What do "a sort of moral attention" and "riotous excursions" mean in this quote from the Great Gatsby?

“When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart”

Does "at a sort of moral attention" mean the same moral level or something else? What's the meaning of "riotous excursions"? I cannot find this phrase in a dictionary.

Solution 1:

“At a moral attention” is a military allusion, along with “in uniform”. To be “at attention” means to be in a formal military position. Its opposite is “at ease”. So, to be “at a moral attention” means to display a heightened moral behaviour or alertness, I would say.

“Riotous excursions” does not play on any idioms, by contrast. “Excursions”, here, are forays, or adventures, and “riotous” means wild and uncontrolled.

I’m not a great Gatsby fan, but you’ve selected a very elegant sentence here: two well crafted military allusions before the semicolon; and after it, the three adjective-noun pairs, “riotous excursions”, “privileged glimpses”, “human heart”, that come in an almost iambic rhythm.

Solution 2:

"Moral attention" refers to a group of soldiers who are standing at attention in full uniform, and who are looking their military best. They do not move but look straight ahead until told to move. They are restrained by their orders. Moral attention would imply an attitude of serious, self- discipline where men and women simply do not to stray across well known moral boundaries. To do so would be "against orders" which is simply not an option. Nick feels that the sloppy and immoral behavior of the financial elites was the result of an abandonment of the morals that a society needs to bind itself together. Without such binding, society becomes unwoven, chaos ensues and it produces the self-indulgent, reckless, harmful and dangerous behavior that he saw. These were the "riotous excursions" that he witnessed - without restraint, without regard, just a flamboyant celebration of self and money that makes them unworthy of the American Dream which is built upon contrary values of work and thrift among others.