"VALUES" lost

Today in all the papers were articles about people lining up at bankruptcy courts filing petitions in order to skate free from their financial responsibilities. Within each article were stories of those caught up in disability and bad luck. And then there are just the ones who carelessly abused debt. yes--everybody has a story. Behind every story of the disabled is the story of families who won't help their own members who are sick and can't work. Behind every deadbeat debtor is failed parenting and school systems. People learn character. Behind every church leader who has invited Satan into his house is the story of a people who have lost touch with their Savior and the meaning of the phrase--"in this earth but not of it"

Intuitively-- most of us feel that decline of character displayed among those of our society has something to do with “values.”

But the very word “values” is part of the barrier to understanding our predicament. For the word “values” means all things to all people. So that any discussion of “values” is likely to be as productive as eating jelly with our fingers.

Had I been writing this blog one hundred and twenty years ago I would not have used the word “values” because the word had not then been invented.

Up until the 1880s the word “value” was used only in the singular to mean-- to hold in high regard -- “I value the opportunity to post a message on the Neighborhood forum regarding the value of human dignity or human life or-- “The “value” of farm land in Pima Country is increasing.”

One man-- the German philosopher Nietzsche, introduced the plural “values” to the vocabulary of the Western World.

Nietzsche believed that the classical and Judaic – Christian virtues imprisoned people and that people should be free to choose their own virtues.

These new personal virtues he called “values.”

Nietzsche was so excited about his invention that he considered it to be the greatest event in human history. At last people would be free from the shackles of virtues.

There would be no good or evil-- no virtue or vice. There would only be personal “values” and through them a “new” person and a “new” society.

About fifty years later-- C.S. Lewis, one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century-- undertook an exhaustive study of cultures and civilizations. He included the Ancient Egyptian, Old Norse, Ancient Jewish, Babylonian, North American Indian, Hindu, Ancient Chinese, Roman, Christian, Greek, Australian Aboriginal, Anglo-Saxon, Stoic and Ancient Indian -- and identified eight objective “values” [virtues] which they all held in common.

Lewis concluded that these objective “values” – such things as – honesty, beneficence, duty, justice, mercy and magnanimity -- are part of creation and that society ignored them at its peril.

He illustrated the importance of these objective “values” in society by likening their absence to the removal of the person’s heart with the expectation that the other organs -- the brain, the liver, the stomach -- would continue to function as if the heart was still pumping.

Lewis was making the case that if we fail to pass on to the next generation specific standards of right and wrong -- of what is worthwhile or worthless -- admirable or ignoble then we must share the blame for the consequences in our communities.

When writing of this in 1943 C. S. Lewis penned my favourite passage about education.

“And all the time -- such is the tragicomedy of our situation -- we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a newspaper social commentary without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more “drive”-- or dynamism, or self-reliance, or “creativity.” In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.Is there any wonder that we have spys in our very highest government offices as recently reported? We castrate-- and bid the gelding be fruitful.”

These men, Nietzsche and C. S. Lewis, represent the two faces of the modern word “values.”

“Values” as we now know them -- can be either preferences or principles, which are the opposite ends of the moral spectrum. Both have consequences and they too are opposites.

While we Americans can be justly proud of many of our achievements-- the truth is that over recent decades we have not been replenishing those traits of character that build a just, caring and civil society.

Unfortunately, the solution to our predicament is not as simple as identfying the reason behind our societal "character rot"--but nor is it as complex as we may think.

We have to rediscover that "character" counts!

That the solution to our predicament will not come from on high through legislation or regulation but from the grass roots. The solution will be rediscovered person by person, family by family, school by school, community by community.

For a start each of us must accept some responsibility and commit ourselves to do something. As adults we can not condemn the behaviour of young people if we are unwilling to model and commit ourselves to allowing young people experience and observe good character.

After all -- adults teach by what they are.

We must rediscover that the best “values” teaching makes young people keenly aware that it is their own character that is at stake.

The solution is not to try and reclaim some mythical golden age when things were supposedly simpler and more honest.

Responsible adults know that we can’t turn the clock back. We can’t be old fashioned.

But we can refashion what our forebears understood better than our generation.

They understood that character counts!

They understood that character determines behaviour just as behaviour demonstrates character.

They understood that there is a connection between such objective “values” as honesty and truthfulness, kindness, care and concern for others, compassion, obedience, respect, responsibility, duty – and character.

Such values are the cornerstones of character. In fact we might label them "conerstone values"

Cornerstone values are principles that are consistent, universal and transcultural.

They work in three parts.

Take for example, compassion.

If I am to be compassionate I must first know what compassion is and what compassion requires of me in my relationship with others. But knowledge of compassion does not make me compassionate.

I must also care about compassion. I must be emotionally committed to compassion and have the capacity for appropriate guilt when I behave without compassion and be capable of moral indignation when I see others victims of injustice.

I must have the desire to be compassionate.

But knowledge plus desire does not make me compassionate.

I must behave compassionately in my personal relationships and carry out my obligations as a citizen to help build a just and caring society.

Compassion, like all "cornerstone values"-- involves the head – knowledge, the heart – desire [attitude], and the hand – behaviour.

That explains why many well intention and well-funded education programs don’t work.

These three parts of a cornerstone value – knowledge, desire and behaviour – are inextricably linked to character. Good charcter is the excellence of such "cornerstone values"-- as honesty and truthfulness, kindness, consideration and concern for others, compassion, obedience, responsibility, respect and duty.

Character is “Who we are when no one sees.”

I find that a wheel is a helpful illustration of the relationship between values and character.

The rim of the wheel represents character. The spokes -- all of equal length and spacing -- represent the "cornerstone values". They give the wheel form -- its shape and strength. The hub -- which holds the spokes in place at the center-- is a unique cornerstone value – duty.

In todays secularized society--people have problems with duty. We have lost most of its meaning and tend to think of duty only in terms of war memorials.

But duty is much more -- duty is obligation. Duty, as the hub of character -- is the obligation to be honest and truthful, kind, considerate and caring -- in one’s relationship with others.

Duty is as much about child abuse, right to life, family "values" -- as it is about war memorials or flags -- it is our obligation to others.

Without question -- parents are the first and most important teachers of character. Nothing can ever replace the home as the place where character is taught and observed. There -- with or without parents’ help -- children during their earliest years begin developing character. This is both a conscious and unconscious process that takes places simply by watching parents “being.”

Historically -- schools also saw character education as a primary responsibility.

Until recent decades -- schooling had two main objectives -- to help young people master the skills of literacy and numeracy and to help young people to be good.

That aim of helping young people to be good went back through the generations to Plato who observed that we educate people to make them good because good people behave nobly.

Anybody who has viewed my writings, posts, or picked up on my passion concerning various subjects have been a witness to my transformation from cloitered priest to outright warrior against what I view as Satanci evil permeating throughout society. I spent too much time arguing and trying reason with others to change from a culture of death to one of reason. the errosion of these "values" and "character are a direct result of free will in action and a move away from christ. It exists everywhere and even as the previous post suggests--to the very core of the Holy Mother church's highest leadership. Evil is everywhere and has influenced great thinkers and those that lead to move away from natural law and "values" --away from "GOD" and down the slippery slope to the fires of hell.

It is time to take stock of where "values" are and how to reclaim them before it is too late and salvation becomes just another word in need of re-clarifying for todays modern man.

Maybe the reason I trust and love my puppy Yodi so much is that "values" still exist in the animal kingdom and have remained constant where as in humanity it has become a lost art needing rebuilt--not re-defined.

Whew! Now this has been a mouthful today--but I always feel good getting these matters off my chest and out on the screen. Time to take a nap. If only I can get a small corner of the couch. Move over Yodi.