Koppel Has Moral Message for Our Times

ABC-TV’s “Nightline” moderator, Ted Koppel, departing from his usual middle-man stance, recently offered something of a piercing sermon on morals at Duke University, including this:

“We have actually convinced ourselves that slogans will save us. Shoot up if you must, but use a clean needle. Enjoy sex whenever and with whomever you wish, but wear a condom. No! The answer is no.

“Not because it isn’t cool or smart or because you might end up in jail or dying in an AIDS ward, but because it’s wrong, because we have spent 5,000 years as a race of rational human beings, trying to drag ourselves out of the primeval slime by searching for truth and moral absolutes.

“In its purest form, truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder. It is a howling reproach. What Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai were not the Ten Suggestions.”