Mal Fletcher considers the growing fear in society of all things traditional

All societies have at their heart certain shared beliefs about what is right and proper in terms of human behaviour. Some of these beliefs are so long held that they become an unconscious part of the cultural heritage.

Healthy societies recognise, celebrate and hold onto proven moral systems. Their respect for these values is passed on to emerging generations, who build on the present a platform for the future.

In our time, we've become enamoured with novelty. This is partly due to our growing engagement with the world of communications technology, a world in which constant upgrading is the order of the day. The quest to own the latest, fastest and most beautiful gadgets has taught us to replace old things just because they're old.

We replace last year's model with whatever is sparkly and straight-out-of-the-box-new this season. We do this in spite of the fact that the older model may have features its more recent counterparts do not.

Gradually, our approach to technology becomes our approach to morality. We become so enamoured with the next big thing that we lose sight of the value of holding onto anything that was not invented in the past year or so.

Surely, a new moral code must be superior to a traditional one? Don't talk to us about moral systems that have worked for generations, or even millennia; we want something fresh and custom made just for us.

Sometimes, of course, the collective consciousness needs to change as we recognise and begin to grapple with injustices in our midst.

Yet the most constructive changes come not when we ignore or neglect traditional morality, but when we align, or realign, society's established mores with a higher - and sometimes older - form of morality.

This has been the rallying cry of many of history's most celebrated social activists, who've reshaped their world for good.

Where trade involving slave labour was once considered acceptable practice in British business, a normal part of corporate culture, activists led by William Wilberforce called Parliament and the wider culture to answer to Christian morality.

In their worldview, core moral precepts should be set not according to the changing whims of public opinion, but in alignment with the almost self-evident, yet easily compromised, verities of a moral universe which reflect the character of its Creator.

The same basic worldview was regularly and vigorously cited by American civil rights activists. The most famous of them called upon the nation not only to "live up to the promise of its creed" but to move toward "the Promised Land" of racial justice and equality under God.

Even the semantics of their demands for change borrowed heavily from the long-held traditions of applied religion and its role in shaping morality.

Of course, Wilberforce and Martin Luther King Jnr. both acknowledged that religious texts had been used to justify the very evils they were fighting against.