First Paragraph

Since daily newspapers were first published, they have been filled with accounts of murder and mayhem, of political terror and human atrocities. Differences in religious belief so minor as to be invisible to all but a trained theologian have been the pretext, if not the cause, of unspeakable savageries. Differences in color and even small differences in lineage among people of the same color have precipitated riots, repression, and genocide. The Nazi regime set about to exterminate an entire people and succeeded in murdering six million of them before an invading army put a stop to the methodical horror. Hardly any boundary can be drawn on the earth without it becoming a cause for war. In parts of Africa, warlords fight for power and booty while children starve. When riots occur in an American city, many bystanders rush to take advantage of the opportunity for looting. If people have a common moral sense, there is scarcely any evidence of it in the matters to which journalists - and their readers - pay the greatest attention.

- From The Moral Sense by James Q. Wilson