D. Barbara McWhite grew up in York County, S.C., and lives in Orange Park, Fla., with her husband and cat. Her column is published here each Tuesday. Opinions expressed are solely her own.

Reading the news often leaves me open-mouthed with shock or weighed with sadness.

What’s the matter with people these days? Seventy-two-day marriage. Kids being raped while grown-ups look the other way. Children being abused and killed, often by their own parents.

Somewhere on the road to technology and modernization, it seems we have forgotten what is real. A lot of noise is made these days about being politically correct. So we all try to ensure that we don't offend.

We sanitize our words. We use words that mean the same but that sound better. 

And while we sit around parsing our words, we have stopped using and seemingly forgotten the meaning of words like honor, duty and shame.

Gone are the days when a man’s "word was his bond."

"Till death do us part " is now followed by "or until I get tired of you, or until I find someone I like better.”

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" has been perverted to mean “do unto others before they can do it unto you.”

What causes a man to walk away from a child being raped? Where was his honor? Why did he not feel a sense of duty to grab the child away from the deviant offender or to call police? It seems to me that the Penn State faculty members who knew of the alleged sexual abuse of the young victims chose to keep quiet because they cared more about their own and the university’s reputation than they cared to be men of honor charged with doing the right thing.

Except for abuse, would a woman of honor with a sense of fairness and commitment have married for 72 days then walked away with the $2 million ring and called it right?

And parents with a sense of honor and duty — would they abuse or take the lives of their children when the going gets tough? 

Duty is the charge that propels us towards what is right, even in the face of fear or exhaustion or temptation.

I believe it would benefit society to begin teaching these words to our children side-by-side with the ABCs. The seeds of decency must be planted in us early, before the roots of callousness and cynicism can crowd them out.

It is said that: "Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself." Honor is what you do when no one is looking. Honor means doing the right thing even when it means personal loss.

Finally, and contrary to modern thinking, with its perpetual mission of positivity, I believe that shame is a natural reaction to dishonorable behavior. It is as natural as blushing when we are embarrassed or sneezing when we have a cold. The degree of shame we will feel tomorrow can often dictate appropriate behavior today. 

I say old-fashioned shame should be brought out of the closet, dusted off and added once again into dialogs designed to shape human behavior.

We are men/women of honor and integrity. 

We have a duty to ourselves, our children... our husbands/wives... our parents.

We should be ashamed of ourselves... for doing that... for acting that way… for not taking action.

Our society has become sick on its diet of "if it feels good, do it." Honor, duty and shame are big pills and not easily swallowed, but I believe they will go along way in curing society's ills. 

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