As a word, ecology has been so debased by recent political usage that many people employ it to identify anything good that happens far from cities and without human interference.
I don't think we've got the concept in the West that male desire degrades men. Or that if men become sexually active, they become debased in some way, or slutty. Or lose status.
The end result of positively reinforcing bad behavior is that you get more of it. The culmination of a failure to punish predators is a debased, dissolute, slum-dog society in which, by legal decree, the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper.
Oh, I will be cruel to you, Marya Morevna. It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be. But you understand, don’t you? You are clever enough. I am a demanding creature. I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable. But I am your servant. When you starve I will feed you; when you are sick I will tend you. I crawl at your feet; for before your love, your kisses, I am debased. For you alone I will be weak.
We have made it our overriding ambition to escape work, and as a consequence have debased work until it is only fit to escape from. We have debased the products of work and have been, in turn, debased by them. (pg. 43, "The Unsettling of America")
Disregarding the fact that I am old enough to be [Walter] Schellenberg's mother, I would feel nauseated to be coupled with a man whose ideology has debased our hearts.
