Insecurity => creativity LO10807

jpomo@gate.net ("jpomo@gate.net")
Thu, 31 Oct 1996 14:21:11 +0000

Replying to LO10760 --

Ben Compton wrote in response to my -

> > As our morals have decayed, our strength of character has done likewise.
> > More and more people are conformists who act as "others" believe they
> > should act rather than in accordance with some strongly held personal
> > values, character. So, more and more people experience stress from the
> > events in their lives. "When the goin' gets tough, the tough get goin'"
> > has been replaced by "I''m only human" and "Oh, poor me!".

> Help me understand what you mean when you say "as our morals have
> decayed." Are you implying a universal (or societal) decay of morals? If
> so, specifically what morals? And how has the decay of those morals
> created the conditions you explain?
>
> It sounds like to me, from the tone of your message, that you're
> specifically addressing the abidication of personal responsibility.
> Please, help me better understand your reasoning.

You are correct about personal responsibility, but that is an effect, not
a cause. Attempts to remove values as a measure of acceptability of
actions is the root cause since without values, there is no reason to be
responsible.

When I say that our morals have decayed, I mean that the establishment,
which has a great effect on what we do and what we consider acceptable,
has been leading us for over 20 years toward a valueless society, one
where there are no absolutes, where everyone is encouraged to do what they
think is right and are told that they should not judge the actions of
others for fear of hurting their self-esteem. The establishment's negative
effects on our morals are evidenced in many, many ways.

We have always had plenty of people who cheated on their spouses, but it
has only been recent that the practice has been defended as being off
limits to criticism. It is only recent that the NEA's attempts to remove
values from schools has been effective and that teaching self-esteem has
replaced teaching earning the respect of others through right actions
including moral ones. It is only recent that drug abuse has been treated
as a disease, granted protection under interpretations of the ADA and
further sanctioned by providing free needles. It is only recent that we
have decided to reward those who have babies out of wedlock rather than
shun them. In fact, it seems that there are no wrongs and even criminals
have been granted more rights than victims.

The establishment's leadership effects on children are most dramatic in
way of drug abuse since 1992's election of a President who got away with
it in spite of its illegality and has even admitted that he wished that he
had inhaled. The President's PR spokesperson labels objections to White
House staff drug use as partisan politics and this is the message the
press transmits to readers and viewers. Children have responded by
raising their level of drug use dramatically. Those I have talked to
simply say that if a drug user can be elected to the highest office in the
U.S., why shouldn't they do drugs? This is the leadership mechanism by
which people in the establishment affect the actions of our youth. The
effect is similar on adults though they aren't led to a specific bad
behavior. Adults use the President's actions as justifications for other
bad behavior in a "If he can get away with that, why can't I get away with
this?" mode.

At the same time, our welfare system has created an underclass which has
nothing to be proud of (nothing they have done for which they can be
proud) and bring children into a very dark and hopeless existence. Then
we wonder why they shoot other people (they believe that they have done a
favor to anyone they kill), and are amazed that spending lots of money on
them has only made the problem worse. Reading Marvin Olasky's "The Tragedy
of American Compassion" gives a lucid picture of how good charity is
driven out by bad and how compassion has degenerated to paying government
bureaucrats to show our caring. Our present conception of compassionate
actions are really just a road to destroying families and their people.
The black family of the early '50s was consider to be stronger, more
nurturing than the white family, but at present the black family has all
but disappeared.

Character, once a sine qua non, has been downplayed by the media as
unimportant to any election. Democrats openly criticize the president's
character and then say that they would rather have a Democrat with bad
character than any Republican. I could go on and on over our moral decay
because the examples are many in many walks of life. Numbers of credit
card loan defaults, unwed mothers, personal bankruptcies and a myriad of
other statistics all point to moral decay from the standard the U.S. has
known for many years. Note that I am not equating this to the rest of the
world because I have no real knowledge of their past and present. The
parallel to the Roman Empire is quite illuminating.

Hope that I have provided what you wanted.

Regards, Joan

Joan Pomo The Finest Tools for Managing People
Simonton Associates Based on the book
jpomo@gate.net "How to Unleash the Power of People"
About the book go to http://pages.prodigy.com/DMHD39A (use caps)

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