With all the potential presidential candidates starting to declare, I’m expecting to hear a lot of them spouting forth on the necessity to protect values, much as in past campaigns. Frankly, I think that term is meaningless in such a broad sense, but I’d like to test my hunch with a very unscientific poll.
So, before you read any further, would you mind posting a list of what you consider to be “values” - try to keep to the top 6-10 or so. I think it would be interesting to see what comes to mind for different people. Maybe I’m all wet - maybe we do, on some level, agree on some core values.
Or maybe we’re all comedians and I’ll find out about good deals at your local StuffMart…
Appreciation - both as expressing thanks and as recognizing the value of a person or thing
I suppose you could sum this list up as the Golden Rule. Anyway, I don’t see “values” as protecting a way of life or passing judgement on any one group. Rather, they’re personal characteristics, personal guides to living, personal goals. Which is why I hate when politicians corrupt the term for their own ends.
serious answer here and not an intentional hijack. when I hear a candidate talk about values, I usually think they are hypocrites that don’t have any. Think Newt Gringrich as an example.
Serious answer too… Whenever I here of a politician speaking of family values, I always wonder why they support alcoholism, battered wives, and child abuse. Because honestly, no one person has the same “values” they speak of.
The lists are what “values” should mean, but in my experience, politicians use the term as code for “Christian values”, while assuming that everyone is Christian, and not leaving space for non-Christians.
If I hear a politician talk about “values”, there are two possibilities.
The set common to both parties:
Listen to the constituents
Don’t take bribes
Do what’s best for your district
The set from the conservatives:
4. Get married as early as possible and have tons of kids
5. Don’t fornicate or get a divorce
6. Beat the kids until they LIKE going to church
There’s no set from the Liberals because they don’t have values (snerk).
I get a similar impression. “Values” for some people, are seemingly vague concepts which have value in that they belong only to the favored group.
Every group has the same “values” when it’s all boiled down. Some people are just better at hiding and justifying their actions, at least in their own minds. In other words, “It’s only a problem if THEY do it.”
The funny thing is the more people talk about values the less they seem to have them. Dr Laura is estranged from her mother and has porno pictures on the web. Gingrich was married about a dozen times, Reagan was divorced and was estranged from at least one of his kids, Bush is a serial lier, O’Reilly had phone sex with a co-worker on his way to meet the Pope even though he (Bill, not the Pope) is married, that “Book of Values” clown has a serious gambling problem, etc. One of my relatives who always says grace before meals cheated on their spouse. Meanwhile my fellow heathen friends are boring, straight family types.
I think ‘hijack any word that sounds decent and then associate it with your corrupt ends’. So if you plan to set up an organization that fosters prejudice, call it ‘christian’ or ‘family’ or ‘American’ or ‘values’ or any combination of those words.
Values = honesty, morality, integrity, love/respect for your fellow human, equality, and justice.
In the political realm, this sometimes gets clouded. Much like the phrase “sanctity of marriage” is being tossed around. How could you not defend the sanctity of marriage? Of course, they are attaching that phrase to the notion of oppressing homosexuals. I am concerned about the sanctity of marriage, but that’s because it has been in jeopardy long before gay marriage became a hot topic. The word “values” has been hovering around this topic as well. The irony being that equality is a value.
If it’s a politician, I start thinking that they’re talking fundamentalist Christian “values,” which in more respects than they’d like to think I’d actually agree with, but the ones I don’t agree on are big ones I’m worried they’d want to impose. They’ll take my birth control out of my cold, dead hands, for one thing. And if I ever need an abortion but couldn’t get one because of them, I’d be pissed! And gay people don’t bother me in the slightest. And I don’t care so much what religion (or none) somebody is as long as they treat people decently, which includes not trying to make me play by their rules. You think X is wrong? Don’t do it. Don’t try to make me not do it.
So more or less, I get nervous when I hear that word being thrown around.
I feel silly doing this exercise. All of these things make up the core of what I feel to be important in life, but trying to define them this way seems like I’m somehow cheapening them. I just live my life, I try to do what love is. My most profound spiritual moments in life, the few times I’ve felt like, “Aha! This is absolutely the meaning of life!” drew one solitary conclusion: “All the matters is love. It is the core of existence. Everything else is delusion.” I might be wrong, you know, I can’t prove it–but that’s what’s at the core of my being. That’s the Sacred Truth to me.
When I hear "values’ in a political context, I think of it as clear manipulation… implying the “other side” doesn’t value the same thing, does not have the same common thread of human decency, that sort of thing. It’s a very divisive word IMHO… and essentially empty.
The thing with politicians is that they use the term “values” to get votes, and what mystifies me is why it seems to work!
But what I’d consider values if I used the word – things like what the other lists have said. Honesty, compassion, etc. It’s just that I’ve rarely heard anybody refer to values in any sense except from politicians, so my cynicism kicks in.