Moral values of society you live IN

To start with it’s necessary to mention that human spirit longs for liberation, not just economic or political but also for inner liberation from the down-drag of base instincts: hate, bitterness, greed and lust which all too easily enslave us.

People long to be themselves, to have a sense of worth and purpose in life, to be able to contribute of their time and talent. It requires recognition that we are first and foremost spiritual beings in the age of information overload. Nowadays social values are deeply changed in comparison with those our parents possessed. Our motives are hardly guided today by moral standards of honesty, purity, selflessness and love for others. In my opinion people are starting to lose the wellsprings of wisdom and insight, therefore they urgently need the advice of trustworthy friend instead of succumbing to peer pressure and the spirit of age.

If we compare present values of the pluralistic society with Victorian ones, we can clearly notice that in those times much attention was paid to self-reliance and self-respect. People worked hard to improve themselves, they lived within their income, they gave a hand to each their neighbors and were good members of their community. Nowadays thanks to the development of voluntary work one can observe a tremendous improvement in the society but sometimes even simple moral principles like” love the neighbor as thyself” can be forgotten. The me first philosophy prevails instead, which justifies all actions in terms of self-interest, rather than the common good. The old authorities-parents, school, church, government have declined its influence. Now the following approach exists among young people ‘No one else has the right to decide by which values I run my life’. Rebellion usually follows. Today’s unwilling bible infant is tomorrow’s drug dealer. Amusingly but a liberal, laissez-fair approach to moral upbringing sometimes produces rebellion of a different kind. No doubt people need moral rearmament and should preserve moral values if they don’t want to turn into savage animals and be left to their own devices.

Anyway everything should start with the family itself. People need to prevent the family from breakdown and a moral education should strive to bring out the good and ’redirect’ the evil. I think that moral values are more successfully imparted by example than dictat. The most important thing for a parent to do is to love their child. Love breeds love and love lies in the basis of morality. If passing on moral values becomes an issue for all the families, we may get rid of a lot of antagonism and angst involved.

Reasons: sexual revolution of the 1960 and the contraceptive pill opened the floodgates of promiscuity.skjueti

Now observe: battery, rape and murder, massacre of children, child-abuse and drug-related deaths, fraud, divorces, overcrowded prisons, civic disorder, increasing violence, steady erosion of racial, sexual, class prejudices.

Result: morality was privatized; one could do whatever wanted as long as didn’t harm anyone else.

Individualism that had won the battle over collectivism seriously damaged social cohesion.

Moral rearmament started i n 1920-s, it was first called the Oxford Group; the main idea was to call for a moral, spiritual rearmament.

1938 - The organization was renamed to moral rearmament (countries should improve morality to unleash wars)

2001 -the name of the movement was changed, now they were called initiatives of change, they aim-healing the wounds of history where countries and civilizations live, strengthening moral and spiritual foundation of democracy, encouraging care, responsibility in family and life, cultural relationships, tackling the root causes of poverty, corruption.

Practical activities: before 1930-simply preaching

1935 -helped to set up an organization “Alcoholics anonyms”

1946 -opened an international conference centre in Switzerland

1947 -did a lot to reconcile the nations that participated in the war, stabilized situation in Europe

1949- held several conferences, contributed to the national development in the post-war years (Japan), helped to achieve independence to African countries

1950 -established centers

1965 -organized a branch of the movement that later developed into a global educational program.

The President -the formal President of International Red Cross Cornelia Samaruga Gandhi

It is evident that every epoch gives birth to its own list of values, produces its own types of people and provides the society with its own ways of life and ways of behaviour. Some of them are really harmful. We cannot say that the morals of Victorian age can be all adapted to our time, or that all the values of the Soviet time should be alive today in our society.

But still the present day situation seems to be awful. Moral standards of honesty, purity, selflessness and love for others are losing their power day by day. They don’t guide the life of most people in our society any more. I am not exaggerating. It is just enough to go out for a walk at night to the places where lots of young people get together. The way they behave, the things most of them are talking about leave much to be desired. The objectives for some today are money, clothes, easy life full of entertainment. It is not too bad to wish it all, but something more eternal should be on the 1-st place, otherwise you are alone; in spite of being accompanied by numerous friends you are alone with your materialistic world, created on your own. And what about those people around you, can they be called friends? Trustworthy friends? Or maybe this very world has lost its genuine meaning and now it means just people, who are with you till you not face difficulties and hard times? So are these many people nowadays who can say I have got a real friend? Hardly. But why? The answer seems to be simple. Some people like to be given without any inclination to give. When they do give, they expect something in return. That’s the problem. Then love… Nowadays it has got, acquired some new shapes, new shades, but not all of them can be accepted.

What about the young generation? The generation that was brought up by greedy monsters from cartoons, by computer games where the winner is that who kills more, finds more money, who is cunning and sly, and those books, full of black humour, social problems and brainless characters. If we take into account the picture created by these means, that illustrate a tiny copy of the world around, we can imagine what kind of people the society is producing day by day. A child’s soul is the most vulnerable point of any society, because a child is a sponge that absorb everything without understanding. But we seem to have forgotten about it. Who is guilty? We are.

The examples of moral decline are endless, but the results will bring end to our society until everyone stops and thinks over: what is going on.

Of course no one is perfect in this world and, as it is axiomatic that each generation is worse than the last.

Unfortunately today we can observe changes of the moral values. Moral standards of honesty, purity, love for others disappeared. Instead of them we face individualism, greed, lust, hypocrisy, me first philosophy, sexual freedom. And as the result of these changes in the way of thinking and behaving we come across breakdowns in the family, drug and alcohol abuse, increasing violence and civil disorder. Essential parts of our society nowadays are money, sex, drugs, crime, religion and politics. We have created a society which can produce torture and murder of children, rape and child abuse, violence in the family. Taken together they form a swelling tide of anger, bewilderment and despair.

I don’t want to say that this decline in moral values takes place only in the modern society. No doubts that these problems have existed before, but nowadays they took a very dangerous rise. And it’s hard to say what the reasons of it are. It was growing step by step. It was sexual revolution in 1960s and the creating of the contraceptive pill; it was greed is good culture of the 1980s and the victory of the individualism over collectivism worldwide by the end of the decade; it was increasing violence and sex on TV; alarming increase in violent crimes, rape and child abuse; then came “me first” philosophy which justifies all actions in terms of self-interest, rather than the common good. The great issue of our time is the tension between freedom and constraints, rights and duties. The old authorities – parents, school, church, government – have declined in influence. No one else, it is held, has the right to decide by which values I run my life. The danger with that approach, of course, is that I tend to judge myself by my ideas and others by their behavior. Everyone blame others. It’s necessary to change “me first” philosophy and put other people’s needs at the 1st place just to make the world better and do not blame each other. But the simple way out from this situation is to start with ourselves. If each person began with what they could do, where they are, to put things right and to set new standards, then we might soon see a difference.

If people are guided by certain moral values they improve the society for the better. Everybody knows the Biblical principle: “Be kind with people if you want them be kind with you”. When you help others you improve yourselves.