Doctor, Just How Bad Is It?

Just how far is the world away from where it was meant? How far did we fall when we fell from Eden?
It seems to me that this is a vital question. It can serve us as a guide in life. How far should we "buy in" to this world?
Not very far, apparently. According to the New Testament, we are to be "in the world, but not of it." Unlike other religions, we do not believe that the world is all illusion. But we don't go that much farther than that.
The perfect test case that this is true is the example of feminism: a doctrine obviously untrue, and obviously in violation of the golden rule, that nevertheless swept all before it, all around the world, with barely a peep of opposition anywhere, and then was able to crush anything else that opposed it, regardless of its claims to being true. Never mind Nazism--a purely localized phenomenon by comparison.
But there is a better example, in scientific terms.
It is the Milgram experiment (1961-63). And it is not good news.
In the experiment, subjects, archly called "teachers," were told to administer electric shocks to "students" (actors, as it happened) whenever the students gave a wrong answer, increasing the voltage every time. Pre-recorded screams were played for each shock level, to make it clear to the "teacher" that the student was experiencing serious pain and urgently wanted the experiment to stop. Well before the highest voltage, the "student" stopped responding altogether, indicating the likelihood that he was actually dead.
The point was to see how far the average person would accept the word of authority against their own conscience.
The answer is that 65% of participants kept right on giving those electric shocks right up to the maximum, 450 volt level--well beyond killing their supposed "student."
These results do not seem to vary much by class or culture: the experiment has since been repeated in various places around the world, and the level of compliance by "teachers" is consistently 61-66 percent, regardless of time or place.
Sixty-one to sixty-six percent of humanity will allot zero value to the golden rule whenever their own immediate self-interest is at stake, even at a fairly trivial level.
The choice given is not so far from the choice in Eden.
So there it is, a hard number to plug in for the overall depravity of the social world: 61-66% bad.
Since the number is over 50%, "the world" as such becomes a temptation, as it is understood to be in the classical Catholic formulation ("the world, the flesh, and the devil"). Most things in this world are the reverse of what they are supposed to be; nothing should be accepted at face value. The good is always going to be buried under a pile of offal, rejected in this world.
The experiment surely also implies that the majority of people are going to Hell--given the choice, they will consistently go against morality. This is not a fashionable thing to believe; but it does agree with the Bible. Jesus himself says

13"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." (Matthew 7)

Thirty-four to thirty-nine percent of humanity is about as generous an interpretation of "few" as humanly possible.

Luke writes, of Jesus's temptation in the desert: "the devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, "I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I wish." (Luke 4:5-7).

This means that the social world is in the command of the devil.

John refers to the devil as "prince of this world." 30"Jesus said, 'This voice was for your benefit, not mine. 31Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out." (John 12). St. Paul refers to "the course of this world" as the way of the devil: "2you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience." (Ephesians 2)

I have heard the argument that this all refers to the world before Christianity "redeemed" it. This does not work: the Book of Revelations makes plain that the depravity of the majority will continue until the end of time.

"7He [the beast] was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. 8All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world." (Revelations 13)

In other words, it is the devil who has charge of all the world's kingdoms and governments, of social authority generally.

This necessarily, and notably, includes the secular classroom. It is no coincidence that the subjects of the Milgram experiment were called "teachers." To no one else do we give such unbridled social authority. And two out of three of us are perfectly prepared to abuse such authority to the hilt, till death--of the student--do us part. We ought to be damned concerned about this, as parents, as Christians, and as teachers.