From Lawful to Lost
By Todd Davis
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed here are those of the authors. View more opinion on ScoonTV
How America Lost Its Moral Compass in a Shifting Alignment
The opposite of order isn’t freedom. It’s entropy, and we’re living in it.
For decades, Americans believed in the rules. Not always happily. Not always equally. But there was a basic agreement: you worked, contributed, obeyed certain norms, and in return, you had a shot at a decent life. That was the deal.
Today, that deal feels broken. The cultural shift from Gen X to Gen Z is more than generational drift; it’s a transformation in ethical alignment. Where Gen X held tightly to lawful and neutral values, Zoomers are increasingly aligned with chaos. Not the poetic kind of chaos, either. Not freedom. Entropy.
Using a lens borrowed from fantasy gaming—the Dungeons & Dragons alignment system—we can describe this transition with surprising clarity. In the 1950s, nearly 77% of the American population would have aligned with the lawful good, neutral good, lawful neutral, or true neutral categories. The country wasn’t perfect, but it largely functioned on shared norms, even when those norms were contested.
In societal terms, each alignment category broadly captures groups of people.
- Lawful Good; principled, community-focused, upholds justice and order – idealistic civil servants, ethical leaders.
- Neutral Good; kind, generous, and altruistic, but flexible about rules – caregivers, volunteers, and humanitarians.
- Chaotic Good: rebels who act on conscience; oppose tyranny – whistleblowers, activists, and freedom fighters.
- Lawful Neutral; follows order and rules, not necessarily good or evil – bureaucrats, disciplined professionals.
- True Neutral: balanced or indifferent; pragmatic – the average person focused on survival or day-to-day life.
- Chaotic Neutral; values personal freedom, unpredictability – eccentric creatives, anarchists, and drifters.
- Lawful Evil: exploits systems, respects hierarchy – authoritarian rulers and corrupt CEOs.
- Neutral Evil; selfish and opportunistic, indifferent to law – manipulators, sociopaths, and crime lords.
- Chaotic Evil: destructive, malicious, driven by impulse – violent criminals, warlords.
| Alignment | Gen X | Zoomers |
| Lawful Good | 12% | 6% |
| Neutral Good | 18% | 10% |
| Chaotic Good | 8% | 15% |
| Lawful Neutral | 20% | 8% |
| True Neutral | 25% | 20% |
| Chaotic Neutral | 10% | 20% |
| Lawful Evil | 3% | 2% |
| Neutral Evil | 2% | 5% |
| Chaotic Evil | 2% | 4% |
Fast forward to the present: Gen Z’s values lean heavily toward chaos. Half of the generation now aligns with chaotic good, chaotic neutral, or even chaotic evil worldviews. Meanwhile, the share of Americans estimated to embody neutral evil or chaotic evil perspectives has grown dramatically. It may still be a minority, but when we’re talking about a population of over 300 million, 9% amounts to a potential 25-30 million people. That’s not fringe. That’s a force.
Every civilization flirts with chaos before it falls in love with it, and by then it’s too late.
Social media has acted as an accelerant to these shifting alignments. Its algorithms favor spectacle over substance, and outrage over order. In a digital world where every user becomes a broadcaster, the loudest and most extreme voices often gain the greatest visibility. This exposure normalizes what was once marginal, validating nihilism, sarcasm, and tribalism as acceptable, sometimes even admirable, responses to a broken system. The feedback loop created by platforms like TikTok, Twitter/X, and YouTube doesn’t just reflect culture; it shapes it, nudging users subtly but persistently toward performative chaos. And what begins as performance, over time, becomes identity.
For Zoomers in particular, who grew up immersed in this environment, identity is often shaped less by institutions and more by networks of influence. Traditional structures like family, school, or religion have been replaced—or at least diluted—by the micro-communities of the digital world. And within these spaces, the old rules rarely apply. What matters isn’t truth or order, but resonance. Virality. Visibility. In such a world, chaotic alignment isn’t just an attitude. It’s survival.
What happens when a largely lawful society finds itself managed by a government that operates from a neutral evil alignment? It rewards power over principle. Efficiency over ethics. It enforces rules not to build trust but to protect its advantage. It doesn’t care whether the people are lawful or chaotic—it only cares whether they comply.
Under such a system, belief erodes. Hope dims. And younger generations, faced with collapsing institutions, student debt, vanishing opportunities, and digital disorientation, no longer see the system as something to be fixed. They see it as something to be outwitted, escaped, or destroyed. Russian political theorist Alexander Dugin said,
The path that humanity entered upon in the modern era led precisely to liberalism and to the repudiation of God, tradition, community, ethnicity, empires, and kingdoms…The logic of world liberalism and globalisation pulls us into the abyss of postmodern dissolution and virtuality.
This isn’t just a modern phenomenon. Across history, chaos has often played the role of liberator. And so, chaos becomes a rational choice. If the lawful order no longer provides housing, education, or security, then why respect it? Why not meme your way to revolution? Why not embrace the ladder of chaos, if it’s the only one left to climb?
Some might argue that chaos has historically led to liberation—the French Revolution, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of colonial empires. But the ledger isn’t so neatly balanced. These moments of disruption came with enormous cost: civil war, state terror, purges, mass dislocation. Even the collapse of the Soviet Union, which seemed bloodless at the time, may have simply deferred the chaos for a later reckoning. The war in Ukraine reminds us that not all transitions end in peace.
The United States once saw itself as a force for good. At least, that was the story. Through the lens of Cold War films or postwar prosperity, the country appeared to be Lawful Good, or at worst, Lawful Neutral. But after decades of morally ambiguous wars, financial crises, corporate consolidation, and growing inequality, the portrait has changed. Today, many view American governance not as idealistic or even pragmatic, but self-interested, detached, and ethically indifferent. Neutral Evil. Oliver Stone’s words,
Empires fall. Let’s pray that this empire, these evil things… because we are the evil empire. What Reagan said about Russia is true about us.
And when a Neutral Evil state rules lawful or neutral people, two things tend to happen. The first is decay: apathy, cynicism, despair. The second is volatility: rebellion, radicalization, chaos.
We’re witnessing both.
And the cost is mounting. Institutions are hollowed out, trust is threadbare, and too many people, especially the young, no longer believe the system works for them. In this vacuum, cynicism thrives. So does performative rage and nihilistic irony. Without something greater to believe in, people stop aspiring to fix the world and instead retreat into mocking it, burning it, or ignoring it. The social contract frays not in one dramatic moment, but thread by thread. British historian and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute, Niall Ferguson said,
It is not the decline of institutions that leads to disorder, but the triumph of networks that are indifferent to the consequences.
This is not to say all is lost. There is no guarantee that this cycle ends in collapse. But there is no guarantee it doesn’t, either. What matters now is how we respond. Not with more fear, more memes, or more outrage—but with something radical for our time: responsibility. Cohesion. Shared moral purpose.
This isn’t a call to hope. Hope is cheap. It’s a call to consequence. The system we’ve known is burning at both ends—one with apathy, the other with rage. There’s no promise of collapse, but there’s no immunity from it either.
Living under a Neutral Evil state, one that speaks of global order while sowing disorder abroad, that preaches democracy while practicing manipulation, forces a kind of moral exile. You are expected to comply, consume, and remain calm, even as the foundations shift beneath your feet. The challenge isn’t merely to resist chaos or corruption; it’s to resist becoming numb.
In a world where confrontation is policy and distraction is profit, clarity becomes rebellion. Choosing to build something honest, family, community, shared values, is an act of resistance. The question is no longer “How do we fix the system?” but “How do we stay human despite it?”
Can a society saturated in social media, driven by marketing and clicks designed to create more noise, more chaos, reverse course? Are we able to do something rare: embracing responsibility, restraint, and a willingness to stop performing and start rebuilding?
Not because it’s heroic.
Because it’s necessary.
Because a society stuck in entropy cannot endure. It either finds a new alignment or it falls apart.
The arc of history doesn’t bend toward justice. We bend it. Or we don’t. And in that silence, entropy waits.
Curtis Scoon is the founder of ScoonTv.com Download the ScoonTv App to join our weekly livestream every Tuesday @ 8pm EST!
