Modesty has been lost

Not long ago, a young man would open his secret diary to write in a trembling hand: “Today, I saw her face.” A single sentence, one he never tired of returning to. But today, he opens his phone to find all the details he once longed for in love, displayed before everyone, without secrecy, without waiting, and without shame. This is a distance humanity has traversed in just a few decades. In every society, accepted customs are built through accumulation, not through decree. When someone engages in unusual behavior, society initially stands before it in astonishment. But with repetition and the passage of time, that behavior gradually loses its strangeness, seeping into the social fabric and becoming part of it. Every society has its entrenched customs and traditions, which it reveres and tolerates no transgression against. When a new custom arrives, people stand before it hesitantly, for a period that may be long or short, until it acquires its temporal legitimacy and becomes accepted. However, these walls that long protected societies—the walls of custom and tradition—have completely collapsed in the face of the rise of the internet and social media platforms. Throughout human history, the wheel of customs turned slowly and quietly. Today, however, humanity has entered a completely different era, as social networks have become an essential part of people’s behavior, especially among children and adolescents. In the not-so-distant past, a child was shaped through successive circles: the family first, then the neighborhood and neighbors, then school. Today, these circles have been shaken by the small screen carried in one’s pocket. Children and adolescents no longer belong to their local community as much as they belong to the “global community,” with its convictions, tastes, and daily behaviors. A phenomenon can be described as “global behavior,” encompassing clothing and food as much as convictions and intimate human relationships. Take a simple example: the relationship between a young man and a young woman in any society was historically built on a specific social heritage, expanding or contracting according to the moral space granted by the family. Today, however, this relationship, while still influenced by family references, has become more closely tied to smartphone messages and images, and to the ready-made models of love, relationships, and the body dictated by social networks. If a young man a few decades ago dreamed of seeing his beloved’s face and recorded the date of that rare moment in his diary, this behavior is now completely strange in an era where people’s images are exposed at every moment of their lives. Some have even gone so far as to publish the most intimate details of their daily lives online, including moments that are among the most private and intimate in a person’s life. Gradually, this behavior has become acceptable in many societies, both open and conservative alike, with the customs of social media platforms now dictating the rhythm and shape of modern life. I fully understand that a girl might post pictures of herself leaving school or university, and I understand that a young man might share a photo from a sea fishing trip. These are moments of pride and celebration worth seeing. But when a girl posts images of her private solitude in postures that offend sound human decency, and when a young man pictures himself in situations that insult his dignity, this is a human scene that deserves our prolonged reflection and clear, unequivocal rejection. The essence of human behavior lies in freedom, but true freedom, at its core, is respect for sound human behavior, not liberation from it. When freedom loses this respect, humans lose their modesty and stand naked before the world—not in their clothes, but in something delicate that once protected them, protected others from them, and protected their humanity from vulgarity. When modesty falls, it does not fall alone; something of the meaning of being human falls with it. Talib Al-Rifai