It is paradoxical that as more and more grassroots heroes are honored, society as a whole is sometimes slipping further to a level where deception rather than honesty is rewarded.

A graphic example is a common retort by a few unethical businesses when they were taken to task for selling substandard products that might harm people's health, "How much does a jin (half a kilogram) of conscience cost?"

This is moral nihilism at its extreme, a belief that everything has a price in the market but morality itself is not worth the price.

It is popular now to join the chorus denouncing the market economy for precipitating the demise of China's moral values. The market turns good people into predators; the market encourages treachery, not fair play, and so on.

Social trust

The market does sometimes expose the destructive force of human greed, but blaming it all on the market is both unfair and misguided. After all, the modern market economy is primarily based on social trust.

Adam Smith argued in his "Theory on Moral Sentiments" that the pursuit of material gains should be constrained by moral precepts. Altruism is a linchpin in the smooth functioning of a market economy.

The disintegration of morality we are witnessing in China is often described as a result of a spiritual void, to be filled only with worship of money.

Gone are the days when ancient merchants, though seen as slippery as they are now, prided themselves on their noblesse oblige and put communal good before profits.

In a largely atheist nation, it's useless to preach the good karma, bad karma philosophy to business people who don't believe in afterlife and payback and thus have no qualms about deceiving customers.

When Premier Wen Jiabao earnestly stressed the necessity early this year for restoring social morality, not everyone was upbeat about the odds of success.

Some joked, "how can we expect morality to wear pants when the law is streaking" -- meaning that when laws are not always followed it's naive to wish morality could be upheld.

Shame just isn't so damning any more, whether to philandering official playboys caught with their pants down or young people shouting out loud that a good marriage is to be preferred to hard work to move up the social ladder.

Recently there are reports that the vastly popular talent show "Super Girl" will be taken off the air next year for violating state broadcasting rules on duration.

Whatever its true motives for muting the Super Girl, the watchdog may have barked up the wrong tree.

Compared to "Super Girl," there are truly vulgar and raunchy programs, like some matchmaking and variety shows that know no limit in their sensationalism and obscenity, which I myself would love to see axed.

In order for the officially anointed role models to lead by moral example, it's imperative to first weed out the bad influences.