Spring is in the air, even if snow is still on the ground. Spring break came and went and many college students returned from their margarita-soaked trips to the world's plajas with the familiar motto: "What happened in (insert name) stays in (insert name.)"

As usual, the sexual antics and excessive partying of some college students sent many onlookers into moral conniptions. What has become of the world? How is today's society so freewheeling and permissive? Who are these immoral young Jezebels running around in bikinis?

Bertrand Russell once observed that moral luminaries are "those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others."

Without judging students' spring break habits one way or another, I find the tone of many critics off-putting as they moan over today's youth, often citing the Bible as the source for their moral judgments.

Many of today's moral issues are new, from same-sex unions to birth control. But what happened to the good old moral issues of yesteryear? The Bible hasn't changed in the last century. Why has the focus of moral indignation shifted?

I checked out some old microfilms of the Wisconsin State Journal at the Wisconsin Historical Society and discovered that in 1869, Independence Day fell on a Sunday. The State Journal itself did not publish a Sunday paper and on July 2 it reported: "The fact that the 4th of July this year occurs on Sunday, has led to the celebration of the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on different days. In some places, despite the fact that it is a Sunday, the 4th will be celebrated, especially by Germans, in the usual manner. In some places Saturday, the 3rd, will be made the occasion for a patriotic demonstration and in others, Monday, the 5th."

Ah, those damn beer-drinking Germans just couldn't postpone their carousing.

But why don't we hear moral outrage about the Sabbath anymore? I see people out and about on Sundays, many of them shopping, no less. If this was immoral in 1869, why don't most people consider it immoral now?

An old Puritan fornication law in Massachusetts stated that "if any man commit Fornication, with any single woman, they shall be punished, either by enjoying marriage, or fine, or corporal punishment, or all or any of these…"

Can you imagine the number of shotgun weddings this campus would see if premarital sex were actually illegal and punishable by marriage? (I know of a man on Library Mall who would rejoice…)

Today's alcohol controversy revolves around the drinking age, but less than a century ago the U.S. had Prohibition. I don't hear many people today pushing for an absolute ban on alcohol. If drinking was immoral in the 1920s according to the Bible, why isn't it now?

In the last few years, Chicago put an anti-swearing ordinance under review and San Francisco nixed 50 arcane laws, including a law against dancing to the national anthem.

Laws change and culture evolves, but there's a lot of continuity in human behavior. In Ancient Rome, Cicero defended the young Marcus Caelius Rufus, accused among other things of drinking and debauchery on the beach. (Apparently, Spring Break existed more than 2,000 years ago in Naples.) Cicero asked the jury: "Was there ever a man on this earth whose will-power, high-mindedness and self-control were sufficient to make him reject all pleasures whatsoever and devote his whole life to physical exercise and intellectual exertion; a man who was not attracted by relaxation or recreation or the pursuits of his contemporaries or making love or going to parties; who believed that nothing in all the world was worth striving for unless it was directed towards honor and glory?"

Cicero concluded that such a man would be super-human. Instead of getting on our moral high horses, let's admit that people are irrational and fallible, and yes, very much prone to un-classy behavior.

Today the U.S. doesn't have Sabbath, anti-fornication or prohibition laws because they don't reflect the views of the population as a whole. Still, if you want to observe the Sabbath or abstain from sex and drinking, you can. Maybe there's a lesson here for some of the divisive moral issues on the 21st century table.

Cynthia Martens ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in Italian and European Studies.