What is often described as the decline in public decency may just be a rise in the exposure of elite indecency.
Both this posting and my previous one allude to the phenomenon of negative temporal parochialism, whish is the habit of thinking that there is something uniquely bad about the times we ourselves happen to be living in. Yes, it’s now rather bad. But study history and you’ll soon discover other times just as bad, and many that were far worse.
This idea is a closer cousin than it realises of the notion that our own time is uniquely good.