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Tuesday, 31 October 2006 16:02 |
| | Janese Johnson |
A recent survey that was conducted by the Josephson Institute asked 36,000 high school students about their views on ethics in relation to their lives.
Although 98 percent of the students said that it was important to be a person of good character, a very high percentage admitted to lying, cheating, and stealing at times.
The most surprising news that came out of this survey is high percentage of young adults who believe that in order to get ahead and succeed they must lie, cheat and steal.
Why is there such a discrepancy with how students want to behave and how they actually behave?
According to
Josephson, the reason for this discrepancy is: "Despite consistently
expressing positive and ideals-based attitudes about the importance of
ethics and character and the role their parents and teachers play in
encouraging them to do the right thing, a very high proportion of young
people reveal corrosive cynical attitudes about what works and doesnët
in the real world." So they think they are just nice ideals that
actually wonët work in practice.
This behavior
and attitude does not seem to stop after high school. We can see this
moral discrepancy reaching all levels in most areas of life. We have
the serious corruption in politics while spewing moral behaviors, and
corporations profit over ethical behavior, asking you to leave your
conscience at the door. What is happening to our cultural belief in
valuing collective over individual good? Even American politics, based
on utilitarian thinking, advocates "the greatest good for the greatest
number."
In the past,
doing the right thing and following your conscience actually brought
great benefits and rewards. Now if you blow the whistle on some
wrongdoing, you could get more in more trouble than if you go along
with or ignore it. People are no longer able to hear their conscience
as loudly as before because it is drowned out by fear of punishment.
When I was in my
20s, I had an eye-opening experience with conscience. I was a foster
parent, and up until then I had believed that everyone had a
conscience, and everyone desired to do good.
I now see that I
was na?ÿve. But I seem to have to learn everything experientially. We
had a sibling family of three placed in our home. They were ages four
months, two years, and four-years-old. They lived with us for two
years. The four-year-old continued to act out sexually on the others;
we put bells on the doors to always know where he was. At one point, he
tried killing his sister , and continued to do whatever he could
whether it be lie, cheat, steal, or perhaps kill, to get what he
wanted. It boggled my mind that this four-year old could be so
troubled. He was diagnosed as a sociopath. We had to be trained to be
therapeutic foster parents just to learn how to handle him. I learned a
great deal about the development of conscience.
I learned that
conscience is learned. So even though these high school students are
learning from others about the importance of living an ethical life,
they are seeing that to really survive, they must behave unethically;
and that is what is holding greater value for them.
I believe it is
because we have become a society of material wealth and prestige, and
not a society that cares for its children, elderly, poor or mentally
ill persons. It is about the conviction to really want an ethical
culture.
Horace, who was
a poet in Rome during 8 B.C., saw a lot of corruption. He suggests that
"one who is firm of purpose in a just cause is shaken from his
tenacious resolve neither by the clamour of his fellow citizens for
that which is unjust, nor by the tyrantës menace scowl."
So letës stand
in our conscience, and then perhaps we as a nation can move together
out of the selfish muck into a healthier nation.
Dear Readers:
I have received quite a few e-mails regarding my Oct. 25 column about feeling disheartened by the Asheville Citizen-Times.
Some have asked
me what six debates were missed by Taylor, and not reported by the
AC-T. Those debates and forums are as follows:
Sept 5: Working Families Win, Henderson.
Sept. 18: League of Women Voters, Asheville.
Oct. 2: Highland Hills Candidate Forum, Black Mountain.
Oct. 10: Leadership Haywood debate, Lake Junaluska.
Oct. 12: Cherokee Scout Candidate Debate, Murphy.
I also want to
say that perhaps I was too hasty in my judgment toward the
Citizens-Times. I felt that because the paperës article seemed to slam
Shuler for not making one debate and did not go into the fact that he
had shown up for six others ÇƒÓ and Taylor had not ÇƒÓ was a strong
endorsement for Taylor.
I am happy to
say that I was wrong with that assumption. To my surprise, the AC-T
last weekend came out with an editorial endorsing Heath Shuler.
ï
Janese Johnson
has been doing intuitive counseling nationally for more than 20 years.
She may be contacted at janesej-at-buncombe.main.nc.us.
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