Perception, Polarization, and the Erosion of Social Trust
Ahmad Tholabi Kharlie
(Professor at UIN Jakarta)
A 2026 report by the Pew Research Center has surfaced a startling anomaly. Out of 25 nations surveyed, the United States stands alone in a peculiar sociological crisis: it is the only country where a majority of citizens view their own compatriots as fundamentally immoral. A significant 53% of American respondents described their society as having "poor" moral and ethical standards.
This finding signals a profound shift in the function of morality. Rather than serving as the bedrock of social trust, morality in America is increasingly viewed through a lens of deep-seated suspicion.
Laboratories of Polarization
In most other nations, the majority still perceives their fellow citizens as generally good people. This suggests that the "moral decay" reported in the U.S. is not a universal human condition but a symptom of a specific social environment. The United States has become an extreme laboratory where political polarization has seeped out of the voting booth and into the very fabric of communal life.
While it is tempting to blame political partisanship alone, the issue runs deeper. As Francis Fukuyama argued in his seminal work Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (1995), social trust is the primary engine of a prosperous and cohesive society. When that trust evaporates, social institutions crumble, and every interaction between individuals becomes colored by cynicism.
Interestingly, the report clarifies that Americans are not necessarily more "moralistic" than others. When it comes to specific behaviors—alcohol consumption, gambling, or divorce—American views sit squarely in the global middle. The negative perception of their peers, therefore, isn't about what people do, but how they are perceived through a fractured social mirror.
The Reduction of Morality
It is vital to distinguish between perceived morality and actual moral value. Perception is a volatile cocktail of media exposure, identity politics, and emotional bias.
Furthermore, global surveys often reduce morality to "private vices" like sexuality or gambling. This narrow scope risks ignoring the more substantive pillars of ethical health: honesty, justice, social responsibility, and empathy. As philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre noted in After Virtue (1981), modern morality has lost its telos (purpose) and its grounding in tradition. Without a shared framework, moral debates become a series of fragmented, subjective judgments where common ground is impossible to find.
A Global Fragmenting
This phenomenon is not strictly an American export. Similar symptoms are appearing globally, including in Indonesia. Whether it is the polarization of electoral contests or the "cancel culture" of social media, the fragmentation of trust is becoming a universal challenge.
In the Islamic tradition, this crisis highlights the importance of Husn al-Zhan—the cultivation of positive assumptions about others. Without this foundational "good faith," society becomes a "battle royale" of mutual suspicion. The problem today isn't necessarily that people have lost their morals, but that they have lost the faith that morality still exists in anyone else.
The Data Trends (2013–2026)
The Pew data reveals a nuanced global landscape:
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Developing Nations: Countries like Indonesia maintain very high moral rejection rates for infidelity (92%) and gambling (89%), showing that private moral norms remain robust.
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The Age Gap: Younger generations globally lean toward more permissive views on private issues but are paradoxically more critical of society's overall ethical integrity.
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Long-term Shifts: Between 2013 and 2026, there is a clear global trend toward the liberalization of views on divorce and homosexuality, though this is by no means uniform.
Expectation
The 2026 landscape of global morality is a layered, contextual tapestry. It suggests that the real threat to modern civilization isn't a change in values, but the collapse of the belief that we share any values at all. If reform is to happen, it must begin with rebuilding the "social virtue" of trust—moving away from using morality as a label to categorize "the other" and returning to it as a bridge for collective life.
This article was published in Media Indonesia on Wednesday (15/4/2026).