user254: Several people (several questions and answers) in this topic use the word "corrupted", especially applied to "the world" and "society".

What does the word "corrupted" mean?
Does it have a standard meaning in Buddhism, or is it idiosyncratic?
Is it an objective (observable, shareable) property (of the world), or a subjective (personal) feeling?
Do all schools (or yanas) define it the same way?
Is it mentioned in any suttas?
Is it related to the idea that the Buddha's Dharma may (or will be, has been) lost, misinterpreted, over time? Or is it a different perception, applied to "society" rather than "dharma"?
Why would someone say that the world or society is becoming more corrupt? Compared to when and where, or what? Do schools (and/or teachers) differ in their view of whether the world is "progressing", i.e. whether it's improving or regressing?


user8157: The translation of "corruption" & "corrupt" is found in many places in the Pali suttas, such as:

As to this, bhikkhus, there is a threefold corruption and failure of bodily kamma, arisen from unwholesome volition, having a painful outcome and result; a fourfold corruption and failure of verbal kamma, arisen from unwholesome volition, having a painful outcome and result; and a threefold corruption and failure of mental kamma, arisen from unwholesome volition, having a painful outcome and result.
It is, bhikkhus, because of the threefold corruption and failure of bodily kamma, arisen from unwholesome volition … or it is because of the fourfold corruption and failure of verbal kamma, arisen from unwholesome volition … or it is because of the threefold corruption and failure of mental kamma, arisen from unwholesome volition, that with the breakup of the body, after death, beings are reborn in the plane of misery, in a bad destination, in the lower world, in hell.
AN 10.218

While the world can never be perfect, a morally uncorrupted world is described in many places in the Pali suttas, including simply as the Six-Directions & the respective duties/relationship obligations expounded within. A departure from the kammic lawfulness of the Six Directions is a corruption (rather than something "progressive").

And how, young householder, does a noble disciple cover the six quarters?
The following should be looked upon as the six quarters. The parents should be looked upon as the East, teachers as the South, wife and children as the West, friends and associates as the North, servants and employees as the Nadir, ascetics and brahmans as the Zenith
DN 31 Sigalovada Sutta The Layperson's Code of Discipline

Or the Conditions of a Nation's Welfare:

So long, brahman, as these endure among the Vajjis, and the Vajjis are
known for it, their growth is to be expected, not their decline.
DN 16

The cause & condition for the creation & maintenance of the human world is wholesome sexual & family conduct. While the world has periodically engaged in wars & other unwholesome actions, a departure from wholesome sexual & family conduct is the primary cause of the corruption of the human world & regression into an animal, hell &/or hungry ghost world.

Bhikkhus, these two bright principles protect the world. What are the
two? Shame and fear of wrongdoing. If, bhikkhus, these two bright
principles did not protect the world, there would not be discerned
respect for mother or maternal aunt or maternal uncle's wife or a
teacher's wife or the wives of other honored persons, and the world
would have fallen into promiscuity, as with goats, sheep, chickens,
pigs, dogs, and jackals. But as these two bright principles protect
the world, there is discerned respect for mother... and the wives of
other honored persons.
AN 2.9


user-1: I'd say it's idiosyncratic.  Each school has a somewhat different take on it.  In Zen, we often refer to corruption as "red dust".  Han Shan, for instance, refers to it often:

I was born just thirty years ago,
  but I’ve wandered a million miles already. 
  Along the River through the green grass on the 
  banks, out to the borderlands, where the red dust roils. 

I think the footnote in my copy of his poetry does an excellent job of explaining this idea:

"The word we usually translate as “dust,” or “the red dust,” is a
  conventional epithet for the klesas, or “defilements,” of life in the
  everyday world, everything from simple dirt, to the deep moral
  defilements we accept in the compromises and little hypocrisies of
  everyday lay living."

From Cold Mountain Poems translated by J.P Seaton  

254: <p>Several people (several questions and answers) in <a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/q/24266/254">this topic</a> use the word "corrupted", especially applied to "the world" and "society".</p>

<ul>
<li>What does the word "corrupted" mean?</li>
<li>Does it have a standard meaning in Buddhism, or is it idiosyncratic?
Is it an objective (observable, shareable) property (of the world), or a subjective (personal) feeling?
Do all schools (or yanas) define it the same way?
Is it mentioned in any suttas?</li>
<li>Is it related to the idea that the Buddha's Dharma may (or will be, has been) lost, misinterpreted, over time? Or is it a different perception, applied to "society" rather than "dharma"?</li>
<li>Why would someone say that the world or society is becoming <em>more</em> corrupt? Compared to when and where, or what? Do schools (and/or teachers) differ in their view of whether the world is "progressing", i.e. whether it's improving or regressing?</li>
</ul>
 8157: <p>The translation of &quot;corruption&quot; &amp; &quot;corrupt&quot; is found in many places in the Pali suttas, such as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As to this, bhikkhus, there is a threefold corruption and failure of bodily kamma, arisen from unwholesome volition, having a painful outcome and result; a fourfold corruption and failure of verbal kamma, arisen from unwholesome volition, having a painful outcome and result; and a threefold corruption and failure of mental kamma, arisen from unwholesome volition, having a painful outcome and result.</p>
<p>It is, bhikkhus, because of the threefold corruption and failure of bodily kamma, arisen from unwholesome volition … or it is because of the fourfold corruption and failure of verbal kamma, arisen from unwholesome volition … or it is because of the threefold corruption and failure of mental kamma, arisen from unwholesome volition, that with the breakup of the body, after death, beings are reborn in the plane of misery, in a bad destination, in the lower world, in hell.</p>
<p><a href="https://suttacentral.net/en/an10.218" rel="nofollow noreferrer">AN 10.218</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>While the world can never be perfect, a morally uncorrupted world is described in many places in the Pali suttas, including simply as the Six-Directions &amp; the respective duties/relationship obligations expounded within. A departure from the kammic lawfulness of the Six Directions is a corruption (rather than something &quot;progressive&quot;).</p>
<blockquote>
<p>And how, young householder, does a noble disciple cover the six quarters?</p>
<p>The following should be looked upon as the six quarters. The parents should be looked upon as the East, teachers as the South, wife and children as the West, friends and associates as the North, servants and employees as the Nadir, ascetics and brahmans as the Zenith</p>
<p><a href="https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.31.0.nara.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">DN 31 Sigalovada Sutta The Layperson's Code of Discipline</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Or the Conditions of a Nation's Welfare:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>So long, brahman, as these endure among the Vajjis, and the Vajjis are
known for it, their growth is to be expected, not their decline.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.16.1-6.vaji.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">DN 16</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The cause &amp; condition for the creation &amp; maintenance of the human world is wholesome sexual &amp; family conduct. While the world has periodically engaged in wars &amp; other unwholesome actions, a departure from wholesome sexual &amp; family conduct is the primary cause of the corruption of the human world &amp; regression into an animal, hell &amp;/or hungry ghost world.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Bhikkhus, these two bright principles protect the world. What are the
two? Shame and fear of wrongdoing. If, bhikkhus, these two bright
principles did not protect the world, there would not be discerned
respect for mother or maternal aunt or maternal uncle's wife or a
teacher's wife or the wives of other honored persons, and the world
would have fallen into promiscuity, as with goats, sheep, chickens,
pigs, dogs, and jackals. But as these two bright principles protect
the world, there is discerned respect for mother... and the wives of
other honored persons.</p>
<p>AN 2.9</p>
</blockquote>
 -1: <p>I'd say it's idiosyncratic.  Each school has a somewhat different take on it.  In Zen, we often refer to corruption as "red dust".  Han Shan, for instance, refers to it often:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>I was born just thirty years ago,<br>
  but I’ve wandered a million miles already. <br>
  Along the River through the green grass on the <br>
  banks, out to the borderlands, where the red dust roils. <br></p>
</blockquote>

<p>I think the footnote in my copy of his poetry does an excellent job of explaining this idea:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>"The word we usually translate as “dust,” or “the red dust,” is a
  conventional epithet for the klesas, or “defilements,” of life in the
  everyday world, everything from simple dirt, to the deep moral
  defilements we accept in the compromises and little hypocrisies of
  everyday lay living."</p>
</blockquote>

<p>From <em>Cold Mountain Poems</em> translated by J.P Seaton  </p>
