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| Social Values Vs Personal Values |
By:
BTCassidy 
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Plato proposed that social balance and justice was the point that existed exactly at the fulcrum of the values of society and the values of the individual. This is the point that describes which has priority in any given situation.
We are however fortunate, in that the right to have a belief, or a value, is sacrosanct, while the legality of acting it out may not be. You are, for example, allowed to believe that cannibalism is a fine thing- this is a personal value; if however, that personal value begins to impinge on the social value, that cannibalism is not a good thing, and then the social value is enforced above the personal value.
A better example, and more to the point, would be the practice of religion, in both America and Australia we allow the practice of any religion you care to name. If your deity is a beer keg in a hooters tee shirt, more power to you. Again, the caveat remains that should this practice intrude on the activities of the social values, at least with regard to justice, the social value will again be enforced. This is the only time, however, this should occur. It seems however, the social value has shifted on this topic, and the victims are Muslims in our culture of fear.
The social value has changed in response to a shift in the way a certain group of people were portrayed; we've no image of what a terrorist looks like, we've no idea, but we're told that they're Muslim, therefore, every Muslim is a terrorist, even if only in jest. We've made a social judgment that it's more likely that you're a terrorist if you are a Muslim.
Fortunately the Social Value, and the Personal Value are balanced against each other with a fine eye, but still, an inequity is starting to develop as public opinion follows government practice.
Social values, just like the personal values, are mutable things.
Their development mus t be nurtured with wisdom and an eye for what it will become in the future.
Social values are decided by us all, and like it or not, we are all involved with the process. When you turn your head away from someone begging for change to eat, you're making a judgment, from the chair of social values- it's our interactions with others that influence future behavior.
If you do this you help to wither away the underpinning of the social system of values- the idea that people care. |
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