Human Values
Values are not what humanity is, but what humanity ought to be
The recent lynching of man over allegation of illegal storing of beef in fridge by a mob is a state of minds of that society. This shows how we treat the humans in modern world.How backword the humanity is.
In the situation of rohinga refugee crisis. It shows the inability of the international community for safety of them and it security of human life.
The killing of puppies by a medicos at chennai shows the pathetic benchmark of humanity that was presented in digital world.
The above example shows the conditions of humanity in present day world. The word HUMANITY signifies two parts. First part HUMAN which signifies the quality of life and ITY says the ability to respond. The humanity can only exhibit by living being that is Human Beings. The humans of any caste, creed, race, ethnic, language, culture and religion can be coexisted and come on platform that is HUMANITY.
As Plato once said "Bring all gold and all silver upon the earth and inside the earth, you cannot equate with a VIRTUES MAN".
Values:
The values are the individual beliefs that motivate people to act one way or another. They serve as a guide for human behaviour.
Values can be different from culture to culture and even person to person.
Values integrate social relations, build societies and create norms to guide day to day behaviour.
They are two types of values
- Terminal values
- Instrumental values
Terminal values are end in itself. They are mostly goals. They include Family, Security, Freedom, Equality, Happiness, Self-respect, Inner harmony etc.
Instrumental values are means to achieve something. They include Honest, Independent, Intellectual. Logical, Loving, Obedient, Clean, Forgiving etc.
The main source of values to Humans is derived from many institutions and frameworks. They are
Family
Friends and Peers
Communities
Schools or Informal Education setups
Media
Organisations
History
Religion
When world is becoming global village where information and wealth is multiplying in fast track the stories of humanity and values are becoming dim and poor.
Some examples
- The child labour is still continuing and many small scale industries which are harmful to environment and health are employing children in factories.
- The respect to women in working places in both developing and developed world always faces a challenge. The "Me to movement" really show the dark side of Hollywood and Bollywood.
- The global north which is historical emitter of pollution takes less responsibility for safeguarding the climate change. Recent USA coming out of Paris deal shows such ugly face of the big nation.
- NCRB data shows the growing rate of farmer suicides because of debt traps and poor income.
- The modern India still has large number of manual scavenging practice. This shows the threat of human dignity and self-respect.
Even in national and international arenas the tyrants are always enemy of welfare of humanity. For the political reasons, religion supremacy or racial supremacy many wars and crimes against humanity taken place because of leadership of tyrants. Many rulers are leaders came to the political platform with promise of welfare of humanity but they end up becoming as tyrants.
From local to national level the politics of the day is largely Corrupted, Inefficient, not trust worthy and unethical. This made the politics an unattractive to educated and able citizens and seen as last resort for bad people. But, leader like Mahatma Gandhi told, the politics is best job to opt for serving the humanity. The values of transparency, accountability and responsibility and service to mankind and security of life need to be ensure by political system.
Aristotle as once told "A man who live without society is either beast or a god". So, the society need to provide a platform for individuals and institutions for exercising the value system and leverage benefit out of it. With all the knowledge, technology and wealth today man is becoming more secluded from the society and had less awareness about the environment. Such individuals lag emotions which is core part of humanity. The values of Emotional intelligence need to be inculcate in kids right from the school age and need to identify the value system in them other than academic performance. A society with less emotional base is will be a mechanical society. In such places value to gentleness, beauty, smile, humour
A great thinker like "Immanuel Kant" propounded the idea of "Kingdom of ends" according to which if everyman think other man as end than the world would be a beautiful place to live in. He also told "Act only to such a maxim that your action shall be and same time will be in accordance with universal law". This put the man to execute the right behaviour towards the other. In reality national leaders who are following excluding principles are targeting the minority communities and denying the social political rights. The recent events of protectionist steps taken by USA political leaders really question the Globalisation and Free society.
The world is not all bad and less motivated for humanity. The people in recent past became a stars of humanity and proved time and again that humanity still living on the face of earth. The examples like Mother Teresa for unconditional love, Abdul Kalam for selfless service, Mahatma Gandhi for peace concept, Anna Hazare etc are examples of good values. They are many best people in society where we can learn many humane values. So, what we required is human touch in society not just living as humans.
There is little difference between 'Being Human' and ' Being Humane'. The difference need to be filled.
First of all there is need of "Role models" in society.
Second is respect the "Value system" in society
Third is "Education". As Vivekananda once said, "Education is The Manifestation of The Perfection already in man". Education should build the body of mind with value base. Family has a role, society has role and nation as a whole has a role. More than education the virtues need to be respected in society.
Being human is given by birth but keeping our humanity is our choice. Humans lose their human entity if they do not follow the humanity. Human is a man or women but Humanity is adjective. The greatness of humanity lies not in "human being" but to be "humane beings". The greatest test threat to mankind is missing man. Without kindness man will be missing man.
Even though there are many examples and situations of poverty of humanity. Not all of them value less or not all of them loseing the human touch. World is still best place to live in not because of technology, not because of infrastructure or roads, not because of more wealth in world but because of the good human beings living in the world. As Mahatma Gandhi told "Don't lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean if you drop some dirt in ocean the entire ocean will not become dirty".
Comments
Post a Comment