The moral confusion of our culture was appallingly illustrated in a recent article in the New York Times: “Is your child lying to you? That’s good.”

The author, Alex Stone, refers to research suggesting that the children who learn how to lie the earliest are the children who turn out to be smarter. It takes a certain amount of intelligence, after all, to learn how to lie.

Your child isn’t lying? Well, don’t worry. The article supplies exercises you can do with your child to speed up the process of learning how to lie.

Stone goes on to suggest that one of the worst things parents can do is to punish a lie. Instead, he encourages parents to pay children to tell the truth.

We really are living in a world turned upside down when parents in a major American newspaper are told to celebrate when their toddlers lie and are offered tactical advice about how to teach them to lie.

It’s a catastrophe. It’s a moral world turned upside down. And that’s no lie.