The State’s Moral Bankruptcy and Media Responsibility

The State’s Moral Bankruptcy and Media Responsibility—An Analysis (date) by Lawrence Davidson

Part I — A Morally Bankrupt West

In a broadcasted session on 26 August 2026, the distinguished historian John Mearsheimer was asked, “Does the United States have any moral compass?” His response went this way: “The US and the West more generally are morally bankrupt. After all, the US and its Western allies are complicit in the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Moreover, they back Israel’s pogroms in the West Bank and Israel’s ongoing efforts to turn southern Lebanon into another Gaza.”

Mearsheimer is a “realist” when it comes to foreign policy, so he knows that the query begs the question if states can ever have a “moral compass.” So-called national interests (which are often the particular interests of powerful private groups) are usually a reflection of power and greed. Their implementation is filtered through layers of bureaucracy that insulates government officials from responsibility for just about anything that goes on as a consequence of the pursuit of national interest. That insulation goes all the way down to the soldiers and diplomats in the field. Yet, when those interests breed war, the result includes the slaughter of vast numbers of civilians.

World War II shook this arrangement up at least momentarily. The Second World War was a horrific experience encompassing both east and west. In the years immediately following the war, the memory of the concentration camps, nuclear explosions, and an estimated 50 to 55,000,000 killed, (most of them civilians) was fresh and overwhelming. As a result, most national leaders agreed that some restrictions on the rights of states to pursue national interest were called for.
Various treaties and agreements were signed to promote human rights. One of the most important of these was the Fourth Geneva convention. Coming into force in October 1950, it was meant to protect civilians in active war zones.

It is hard to understand how such experiences and their lessons can be forgotten so rapidly. Yet that is what happened. Even as the Convention was being ratified, it was being violated in Korea, where war broke out in 1950 and lasted until 1952. That war killed an estimated 1.5 million civilians. Vietnam quickly followed, officially lasting from 1955 to 1975. In Vietnam again, over 1 million people, mostly civilians, were killed. Obviously by this time the Fourth Geneva convention had ceased to be effective. Yet the ideal seems to have held on in the minds of many national representatives. In 1993, the UN Security Council adopted a report from the Secretary-General and a Commission of Experts which concluded that the “Geneva Conventions had passed into the body of customary international humanitarian law, thus making them binding on non-signatories to the Conventions whenever they engage in armed conflicts.” However, when it was time to put the ideal into practice, the Fourth Geneva Convention was mostly ignored and national interests reigned supreme. The result was “moral bankruptcy.”

Part II — Why the Short Memory?

There are several reasons why a citizen (of just about any country) might be living in the midst of a morally bankrupt state and not know it. First, most individuals are locally oriented. That is, they are situated in a narrow slice of history. They personally know a lot about what is happening within a roughly 30 mile radius, but less beyond that. Second, if interested, they will be informed about the world beyond that 30 mile radius by a media usually reporting in sync with their government’s interpretation of events. This creates a very structured information environment.

The potentially negative nature of this environment was described by Walter Lippman in his book Public Opinion (written in 1922). Here is a description of its thesis, “Lippmann dissected the process through which news is disseminated and consumed, arguing that the media shapes public perception of reality by constructing a pseudo-environment that often distorts the truth. This idea … underscored the importance of accurate reporting and the need for a well-informed citizenry in a functioning democracy.” (Walter Lippmann and Public Opinion by Jerry Silfwer).

However, an information environment full of “distorted truth” is what leads to a condition of hidden moral bankruptcy. For instance, how many Americans know what the International Criminal Court is, what it does, and why President Trump is determined to see it destroyed. And if they do have an idea or opinion on this matter, how might it be shaped by the U.S. government in conjunction with media sources such as Fox News?

Part III — A Public Relations Problem?

This lack of awareness of the existence, much less the importance, of international law and its affiliates (such as the International Criminal Court) has drawn the attention of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. (See, “International law has a PR problem” by Federica Du Pasquier, Oona A. Hathaway, Stewart Patrick (14 October 2026).

This organization held a conference of various legal groups on 8 May 2026, to solve what they described as international law’s public relations problem. “The workshop was inspired by a shared conviction: The weaknesses of international law reflect, in part, a communications failure. We cannot expect the public to support international law … if they do not understand what it is, how it works, or why it matters.”

The conference’s main concern was with the mainstream media. These organizations have no entrepreneurial obligation to educate the public about international law and its importance—though you might argue that they have a moral or civic obligation to do so. But that is not how they sell their wares, be they print or digital.

The Carnegie Endowment is aware of this fact. According to the Endowment, the mainstream media sells its products through a “relentless focus on failure.” In other words, “rather than eliciting empathy and a sense of urgency to fix things, the endless drumbeat of negativity and the lack of obvious avenues for action leaves audiences overwhelmed and disheartened ….” The conclusion drawn was that the mainstream media “is incredibly disempowering and drives disengagement.” Nonetheless, this appears to be a sales approach that works. Reading or hearing about episodes of failure, be at the hands of nature or man, seems to be addictive despite also being “disempowering.”

How did the Carnegie conference recommend changing this situation? “Communicating effectively about international law’s role implies rebalancing the public’s attention to focus less on its deterioration than on the broader story of its resilience… and helps prevent narratives of international law’s erosion from becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.” As a path toward this end, the Carnegie report cites the effort of an organization called The Solutions Journalism Network. It is training thousands of journalists worldwide to report on “who’s doing better and how.” In other words, shaping the news so as to promote positive agency.

It is at this point that the Carnegie conference starts to wander into a realm of inefficacy. While undoubtedly a noble effort, The Solutions Journalism Network cannot alone solve the problem outlined in the Carnegie report. The effort is too small and cannot change the orientation of a media corporation by working with one journalist at a time. Predictably, the situation has not moved from the position described in the conference’s report. How do you promote a positive picture of international law using a media that “relentlessly focuses on failure”?

Part IV — Conclusion

What we are seeing in the above story is a form of public “education” in practice. Individuals grow up initially being pushed this way and that by genetic potluck. Then they get molded by family and neighborhood. This is topped off with some sort of ideological finish, maybe religious, maybe political, maybe both. One cannot help reaching adulthood with some point of view on the world. On that basis, you choose your media of preference. One that confirms that prefabricated point of view. Most (in liberal societies) will select a mainstream source or, these days, perhaps an independent web based one.

Actually, a partial answer to the PR problem of international law, and thus the avoidance of moral bankruptcy, lies with the internet. Simply by virtue of its varied nature one can learn about international law and it’s importance—its standing as a barrier between potential betterment and a chaotic and barbarous past. But one has to do a “search” for the topic. This is actually a great improvement upon mainstream media sources which often shape topics like this to the liking of the government or make them disappear altogether.

Then again, if your upbringing in your local environment, never brings a topic to your attention, you would not go looking for it. Absence or ignorance carries high costs. One of those costs might be a return to pre-World War II barbarism. It’s confirmation of that old saying about those who know no history are doomed to repeat it—taking the rest of us with them.