It is always difficult task to distinguish being moral from being nice, just like it is hard to define tomato a fruit or vegetable. People usually follow their own moralities, but the truth is, foremost, morality is the normal rules in the society of being nice. In the Puritan period, it was already hard to say if people during that time are moral or not due to the religious faith. In both The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible, people discussed morality through religion. For instance, John Proctor expresses the necessity of guarding his own name, for which pays his own life. Furthermore, Dimmesdale also sacrifices his life to keep the morality he follows in order to protect Hester and Pearl. Society today seems to be less moral since 1600, especially nowadays, because people nowadays lack of self-reliance and are full of concerns; moreover, money influences greatly, more so than in Puritan times.
People nowadays tend to trust others more than themselves. Several factors like timidity, reverence, and mostly consistency discourages people from living for themselves. It seems right for people, who live under a large community and society, to be consistent with others; however, the potential problem is that the cage of the society limits your wings to stretch out. They just try to stay in the cage having a nice and comfortable life rather than taking risks escape from the cage and live under the extensive sky. Emerson describes people with consistency as: “hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” Emerson further interprets the consistency as: “a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them” (Emerson), which explains why people tend to be consistent with the society in order to prevent disappointing others. However, in Puritan times, religion gives people impetus to achieve their goals. People in that time period believe that God will bless them as long as what they are doing is legitimate and meaningful for themselves. With the faith in God, Dimmesdale finally stands with Hester and Pearl and announces against the whole community for being an adulterer: “Thy strength, Hester; but let it be guided by the will which God hath granted me. This wretched and wronged old man is opposing it with all his might!” (Hawthorne 231). Dimmesdale states that God gives him the courage to admit his faults. Actually, comparing to hide the secret and suffer from the secret, Dimmesdale relieves himself by admitting his sin rather than let Hester shoulder all the infamy. It brings to light that standing beside Hester has higher morality for Dimmesdale. Just like people in Puritan times, although they may not notice, their behaviors not only changed their own life but also other individual’s or even the whole society’s life into a better stage by the high moral standard. However, without staying alone at the scaffold considering about his life, Dimmesdale may not be able to stand beside Hester in the later scene.
It is extremely important for humans to be alone sometimes to think about their past, present, and future so that they can have better cognition on themselves. Having a space for people to recollect their lives and plan their future is crucial. Thus, find your own place away from the society is the process of refreshing your souls and entertain yourself. In our society, there are too many for people to be concerned about, such as friends, families or works. As Emerson states in On Nature: “The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, master or servant, is then a trifle and disturbance.” (Emerson). Even the existence of families is also a disturbance to him while he is alone in the woods; it illustrates the huge impact of the huge amounts of relations people have in modern society, which prevents them from thinking about their morality, and these correlations between them interferes with making decision. Just like personal relationships, there are too many trade relationships between people in modern society that people need to worry about. In contrast, in Puritan times, people mostly live for themselves. Without having complex relationship between each other, it is easy for people at that time period to be moral, which means do their own decisions. If John Proctor has more brothers or sisters or if he is entangled with more interests, it would be questionable if he could still say: “I say-I say- God is dead!” (Miller 119). Proctor did establish his morality through these words of not being under the same belief with the disdained judges, but the cost was his life. In Puritan times, people take the words about their morality so seriously, death might be the most glory way to prove their morality standard.
Our society has suffered moral corruption based upon the establishment of material society, since puritan times, Krugman describes our current society: “we have become a society in which less-educated men have great difficulty finding jobs with decent wages and good benefits. Yet somehow we’re supposed to be surprised that such men have become less likely to participate in the workforce or get married, and conclude that there must have been some mysterious moral collapse caused by snooty liberals” (Krugman). The “snooty liberals” cause the society to focus more on material wealth rather than moral wealth. There are more people like these “snooty liberals” that judge others upon their materials conditions instead of moral conditions. Furthermore, human are social animals; therefore, it is difficult for people to survive out of the society. The necessary good to live in the society will be exchangeable currencies, which will be money. Without question, money is a bad thing in our society. Most people trying to get a high degree or honorable experience is to later on have a good-looking job with well-paid salaries. Money is the devil itself that drives people to the inferno of laboring for money. Comparatively saying, people in the Puritan times tend to live for themselves instead of laboring for money. Money is a good thing for them because they regard money as a gift from the God. They are pleasant to work because they believe they are working for God, and the money is paid by God. Therefore, in Puritan times, people are willing to work in order to earn money to somewhat improve their life. John Robinson commented, “The blessing of the Lord maketh rich.… And as riches are in themselves God’s blessings, so are we to desire them for the comfortable course of our natural and civil states.” (Ryken) John’s words show a clear difference between the morality for people from current society and the Puritan times. People will not complain about their work salary, they just consider the money as a present from God, they will work with a positive attitude. Nowadays people are more focusing on the money itself instead of really engaging in their work; thus, the morality standard has dropped from not only money itself but also the attitude toward life.
Through history, morality has adjusted a lot. People nowadays tend to behave with less self-reliance and personal cognition. In addition, the requirement of money sometimes forces people to do something opposing their morality. Thus, the current society has become less moral than Puritan times because people in that time period have their faith to believe in and are free from the shackle of money.
