Traditional values

Home

The importance of values is critical to any dis­cussion of poverty, crime, illegitimacy, drug abuse, riots, mental illness, or radicalism. People fall into these because they haven’t matured and developed solid values. When in teaching, politics, and social work, I saw most liberal values do a lot of damage.

Liberal values	Traditional values
Psychology
Blame your folks	responsible for yourself.
Traditional values caused today’s problems	false
Permissive	firm
Self-expression & assertion whenever	when appropriate
‘Relationships’ are basic to progress	false
Fires, floods, etc. require mental health teams	false
‘Recovery’ from these is painful	not necessarily
Getting fired is traumatic	not necessarily
Flee stress and depression	they are part of life.
Problems are the result of wrong thinking	false
Feeling good comes 1st	false
We’re all victims	false
Education
Teachers’ 1st concern is those at the bottom of the class	false
Education is the cure-all	false
Schools are the primary influence on kids	families are
School should mean social success	should prepare one for work
Society owes everyone a college education	false
Poverty
Society is wrong; the underdog is right	hardly
Poverty is unbearable	false
Poverty is undignified	one’s dignity doesn’t depend on one’s income
Entitled to minimum standards	to what one earns
Menial work is undignified	utterly false
Help all of the poor	help the deserving poor
Provide for them	meet them half way
Misc
Generation gap	not among the well-adjusted
Venerate the young	they have their place
Adults must understand youth, not visa versa	false
New ways and ideas are better	occasionally
Avoid problems	confront them
Self-pity	get on with life
The fast lane	prudence, moderation, wholesomeness
Instant gratification	thrift, save, planning
Me first	the golden rule
Equal opportunity means equal results	absurd
Life owes one a living	self-reliance
The government owes one a living	self-reliance
Income and job security	self-reliance
Problems are ‘diseases’	false
People are not responsible for their behavior	utterly false
Rights	responsibilities
More rights for students, runaways, criminals, derelicts, mental patients, the poor, etc	fewer
Everything is complex	the principles involved are simple
A day’s pay	a day’s work
Business should provide more benefits	fewer
Only positives	false
Winning is everything	false
Everyone wins	false
School, work, etc. have to be fun	false
Love is all you need	false
Don’t forbid something or someone will try it.	laws are a fact of life
More tolerant of gambling, pornography	less tolerant
Tolerance of sexual explicitness is a sign of maturity	of poor taste
Titillation, lust	taste, modesty
Never impose values	false
Lower standards for the disadvantaged	that hurts them
Responsibility starts on top (the pol, soc, econ systems)	at the bottom (the person, family, community).
Authority, discipline, and punishment are bad	false

Traditional values

1. Capitalism
2. Less government – more privatization
3. Responsibility (the most important)
4. Foresight (thrift, saving, planning)
5. Self-reliance (rather than a welfare state)
6. The golden rule (relia­bility, honesty, good faith, fairness, manners, respect for property, authority, elders, and ethnic groups).
7. Law and order, authority, discipline, punishment
8. Family teamwork, hard work, diligence, modera­tion, restraint, whole­some­ness, modesty, self- respect, one’s appearance, practical educa­tion, some censorship and conformity

These became traditional because they worked. Respon­sibility is the most important and the one so much of our culture has been tried to duck since the mid 60s. Scratch a criminal, derelict, or addict and you’ll find irresponsibility. Scratch those wallowing in self-pity on daytime talk shows and you find irresponsibility. Scratch a socialist and you’ll find an idealistic ‘liberal’ taking respon­sibility from the in­dividual and the family and putting it on the government.

As much damage as liberals have done, some of their values have been better:

1. More openness about public figures instead of putting them on a pedestal
2. More openness about battered spouses, the gay world, addiction, child abuse, incest, abortion, euthanasia, impotence, single parenting, alternate lifestyles, birth control, intermarriage
3. More open-mindedness about premarital relations in long term, responsible relationships
4. More acceptance of ethnic diversity
5. More acceptance of separation & divorce
6. More rights for minorities, women, homosexuals, youth, the handicapped
7. More questioning of religion
8. Getting to the root of one’s problem instead of ‘keeping it all in’

 

Comments

Home