- The recrudescence of religious intolerance, of racial animosity, and of patriotic arrogance;
- the increasing evidences of selfishness, of suspicion, of fear and of fraud;
- the spread of terrorism, of lawlessness, of drunkenness and of crime;
- the unquenchable thirst for, and the feverish pursuit after, earthly vanities, riches and pleasures;
- the weakening of family solidarity;
- the laxity in parental control;
- the lapse into luxurious indulgence;
- the irresponsible attitude towards marriage and the consequent rising tide of divorce;
- the degeneracy of art and music, the infection of literature, and the corruption of the press;
- the extension of the influence and activities of those “prophets of decadence”
- who advocate companionate marriage,
- who preach the philosophy of nudism,
- who call modesty an intellectual fiction,
- who refuse to regard the procreation of children as the sacred and primary purpose of marriage,
- who denounce religion as an opiate of the people,
- who would, if given free rein, lead back the human race to barbarism, chaos, and ultimate extinction—
these appear as the outstanding characteristics of a decadent society, a society that must either be reborn or perish.
- Shoghi
Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)