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Values in Todays Society

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Values In Today’s Society

February 16, 2014
Wallace told Whiskey Island, a literary magazine, in 1993, “This is the generation that has an inheritance of absolutely nothing as far as meaningful moral values.” The generation of today is a different generation than many of us have known. Many people these days just care about themselves and the good of them as individuals. It came up in my class’s discussion about success and how we are supposed to strive towards success. Granted this is true, there is a limit to how much we should be striving towards “success” though. Success to many people is good job, good money, and good car. Success is not measured by how much we obtain, but rather how we decide to use what has been given to us. When people are too focused on success in today’s society, there are rarely moral values because individuals are more focused on themselves versus what is important in life.
There are too many people in the world today just looking for free handouts and, when you look at it that way, it really is all about them. Me, me, me is what our society focuses on way too often; what is going to help ME, what is going to make ME more money, what can I do to build ME up more, and you get the picture. As Williams put it in his article “Is Gen Y Becoming the New ‘Lost Generation’,” “it is clear that Generation Y has a very different set of values for work and life in general, compared to the Baby Boomers.” He said in his article that a professor named Paul Harvey concluded that Generation Y is characterized by “a very inflated sense of self” that leads to “unrealistic expectations” and “chronic disappointment.” Williams concluded by saying that “Generation Y has a significantly different attitude toward work and life in general than the current dominant Baby Boom generation and the current ongoing difficult economic times are placing the economic and social welfare of Generation Y in jeopardy.” This quote brings into play some of our class discussions about Frankl and how making a choice about your attitude is very important. The way you choose to react to certain situations and life circumstances matter in life. When difficult circumstances happen, you can choose to react to them negatively or you can choose to find a positive in the situation.
Next, consider jobs in today’s society. We see many people who are working their way up the ladder, so that they can become something and live a fulfilled life. Then, you see others who are sitting at home on employment getting paid from the government. I do understand that there really are people who need help, but not as many people that currently have it. The reason I bring this up is because I have personally known someone who has a family of four. They invited me over for dinner and asked me what I wanted, some of the choices being steak or lobster. My response was in awe as to how they could afford this (only the father worked and had a decent job, but did have a wife and 2 children that he was supporting and his job did not let him live that fully) and their reply was, “Well the government gives out the free handouts and we get $600 a month for groceries. If we don’t use it, we lose it.” That is the mentality of so many people in the world today: if the government is going to give us things for free or pay us not to work, why not take it? That is extremely disheartening for me to hear and it is the very reason I chose to write a paper on our generation having nothing as far as meaningful moral values. I believe this is part of what Wallace was getting at with the job scenario.
From what I get from Wallace, he refers to some of the things that Williams said in his article. He goes into it a little deeper and says, “I get the feeling that a lot of us, privileged Americans, as we enter our early 30s, have to find a way to put away childish things and confront stuff about spirituality and values.” What I believe Wallace is trying to say is that there is so much more to life. There has to be something to live for besides just a job and money. So, he mentions spirituality and values. I do not think he is referring to any particular religion in life; but he is probably saying that those who have someone to follow (religion, spirituality) have more of a meaning in their life. They have something to live for when they have something or someone that they believe in. Spirituality is the first key thing Wallace mentions, and then there are values. Values can be defined many ways. The way I view values is having morals and values to live off of; which, for me, comes from my spirituality (or religion). From growing up, my parents taught me certain values in life like treat others with respect, do unto others as you would have them do unto you (Golden Rule), be kind to people, do not lie or steal, live life to the fullest and try to have no regrets, and plenty more. There are many values to be made that come up everyday in the workplace, but it comes back to the choice you choose to make in how to react to certain situations. Going back to my introduction about success where many people are focusing on themselves, this comes into play when reacting to situations. When an individual is only focusing on themselves, they will make the choice that best serves them even if it means “stepping over someone’s toes” to get ahead or lying about a situation so that they are not put at risk of losing a job.
Another viewpoint to look at or question to ask is what is wrong in today’s society? Is there anything wrong? I believe this is where Wallace was venturing out to when he quoted we have no meaningful moral values. Noah mentioned in her article “Does Our Generation Ignore Morality” that we have become more of a pluralistic society where young adults are taught that “different beliefs, actions, and lifestyles are not wrong, but just that: different.” People in today’s world do not want to be told they are wrong, so they accept different. I have met many individuals who will get very defensive if you call them out on a wrong. One friend, in particular, is very difficult in certain situations that I have learned to just not say much around him. He’s the type of person that will always say you are wrong and he is right, no matter how much you defend yourself. It’s really sad that we have to live in a world where people act like that just because they have to be right. Noah also mentioned in her article that our generation is very relational where they are not focused on the principle of the matter, just the relationships that can be formed for the good of them. When these individuals are focused too much on the relational aspect rather than the moral aspect of things, the gambling, drinking, and sexual behavior become an everyday occurrence, as they have to blend in with their friends. David Kinnaman, quoted in Noah’s article that “People’s moral profile is more likely to resemble that of their peer group than it is to take shape around the tenets of a person’s faith.”
I would have to agree with David Wallace’s quote about our generation’s meaningful moral values, at least from the perspective that I went off of from the quote. A quote like that can be taken in multiple ways; but from my perspective, he was “dead on” in describing what is happening in our generation today. The morals and values are taken very lightly or not at all based on people focusing too much attention on themselves or the measure of their success, free handouts from today’s government instead of trying to work at a job, people forgetting what it is like to have faith in a religion and know that life has meaning, individuals too focused on their social life and making a good appearance with their peers, or by accepting too much of what society says is “ok and not wrong, just different” in today’s world. These factors all come into play when looking at the morals and values of our generation. Will it get any better? From what I see, unless there is a dramatic turn for more people to find meaning in life, I do not see it changing anytime soon. People are too focused on “having fun” rather than finding a meaning in life. Finding a meaning in life is being discussed in our class plenty right now; but for me, where I find my meaning in life is from God and my religion.

Works Cited

Dreyfus, Hubert L., and Sean D. Kelly. All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age. New York: Free, 2011.

Noah, Katie. "Does Our Generation Ignore Morality?" 1 June 2010. <http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201304/is-gen-y-becoming-the-new-lost-generation>.

Williams, Ray. "Is Gen Y Becoming the New "Lost Generation?"" Wired for Success, 8 Apr. 2013. Web. <http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201304/is-gen-y-becoming-the-new-lost-generation>.

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