Values of the 21st Century

Living in the 21st century is confusing, there are so many pressures we face every day

that sometimes it is hard to stay true to yourself. Everyone has different ideas of what is right and

wrong, even our government tries to instill some of their ideas on us through laws and

regulations. Religious groups give you a good moral guideline to follow, but ultimately it is

something you must decide for yourself and something you have to be willing to uphold when it

is questioned and put to the test. Values are what differ us from animals, they are what makes us

human, the ability to “make, and act upon, value judgments.”1 We have the ability to choose the

standards by which we live our lives, we can learn from our mistakes and reevaluate and make

changes necessary.

What are values and where do they come from? Values are a set of moral and ethical

guidelines that you develop throughout your life. They are simple things like not lying to others,

treat others as you want to be treated or more serious things like taking another human life is

wrong. These are all things that you learn starting from your early childhood and hopefully

throughout your adult life as well. As a child you are taught by parents, siblings, and friends’

things you should and shouldn’t do. Throughout your childhood many of your values probably

reflected those of your parents. Things that they wanted to teach you, things that they believe are

important. If you grew up attending any sort of religious activities, you were taught more values

that are important. But there comes a time in your life when you need to decide for yourself

which of those values you will hold onto from your childhood.

1
Susan L. Anderson, We are our Values (It Begins with Our Questions, by Paul Allen, PhD; Claire Peterson, MA
2015) pg. 7
 Susan L. Anderson discusses the five pressures in contemporary American society that

have discouraged people from examining the values they live by. 2 The first being, the emphasis

on bottom-line economics in our culture. Second, Conditions of modern society not conductive

to long-term social relationships. Third, Multiculturalism and the acceptance of ethical

relativism. Fourth, the collapsing of morality into legality. Fifth, New, complicated ethical issues

and conflicting perspectives from ethicists. Each of these pressures talks about various issues she

see’s in our current society and how each of them effects our ability to properly evaluate our

values.

Money rules our society today, most decisions we make are based around the value we

place on our time and money. Is it worth my time, is it financially worthwhile, etc. We are so

focused on what is to be gained financially that we often forget our values when making these

decisions. Anderson says, “We need, therefore, to think about what it is that we do value in life,

what is more important than money.” 3 This leads into the second pressure she discusses, long-

term social relationships. Many of us do not hold a high value on any long-term relationships

expect those of our immediate family. Even those tend to be getting more distant these days as

well. In the past you spent a great deal of time with the same people, your tribe if you will, from

the time you were born likely until the day that you die. It was part of the way of life, taking care

of those in your community and in turn them helping you. Today we treat people as a

“disposable commodities”4, few people place value on keeping long-term relationships, even

though we are social creatures by nature.

2
Anderson, We are our values (It Begins with Our Questions) pg. 8
3
Anderson, We are our values, pg. 8
4
Anderson, We are our values, pg. 8
 Next Anderson talks of multiculturalism and the acceptance of ethical values5, she draws

on a very important point by saying, “We may have much to learn from other cultures, and in

any case we must figure out how to co-exist with them,” We live in a society that is surrounded

by many different cultures, each with their own set of beliefs and values that accompany those

beliefs. If we take the time to learn of the cultures around us, it makes us better people. We are

better able to understand where they come from and why they might do certain things. She

continues by stating, “but this does not require an automatic acceptance of their values.” This is

important because you should hold to your own values, just because you are trying to understand

their beliefs, does not mean that you are required to accept their values. Their values are no

better than yours and your values are no better than theirs. She emphasizes that instead you must

try to understand them so that you can co-exist in a peaceful society.

Morality and legality are two issues that Anderson believes do not go hand in hand.

People tend to believe that because something is legally alright that it must also mean it is

morally okay. We tend to throw out our morals and instead live by the laws that are administered

to us by the government, they cannot oversee governing our moralities as well. We need to be

responsible for differentiating for ourselves our morality, as the laws that are in place do not

cover ethics. Lastly Anderson writes about new ethical issues that we face in our society. She

points out that with the major advances we see everyday we also need to be reevaluating our

values to go along. We have a lot of technology that is changing every day, we have the ability to

do many things with medicine that we never have before. We can keep someone “alive” long

past the point of when they have passed on. Just because we have the ability to do these things,

does that make it right? Ethically we are faced with new challenges that force us to reevaluate,

5
Anderson, We are our Values pg. 8
this isn’t a bad thing though. If we never take the time to learn and grow with the world around

us, how can be better ourselves as a person or as a society. The ability to, “make, and act upon,

value judgments.”6 This is what makes us human.

6
Anderson, We are our Values, pg. 7