In way of analogy think of life in our country as a sports contest. Our
cultural values are the "rules of the game". All the citizens are the
referees. (Where else could we get enough people to officiate a
coast-to-coast event?) The referee's job is to judge when we are violating
a cultural rule. A dose of shame is the usual punishment for a violation.
What happens when the referees stop enforcing the rules? The "players" on
the field realize that no one is calling fouls and, therefore, push the
limits of acceptable behavior. We parents see similar deportment in our
two-year-olds! Fifty-year-old "businesschildren" likewise take advantage
of the situation by advertising that we should adopt their materialistic
values, ` la "swoosh". Special interests also bring in their own referees
(i.e. The entertainment industry developed its own TV program ratings).
Juvenile gangs also develop their own "rules of the game" to fill the void
of a perceived lack of a real culture.
These exploitations result in a call for stricter enforcement of cultural
values. Unfortunately the referees (us) still refuse to go back to work.
The call to "tighten up" is then directed to the public schools and the
police who gallantly respond but are under two onerous limitations. 1.
Their strength is only .01% of the previous referee force, and 2. They can
only enforce 10% of the cultural rules. (Only a relatively small number of
cultural values are formally codified into law.) For their reward they are
increasingly looked upon as "THEY" instead of "WE",
This leaves us with overloaded justice and educational systems which are
so inundated with cultural matters that they are barely performing their
primary mission. This also positions us for continued bombardment by
special interests messages while our chi ldren receive very few balancing
positive values messages. All this is possible because the good people
abdicated their responsibility as the culture keepers and allowed the
entrepreneurs, the charlatans and the odious to fill the vacuum.
Reversal of this trend will be difficult but is still possible. Not to
reverse this neglect could eventually lead to a revival of the atmosphere
perceived by Polish journalist. Ryszard Kapuscinski. "First you destroy
those who create values. Then you destroy those who know what the values
are, . . . . But real barbarism begins when no one can any longer judge or
know that what he does is barbaric."
Jim
James P. Needham
--"James P. Needham" <jamesn@azstarnet.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>