a windowsill , put twenty guilders into the bowl , took some change , put the bowl back , and started walking away .
“ I was stunned ,” Mangalwadi wrote . “ Man ,” he declared to his host , “ if you were an Indian , you would take the milk and the money .” Then Mangalwadi poses two important questions : “ Where did this morality come from ? Why isn ’ t my society equally trustworthy ?”
Mangalwadi later relates a much different experience in Amsterdam . There he wanted to buy a bus day pass from a machine . The instructions were in Dutch . Two young women visiting from America were nearby , and Mangalwadi asked how to get tickets . The women said they had been riding around Amsterdam for a week , and no one checked for tickets . “ Why do you want to get tickets ?” they asked .
“ Their shamelessness shocked me more than their immorality ,” relates Mangalwadi . “ They represented the new generation , liberated from ‘ arbitrary ’ and ‘ oppressive ’ religious ideas of right and wrong . University education had freed them from commandments such as ‘ You shall not steal .’”
He goes on : “‘ It is wonderful ,’ I said to them , ‘ that there are enough commuters who pay so that the system can carry some who don ’ t . Once your schools succeed in producing enough clever commuters , your country will catch up with mine [ India ]. You will have to have ticket inspectors on every bus and have super-inspectors to spy on the inspectors . Everyone will then have to pay more . But corruption won ’ t remain confined to the consumers ; it is a cancer that will infect politicians , bureaucrats , managers , operators , and the maintenance staff . . . . Soon your public transport will resemble ours : frequent breakdowns will slow down not only the transport system but also your roads , efficiency , and economy .’”
Mangalwadi says morality is the “ floundering secret ” of the West ’ s success . Our economic system rests upon trust that people will pay and not misappropriate funds , bribe , or extort . Without this trust , economic and political systems become cumbersome , expensive , and fatally flawed .
Mangalwadi ’ s fundamental question is a timely one for every American : From where did American morality come ? Where did the kind of trust come from that allowed my wife and me to “ pay the bear ,” with no one in sight ? The forgotten fact is that it was the fruit of a Christian consensus that assumed that a living , omnipotent Judge sat above all , knew
all , and held all people equally accountable to His benevolent Code of Conduct . Living in accordance with that Higher Law was right , and disregarding it was wrong . In fact , at one time , the Judge and His Code provided meaning itself for the two most critical words missing from American vocabulary today : right and wrong .
“ The more citizens there are who lack internal control under God , the more calls there will be for external controls under man .”
As the Judge and His Word are increasingly non-factors of morality in this country , we can expect to see more citizens like the two young Americans Mangalwadi encountered in the Netherlands .
In 1852 , Robert C . Winthrop , a descendant of John Winthrop and twenty-second Speaker of the United States House of Representatives , declared : “ Men , in a word , must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or
RENEWANATION . ORG 49