Andrew Dara JP –
In the past, human values have been regarded as the basis of society in civilizations throughout the world regardless of their religious or cultural beliefs. These values include development of general knowledge, common sense and problem-solving skills; perseverance in the face of difficulties; unity, co-operation and team-work to achieve common goals; tolerance, understanding and accepting differences between individuals:
honesty and truthfulness; inner harmony and outer peace as fundamental ways of getting to create peace on a wider scale – between family members and friends, between neighbors, regions and countries; compassion for other beings, giving time and effort to others willingly and without any expectation of physical
or emotional reward.
In recent times there appears to have been a swing away from these values, as people have become more concerned with materialism, power and self. Society is a group of people living together sharing their feelings, their problems whether financial, social, economical, and others. Before becoming an engineer, a doctor, an advocate, a good businessman, a good professional.
It is necessary to be a good human being, because no one can perform their jobs perfectly till they do not have human
feelings and human values. Human values touch upon every aspect of our life. Human values affect the different aspects of society in different ways.
Whether it is political, economy, business, education, humanity, technology, ethical values, moral values or cultural values. Obviously, the meaning of the word values tends to become confused in the milieu of conflicting interests and disparate points of view.
The term values points to what we value, to what we consider to be of worth or merit. When related to morals or ethics, the term becomes moral values or ethical values or human values or family values. And what we value can undergo change.
HUMAN VALUES AND POLITICS
The subject of values has become a hot topic for politicians. One party points to the other and finds a lack of values in one sphere or another of life with particular emphasis on family values. Divorce, infidelity, and child support vie with debates over legislation deemed immoral by a particular group, such as legalizing same-sex marriage.
HUMAN VALUES AND ECONOMY
Whenever I used to contemplate about the “economic imbalance” in society, i.e. many are poor; whereas a few are rich it always occurred to me that lack of human values is the fundamental problem.
Human values are essential in each and every part of our life whether it is business, moral, social, physical and psychological.
HUMAN VALUES IN BUSINESS
If we talk about business till we do not have human values we cannot succeed, for e.g, what a marketer do, he just do a market survey, find out the requirements of human being, produce the product accordingly and then offer it to the customer, here he is not selling the product but satisfying the needs of the public.
A value is a belief, a mission, or a philosophy that is meaningful. Whether we are consciously aware of them or not, every individual has a core set of personal values. Values can range from the commonplace such as the belief in hard work and punctuality, to the more psychological, such as self reliance, concern for others and harmony of purpose.
HUMAN VALUES IN EDUCATION SYSTEM
Education system should not give force in producing good engineers and good doctors but good human beings. Because a doctor cannot be a good doctor if he is not a good person. If he has no feeling for human being, if he can not feel the pain of a human being. An engineer, a teacher, a marketer, a businessman, a politician, no body can perform their work efficiently and effectively if they are not good human being.
Let’s take example of a made servant who is been paid just N20,000 per month and she is taking care of a new born baby, along with an elder son and all the household work so efficiently that the employer is fully satisfied. This is not because of the N20,000, but the human
relationship. She takes care of the girl child more than a mother. She says “this is a little child, she does not know anything” so how a child can be ignored as she is innocent.
Secondly the employer’s behavior with her also affects her positive working.
Human values in education system; Merely introducing a subject of human values in the curriculum of students does not mean we are really giving them the education of human values. In fact human values cannot be taught these, can be felt only and for that
we must provide an environment to the students. This means teachers, parents and the society must have human values only then the generation of today can learn it.
HUMAN VALUES AND SOCIETY
The basic reason behind facing this lack of human values is unequal distribution of income and wealth.
HUMAN VALUES AND HUMANITY
Today materialism, attraction towards money, unlimited desires have disconnected and parted us with the human values. The basic objective of the education should be imparting human values in the students along with the knowledge of various other subjects.
Education does not mean only subject knowledge but to invoke the conscience.
In today’s competitive era, in the age of machinery and technology also only that person is successful who has got and applied the human values in his life. That is discipline, intelligent, systematic, mentally and physically fit, good vision, personality, thoughts, fore-sightedness, regularity, punctuality, and feelings for the human beings.
Money and materialism can provide a short period or momentary satisfaction but it cannot satisfy your soul. There is a difference in the effort made for social service and for earning money. The ultimate objective of the human beings is to get peace in life. But it cannot
be purchased in the market.
Human values cannot be described in words it can be felt only. Money can provide only the resources not the satisfaction.
HUMAN VALUES AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION
Education without human values is just wastage of time, nothing else. It can never develop humanity. Education without human values makes a person emotionless, and he can never enjoy his life. Development is not one side but it is multisided. According to Sculars, “education develops the mind, body and souls of human being. Technical education makes a person to become self dependent, but for this development a person should possess discipline, courage, patience, self control, and cooperation etc because without these factors a student cannot get the real development.
HUMAN VALUES AND ETHICS
“Ethical behaviour” means getting the right kind of behavior from people as individual and groups. Ethical behavior is activity that results in the right thing being done. But what is the right thing? It is being dictated by our culture. Ethics mainly deals with ideas which seeks to determine norms, ideals, standard or values. These important ideals of
human life are truth, beauty and goodness.
Ethics is a branch of philosophy dealing with right and wrong in human behavior. Most religions have a moral component and religious approaches to the problem of ethics. Ramayana and Mahabharata form the very basis of cultural consciousness that symbolize Hinduism.
The Tirukkural is a book of morals or ethics. The Tirukkural contains treasures that lead to peace and harmony at home as well as the country. Kautilya says that artha (sound economics) is the most important; dharma and karma are
both dependent on it.
In every human activity whether it is pure science, political science or environment science we need to follow the practices which are best for the welfare of the world.
Role of communication in ethics:
Communication is involved in every aspect of our life whether it is media, industry, organizations, NGOs and in our personal lives. So while communicating with others we should follow some ethics with others like:
1. Confidentiality: – confidentiality should be followed while communicating with
others. It is a trust and if other person who is talking to you he does not rely upon you he may feel hesitated while sharing his ideas with you.
2. Authenticity: – while sharing an idea to others, the authenticity of the message should be checked otherwise mistrust can be developed in the communication.
3. Empathy: – it is the ability to understand the feelings of another person. From her/his perspective. It is like stepping into someone else’s shoes and trying to understand the pain and troubled feelings of the other person. So instead of sympathy, empathy should be shown to understand the feelings and it should be shown in a right perspective and at right time.
4. Positive regard for others: – positive regards of their feelings is also important in communication. So don’t interrupt the person who is sharing his feelings, one should use the messages like ‘I understand’ instead of ‘You should not’ only then a trust will be established in communication and a strong bond between the communication and a strong bond between the communicators will be established.
5. Objectivity: – while communicating and sharing ideas regarding culture one should use an objective approach and a criticism and subjective views showed not be there in conversation. By values we mean an inbuilt mechanism which distinguishes the right from the wrong.
HUMAN VALUES ON MORAL VALUES
The word “ethics” in Latin is called “ethic us” and in Greek is called “ethikos”
has come from the word ethos meaning character or manners” the word ethos meaning character or manners” ethics is thus said to be the science of morals, a treatise on this moral principles recognized rules of conduct.
As applied to business firms, ethics is the study of good and evil, right and wrong and just and unjust actions of businessmen. If protecting others from harm is considered to be ethical, then a company which recalls defective or harmful products from the market is an ethical company.
In common parlance, the term corporate ethics refers to the system of principles rules of conduct applied to business, in practice, the term has been used to describe the do’s and don’ts for the business. For the business the various things that business should or should not do via, not violating any law, avoiding unethical practices, making denotations to charitable causes, taking up development projects in backward areas, paternalism towards employees, good public relations etc.
HUMAN VALUES AND BUSINESS ETHICS
“When given the responsibility to being a manager”, you are faced with many different situations, what defines a manager is how they take on the situation, and resolve it. A friend shared with me that in his working experience as a manager and as an employee he has been faced with and witnesses many occasions when family and personal issues can cause friction between other employees and also cause a headache the manager is faced with at the work place. Family and personal issues can be a touchy subject that needs to be handled in a certain way so that the manager is not put in a position that he or she may be accused of handling the situation unethical. A manager’s decision in this type of situation can also be
influenced by outside sources or social issues.
HUMAN VALUES AND CULTURE
A value is a belief, a mission, or a philosophy that is meaningful. Whether we are consciously aware of them or not, every individual has a core set of personal values.
Values can range from the commonplace such as the belief in hard work and punctuality, to the more psychological, such as self reliance, concern for others and harmony of purpose. When we examine the lives of famous people, we often see how personal values guided
them, propelling to the top of their fields. As Sri Sathya Sai Baba says, Human values can never be gotten from outside i.e., from books, shop etc, but are something inherent in us.
If you want to have human value you must follow your conscience. This conscience is something wonderful which all of us possess and the most precious gift that one can have from God.
Another thing is harmony in thought, word and deed. It must concentrate
over our next generation whether our students or our child not to get so materialize. We should give them human values. No doubt through education human values can be injected in the students. Teachers fall in love affairs with their student.
So many examples are there when the teacher is married to his/her student or get involved in objectionable activities with the students then what will be the impression over other students. There is an old saying that “if money is lost , nothing is lost, but if knowledge is lost, something is lost and if character is lost, everything is lost.”
And I am sure that the introduction of western culture in the society is completely deteriorating the human values.
CONCLUSION
Moral values are most important for mankind. The quality of turn is a product of culture and values. In the modern world we need to inculcate ethical practices in order to maintain the quality of life and perfection. This is the pathway of excellence.
In every human activity whether it is pure science, political science or environmental science we need to follow the practices which are best for the welfare of the world
