“Alas, gross, individual selfishness is finally acculturated. Then societies can eventually become without order, without mercy, without love, perverted, and past feeling (see Moro. 9). Society thereby reflects a grim, cumulative tally which signals a major cultural decline. This happened anciently when a people actually became ‘weak, because of their transgression’ (Hel. 4:26). Speaking behaviorally, when what was once the lesser voice of the people becomes more dominant, then the judgments of God and the consequences of foolish selfishness follow (see Mosiah 29:26–27).
“Cultural decline is accelerated when single-interest segments of society become indifferent. … This drift is facilitated by the indifferent or the indulgent as society is led carefully down to hell (see 2 Ne. 28:21)” (Maxwell, “Repent of [Our] Selfishness,” 23–24).