November 18, 2004

• STILL MORE ON VALUES

  When Moral Values are mentioned, most people tend to apply it personally and generally pick those morals most often mentioned in the media - This most often means something Sexual. Sure, sexual behavior has been somehow or other controlled by every society that's ever existed, but how about application of those other moral values: Trustworthyness, loyalty, helpfulness, friendship, courtesy, kindness, obedience to authority & law, thrift, bravery, cleanliness, reverence, tolerance, etc. (Thank you, Boy Scouts of America).
  And more importantly, how are these moral values to be interpreted and applied.
  I find it facinating, for example, that Our newly re-elected president is apparently proud of how he is making Iraq "free and democratic".
   By God, those folks in Falluja are going to vote even if we have to kill them all! My point here, I guess, is that you can passionately believe in moral values and yet interpret them in ways so different that your opponent, holding pretty much the same values, appears evil to you.
  It's fashionable to blame modern life and society for the supposed collapse of moral values. It's always fashionable to do this, probably because we are unhappy with the changed world we see now that's so much worse than the one we grew up in.
  I was a teacher of history and enjoyed challanging my students to give the authors of quotes condemning modern morals. I used paraphrased quotes from ancient Rome, The Bible, Colonial America, etc. They always guessed modern sources. The point is moral values are always changing in a dynamic society. They have to if they are to be applied to modern problems. We get in some trouble when we lose consensus and have differing interpretations.
  Right now, we seem to let our values be interpreted and applied by those with no thought of what they are doing (The commercial media) or are cynical in using them for rather underhanded reasons (Political professionals).
   Many of us don't have close family ties or tend to leave moral education to the media or the schools, neither of which knows what the hell they are doing. Individuals in both institutions however, may very well know what they are preaching and it may be a message we don't want our children subjected to. Unfortunately in that case, we tend to "go negative" and end up teaching intolerance and prejudice, which only increases the problem.
  Curiously enough, the BASIC Moral Values of a society don't really change much - They are after all, what defines a society. So we still believe:
   "All Men are Created Equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituited among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...."
  But we break down and define those basic values very differently now than Jefferson did 228 years aqo. Liberty has changed from "freedom from repression" to "freedom to do with little restraint" to a sort of controlled actual ability to do something: "Not only am I free work at the job of my choice, I should have the ability to do so" Kind of reasoning.
  Our core values are not very numerous, there are probably less that a dozen, but our whole society is based on them. Here are a few:
  Liberty, Equality, Individualism, Freedom, Honesty, Civility, Democracy, Importance of Religion, Valuing Life....  Can you think of others?
  You'll notice I include no sexual moral values in this list. In my opinion these are sort of secondary values that can change pretty widely without really changing what our culture is all about.
  After looking this post over, I'm afraid I'm going to have to find a shovel with a longer handle.

  • 10:14 am
  • 2 Comments