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Are there any eternal (constant) values?

There are no constant or eternal values. The idea of constancy comes from an antiquated view of a stable or static world.

Values change as the environment changes. Values cannot be de­coupled from other forces in society: economics—social life—tech­nology.

Values change roughly at the same rate as technological change.

Resistances to new technology are just as tenacious and widespread as resistances to new values. In fact people resist new technology mainly because a change of hardware inevitably brings a change of pace and lifestyle and values.

Yet people everywhere assume that new technology and changing world conditions unfold against a backdrop of never-changing values. As though values existed in a vacuum.

For example conservative leaders in the United States and in Europe push for new technology and resources yet stress the need to hold on to "traditional values."

Saudi Arabian leaders import billions of dollars of new technology yet insist that they do not want their "sacred traditions" tampered with.

Parents in slow communities around the planet send their offspring to faraway universities to study social sciences and world affairs and nuclear physics yet caution them not to forget their "traditional way of life."

Does any of this make sense? Is it possible to have communication satellites—global television—supercomputers—supersonic transports —birth control devices and still hold on to "traditional values"?

The new technology and the global economy are playing havoc with traditions everywhere in the world.

Love—loyalty—respect—success—unity—responsibility—sacri­fice—efficiency—truth—integrity—all these meant one thing at one time. They mean something else today. They will mean something radically different in twenty or thirty years.

For example at one time holding on to a career—a job—a home for a lifetime was considered a sign of responsibility. The person who changed spouses—jobs—careers was considered irresponsible and un­stable.

In our times such continuity is not only increasingly difficult. It is not even desirable. We now value the person who is able to retool and move on.

Our perceptions of success and failure are also changing.

For hundreds of years any rich or famous or powerful person was considered successful. Success for men meant making a lot of money or reaching the top of the bureaucratic ladder. Nobody bothered to question the quality of such people's lives.

Success for women meant "landing a husband." Rarely was the quality of the marriage questioned.

Our concepts of success have changed as evidenced by the number of people who have dropped out of the bureaucratic rat race and the tens of millions of women and men who are not marrying—or who disconnect if the quality of the marriage is not to their liking.

We now gauge success by new standards: How much self-fulfillment is there in your life? How much personal growth? Creativity? Leisure?



What about loyalty—purity—faithfulness in "relationships"? At one time this meant not ever makinglove with anyone except your spouse. In our fluid times sexual loyalty often means confining yourself to one lover for a few weeks or months or a couple of years. For millions of men and women who have multiple lovers sexual loyalty has no meaning at all. (The current sexual retrenchment brought on by the fear of AIDS is temporary. Before long a cure will be found for AIDS. But the shifts in values are long-term and in my view irreversible.)

We are tampering with even more fundamental truths—"absolute truths."

For example until recent times death was final and irreversible. Once a person died—that was it. This was an "absolute truth''—a ' 'universal truth." In our times thousands of people are brought back from death —through cardiopulmonary resuscitation and other techniques. What was an absolute truth is no longer so absolute.

At one time "leaving this world" meant dying. To the religious it meant going to a heaven or a hell. If you were not in this world you were dead. This too was an absolute truth. In our times people routinely liftoff in spacecraft and freefall outside this world. Months later they reenter our world.

More and more such "eternal verities" will be reversed in the coming years. As these basic "constants" change our social values and ethics change also.

The fact that our ' 'eternal" truths and social values change is reason for hope. It proves the dynamism of us humans.


Date: 2015-02-28; view: 851


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