"MORALS VERSUS VALUES"  

 

     I have received several inquiries regarding my concept of "morals" and "values".  I shall attempt to answer in this manner.

 

    Now please remember this is only MY concept, gleaned from a varied lifetime of personal experiences, studies, and observation.  I cannot label it an opinion, because it is the way I live my life.

 

    In Rainbow Six, by Tom Clancy - the Russian agent Popov thinks this thought (page 45) - "Morals were always variable things, depending on the culture, experiences, and principals of individual men and women."

 

    To carry it further - Morals, like values, depend on the individual (or group) cultures, experiences, environment, and principles.  "Values" often change according to the growth potential of the individual (or group) - whether material, spiritual, psychological, or circumstance oriented.  "Morals", on the other hand, appear to be an inherent imbued concept, which once taught remain a basic constant.  The conflict arises when one's 'values' of the moment come into opposition with one's 'morals'.  Unfortunately, it is often the morals which take the hind stance and bows to the values.  The resultant stress from the conflict can have multiple and long lasting effects, although the original cause is forgotten or repressed.

 

    Occasionally values AND morals can interrelate in a positive manner.  You are pulled over for speeding by a police officer - your children are in the car with you - and you do not attempt to talk or lie your way out of a ticket, but instead, simply admit to wrongdoing and the resultant penalty.  Or, you find a wallet filled with money and identification of the owner - you return it totally intact, although your friends tell you to keep the money.  You have just showed to your children that honesty is the only way, nothing else is acceptable.  This shows a prime of what far reaching effects following a moral path can do to instill a value judgement which will reach into adulthood and beyond.

 

    I like to believe I am a man of good 'morals' (according to my sense of balance) - and admit to past 'value' misalignments (which turned out less than aspired to).  In the times when both my 'moral' and 'value' were attuned - when I listened and acted accordingly, the positive results were predictable.

 

    The morals/values which we in the Unites States attempt, as a whole, to accept for a 'norm' are different from those who live in other countries, with different religions, economics, tribulations, status factors, etc.  This does not make ours correct (or right) - nor does it make theirs wrong.

 

    With the world growing smaller each day, we can but hope for a mutual understanding and possible acceptance of the varied concepts facing the entirety.  Just within the confines of a neighborhood alone observe the multiple problems surfacing because of differences of values/morals, then transfer it to society as a  whole.

 

    Quite an image, isn't it?