The following exchange is from Dialogue Group 5, Thread 9.

1. Fix Bottom Line Values
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - /EST
ladeyj

How do we fix this bottom line value system that has taken over our country. Gone are values that can/will sustain a nation, a civilization, a people. Gone is an equitable distribution system -- let em go without, says the rich man; my contribution is more valueable and important as he makes distruction in one form or another. We are going in the wrong direction in my view. Anybody got a map that will get us there????

4. Personal responsibility
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 5:56 AM/EST
Norseman

Okay. Now we want a return to a more traditional value system that once reigned in this country.

How can we do that when we don't hold The President responsible for his immoral actions ? He has desecrated The Office of The President to the point that he his now reffered to as Prez, Clinton, or worse. There was a time when The President was held in such high regard that we would never have considered not calling him by his rightful title. The person that sits in the highest seat in the land must lead by example. It has to start there.

How can we return to higher values when no one is held responsible for their actions ? People have an excuse for everything they do, no more are they responsible. "It's not my fault, my daddy spanked me." OH BS !!

5. Personal Responsibility
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 7:26 AM/EST
Mr Shev

I personally found it a ludicrous notion that Bill Clinton should be impeached because of his, suppossed, immoral actions! He had an affair - or a number of them - which is an act not unheard of in the later half of the 20th century. He lied? Show me a politician that doesn't. The whole episode seemed like a bit of a witch-hunt to me. I say: better the devil you know...

7. Personal Responsibility
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 1:42 PM/EST
Robin

I have Attention-Deficit Disorder. This has been clinically diagnosed, and I therefore have an excuse that will hold up in court for most anything I do. However, I have NEVER blamed any of my actions on my affliction. I take responsibility for my actions not because I have to, but because it is the right thing to do.

The point of this is that I didn't need the President (or anyone else) to lead me by the nose to my personal responsibility or my values. A "traditional value system" has to start with our parents and ourselves, not in Washington.

10. family values
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 2:39 PM/EST
rahani

Want a contrast between dark and light? Examine American values 200 years ago and now. Examine school curriculum 200 years ago and compare it to what is taught today. Look at where children spent their free time two centuries ago and look at what they spend it today. Sure there was infidelity. Sure there were murders. Sure there was politics, and lawyers, and liars, but individual family values reigned supreme. Respect, Honesty, Integrity, Courteousness, and Belief in God were taught around the dinner table. Not anymore.... Now as a country we are too preoccupied trying to pass, push, and ramrod legislation that extracts and excuses the consequences of our actions. Individual rights has become a cryptic synonym for irresponsibility.

11. 10.
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 7:13 PM/EST
Ronin

ladeyj,
I do not believe that the situation you are referring to is really so much a matter of values as of the nature of people. There is no system of equitable distribution to return to, as greed and thought for individual power has dominated history. Systems that hail towards total equality and classless systems have proved ineffective in practice because of the unwillingness of many people to look past their own needs and wants. Now, I do not claim that people are incapable of experiencing a more selfless nature, but that there does not exist the proper guidance towards that road. I believe that greed and the bugaboo of "me" stem from the basic desire of people to survive. Instinct recognizes the fact that we need certain things to survive, and in a society that reduces the direct ability to survive (e.g. hunting, gathering, and direct trading for what we need) we juxtapose the strive for survival with the desire for money. We reach a point in which we want more and more, because we cannot instinctively quantify the gains that we achieve. Do not get me wrong. I make no excuses for greed. However, maybe we go about achieving a more correct mindset in the wrong fashion. I concur that discipline along these lines begin in the home, however, the parents must achieve a state without greed before it can be passed down.

12. who's traditional values?
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 8:28 PM/EST
Les Ismore

all this talk about Americans wanting to return
to traditional family values makes me laugh.
Who's traditions?
Who's values?
the founding fathers?
the framers of our sacred constitution?
Pat Robertson's?
Over my dead body!
lets not forget that our beloved founders were
all rich white men, most of whom were slave owners. They never invisioned poor black women
having equal footing in the eyes of the law.
if you're talking about the mythical Ozzie &
Harriot "way we never were" values of the 50's,
lets not forget the political and economic
inequality of that era. Anyone remember lynchings?
the only base line values that I agree to are
freedom, equality, and justice. All suspeciously
missing from our beloved constitution.
lets burn the stupid, outdated thing and write
a new one.

13. Some Good Points, But --
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 8:32 PM/EST
ladeyj

Ronin, I agree that we need to be directed away from greed, but most often that occurs with a big stick or some hefty laws with big penalties. As the generation that raised two baby boomer kids, I am shocked at the meism that came out of that generation -- I mean, where did we go wrong????? Last time I looked, I was preaching God, fellowman and even country! You are right, too, that we are stuck with the human condition -- human nature, and I think some people are more inclined to be greedy than others -- just by their nature. Esther Harding, a '20s psychoanalyst wrote a great book, Psychic Energy (not New Agey stuff, but serious material well-worth reading), says that the modern communion service derived from the need of hunting tribes transitioning to grower/gatherer tribes (for a variety of reasons)to remind themselves not to be greedy and eat their seed corn -- which would have been mighty important at that time; there were no super markets or refrigerators. In some circles, greed is useful. If you are a lion, tiger or bear, tis a good idea to fill up while you can as you can never be sure when or where the next meal will come from. Now, however, we live in a different world. And my question: how do we find the most successful adaptation to that world? Seems to me going back to robber barron days with a need for Charles Dickens to tell us about ourselves, debtor's prison, etc. is not the best choice. In my view, we are not thinking. Incidentally, your point that money is not intrinsically satisfying is a good one that I certainly had not thought about. But I guess Mick said it all: I can't get no satisfaction!

17. Values: Myth or Fact?
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 9:43 PM/EST
Gabriele

In the good ole days - families seemed to be working together as a team because they had to.....work from dawn to dusk and no school during harvest time. The problems we face as a society were then there also: domestic abuse, drug/alcohol abuse, etc. - many feuds were settled using guns or duels and life was difficult except for a precious few......

Nowadays, families also work together albeit in a different rythm......get up earlier, rush, rush, rush, overplan, overdo, overspent....so you have to make more money....and have less time....

Domestic violence is still a Number one problem - along with child abuse, neglect and abandonment....except now we have CNN......who will give us the news 24 hours a day/7 days a week until we are numb to the pain of others....

I believe, we have grown as humans - and maybe there is a divine plan that we humans will always have problems....and few solutions...but it is in the trying we often find inner peace and harmony.

Gabriele

18. Overwhelmed
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 10:30 PM/EST
Caelain

Okay, I didn't check my e-mail for a couple of days because I have other responsibilities. I find out my group has formed and come to check it out and a couple of hours later I've managed to wade through a lot of posts.

Hello! Sorry, I'm a little late to the gathering.

I'm sitting in the office of my cozy little home in a North Dallas suburb, thinking about moving back to my little home town, desiring a more authentic life. I'd like to live in a neighborhood where folks sit on their front porches after dinner and people walk up and down the street saying "hello" and talking about the weather. I'd like to live simply and well below my means, while enabling my wife to raise and educate our children. I'm hoping that education will be about interaction with elders, adults, and children of all ages; about time out in a natural environment; about the development of some desired art or craft; about the truths of many wonderful religions and brilliant men and women, about the simple virtues of kindness, peace, compassion, and empathy; about the awesomeness of reality from the Big Bang to Beethoven's Ninth; about whatever my children want to learn about.

We live in a society of 275,000,000 + people, serving a free market largely with the base drives and appetites we inherited from millions of years of evolution. In less than 100 years, our technology, industrialization and public school systems have forcibly yanked us out of the authenticity of our interpersonal relationships. Where once folks were raised to know how to build things, grow things, and cook things, we now raise the majority of folks to be dependent on others. We, as a society, probably cannot return to the pre-industrial world. Nor, perhaps, should we want to. But, I, as an individual can decide to start really thinking about how much of this so-called American Dream I wish to purchase. So, there are rich folks, and crooked politicians, and a sex-addict in the White House. I'm more concerned about yet another day of my life going by without the authenticity of real interpersonal relations.

19. I'm so happy!
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 11:18 PM/EST
ChuckL

Caelain:

Wow, stupendous post! Reading this thread has been most heartening. Since adolescence, when the first inkling of "world consciousness" set in, I've been sure that human beings in our present state cannot possibly be the pinnacle of evolution. With our senseless violence (and this takes many forms, including spiritual, emotional and economic) we sometimes seem like cavemen with computers. "Surely we can be better!" I've often thought to myself.

Some of these posts have enlightened me to the fact that, yes, our technological evolution has outpaced our spiritual evolution. We still operate on biosurvival instincts, even when most of us have far more than we need.

As I look at the insightful posts here, my heart is filled with joy that, yes, we may be on the road to something better. Each individual is far more significant than we imagine, as our thoughts and actions make waves which extend to the distant shores of the pond of human existence; six degrees of separation and all that. Making a concerted, disciplined effort to fill my own heart with kindness, tolerance and love has contributed greatly to my personal fulfillment, but it goes "out there" as well. Keep up the good work, folks.

22. morality, family values and all that crap
Wed, Dec 2, 1998 - 1:00 PM/EST
me45

I totaly agree with morality, but not one centered morality. The right-wing christian may want quite a few thing different than the left-wing athiest, morality is not the same allways! Family values: when I read one of the posts above, I was horrified, saying that things were better 200 years ago. I say it wasn't, we made a trade off, you want to know what the whole problem comes down to? Greedy, glutonous corporations in a capitalist society! Sorry if I sound like a radical communist (I'm not).
Today we can have all the rights we didn't have in the past, with more freedom, technological advances, and so on. Time didn't mess us up in our thinking/morality. 200 years ago maybee families were a little closer, but then again alot of those families owned slaves, or beat thier kids. 30 years ago, and still today it was practically a crime to be non-white! We're getting more and more "equal", but I don't ever think we can be truely equal in a society where money is used (it causes seperations of classes).
Go watch Pleasantville, the movie kind of centers around how things haven't gotten worse since the 50's sterotype happy, loving family.

23. Something larger than "me"
Wed, Dec 2, 1998 - 1:15 PM/EST
Bruce

This is turning out a lot better than I had hoped! Finally, intelligent life on the planet!

How many of you would agree that things started changing radically sometime in the late sixties or early seventies? The reason I ask is because I think that at least part of the problems we're dealing with today are an outgrowth of that time.

Bet that raises a few eyebrows, but let me explain. Prior to that time, we had problems, sure, but they weren't anything like what we're looking at today. And I think that part of that scenario stemmed from the fact that the nation as a whole had major issues to contend with, whether manufactured or real.

Most of us in this group and in this project have a good deal of *personal* confidence, but on a national scale the pysche is somewhat different. As a nation we lack confidence, and I say this because we don't have anything to help us generate that confidence.

Think back a bit and recall how we as a nation felt when Kennedy purposed to put a man on the moon. Or when we held our own again a perceived threat from Communist Russia, or fought the World Wars. Maybe history buffs can tell us something about previous centuries when the people of this nation expanded into its frontiers and conquered the land. While not every citizen was directly involved in any of these efforts, nevertheless the country as a whole was, and as it moved closer and closer to its perceived goals, the confidence of the nation as a whole rose higher and higher. Confidence isn't given, it's created.

This particular thread is dealing with setting baseline values, a foundation upon which our society can operate. I believe that, as a nation, this will not happen until we face a challenge proportional to the need of national confidence. Only when we feel capable as a nation will we accept the responsibility for our actions, and adopt a moral standard that we all agree to.

Solving problems isn't the answer. Why? I'd have to say the reason is twofold. First, any given problem isn't big enough; it doesn't directly involve enough people to affect everybody. Second, problems are like weeds. You can kill 'em "here," and they'll just crop up somewhere else. We'll always have them.

What I believe we need is a real whopper of a challenge, something that everybody in the country can identify with. Something on the order of how we perceive ourselves. I've always believed that this country is a nation of explorers, builders, conquerers, movers and shakers. We need something on that order to pull us together as a nation, something that gets us away from contemplating our navels and focuses our attention away from ourselves and our own personal desires and gets us looking outward toward achieving that goal. It might mean that we have to sacrifice some of our own ambitions and desires, but gain never comes without sacrifice.