SOCIAL engineers agonise over the causes of bad behaviour in youth and in society.

But society itself cannot agree on what constitutes bad behaviour. Some say it's the "free"

expression of personality. Here the word "free" is "key". Everyone has become the arbiter of what's right and wrong for themselves. There used to be consensus, but no longer.

History's lesson: for 500 years, Roman society (aristocrats, middle classes, plebeians, slaves) was solidly cemented by something called "mores", from which arises the word morals.

These were a hotchpotch of worldly wisdom, religious and civil customs, traditions, laws and attitudes, confirmed by practice and experience of forefathers, making the republic the power it became.

When they spurned these "mores"

during the age of the dictators (Caesar, Pompey and Crassus) in came the age of "self" and with it chaos.

History is a good teacher. Do our kids and society need a moral compass? Or have we, too, reneged on our "mores" in exchange for "if it's beneficial to me, it's moral".

Recently, there have been letters ridiculing, for instance, the Ten Commandments, which are essentially about human respect.

No doubt our social scientists will have their say.

Mike Baldasera, Darlington.