador College is a character building institution. That's why the publications we send around the world, free of charge, continually urge our peoples — and all peoples — to understand the CAUSES of our many domestic and world problems, and to recapture the true values of life!
We strive, through this magazine, and through TOMORROW'S WORLD magazine (devoted to more powerful, spiritual type articles than generally seen in The PLAIN TRUTH), to fulfill what we earnestly and sincerely recognize as a GREAT GOAL!
Can there be any greater goal than the most urgent drive to HEAL THE SPIRIT OF OUR PEOPLES? Can there be any more desperate NEED, today?
Imbued with the visionary purpose of spreading this message of wholesome, truthful, common sense to people, our young students at the three Ambassador College campuses come to know the meaning of sacrifice, and of purpose in their lives. They nearly all come to have a DEEP desire to become a PART of this great Work — devoting themselves in whatever way they can, whether by helping with writing, teaching, speaking, visiting other people, working in the Press, or Data Processing Center, or in the Physical Plant Department — being a daily PART of something in which they fervently believe.
If you are a young person of college age, and you're sick of some of the hideous problems of this present age, then perhaps you might be "Ambassador Material."
If so, you should write for our free brochure, This Is Ambassador College, or direct a letter to the Registrar, and enquire about admissions policies.
Millions want to know, "But what can I do?"
You can GET INVOLVED, first, by looking into your OWN life! First comes a deeply personal, honest, introspective appraisal of SELF. First comes recognition of your own needs. Then will come a desire to help other people experience the same drastic changes you can come to recognize in your own life.
That's what Ambassador is all about. It's "boot camp" for life. It's the "West Point" for this worldwide Work, of which this magazine is only one sample. It's the place for young people to GET INVOLVED!
If you're curious, really curious, about just WHO and WHAT we are, and WHY we're sending you these straight-talk, informative and challenging articles, then look deeper. Write for your free subscription to TOMORROW'S WORLD magazine, and find out how character begins at home!