VALUE CRISIS AND VALUE CONFLICT IN MODERN SOCIETY
- polsodepthindu
- Apr 14
- 5 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
“Human life is marked by a special consciousness, and the conclusion that presses itself upon this consciousness is, in the words of Arnold Toynbee, ‘that human life and its settings are mysteries’.”
DANIEL C. MAGUIRE (2010)
{The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Ecology;
Oxford University Press;
Madison Avenue, NY, NY 10016}
INTRODUCTION
Human life is distinctly different from (and some would claim superior, in extension of the same argument) animal and vegetable existence in the sense that we “consider” ourselves to “possess” something we refer to as a “consciousness”.
Albeit loosely defined and flawed, in my attempt, I would equate human consciousness to possessing the quality of being aware that we are aware. Awareness, in my paradigm/conceptualisation, goes beyond physical stimulation and responses generated subsequently to also include a psychological or emotional factoring mechanism {here, this mechanism relates to our awareness of emotions being generated and expressed}. Following this clarification of what entails awareness in my paradigm, I want to deeply impress upon the reader the fundamentally undeniable fact that:
There exists a human consciousness which is aware, at some level, that existence (or “humanly conscious existence”, if we can call it that) is steeped in mystery and an absence of knowledge that we will never be able to rectify.
VARIATION IN AWARENESS AND DENIAL
The aforementioned Fundamental Awareness (of absence of knowledge) is subject to both:
Variation in awareness - this relates to how varying degrees of this awareness exist among different individuals; consider for a moment a man whose basic and even advanced wants and desires are met and a poor man living hand to mouth. Surely, there is a greater chance of the former being aware of this Fundamental Awareness than the latter, whose mental, physical and emotional constituents are perennially preoccupied with fulfilling his wants and needs.
Denial - it is basic human nature to ignore issues that perturb and upset us. In fact, it requires a great deal of extraordinariness to even accept the Fundamental Awareness; extraordinariness being a rare attribute bestowed upon few, individuals are constantly engaged in a cycle to distract and thus deny.
EXTENSION ONTO THE SOCIETAL PLANE
In the transition (or upscaling) that we make from looking at human existence and consciousness from an individualised perspective to that from a societal plane, we often notice the erosion of many elements.
However, the Fundamental Awareness (being fundamental) does not disappear even at the societal plane, with a caveat. We cannot ignore the fact that, given the increase in distractions, both materialistic (self-explanatory) and psychological (interactions with ideas and individuals ), the Power of Denial (or alternatively, the Power to Suppress) becomes more powerful at the Societal Plane. The element of modernity becomes more significant in reference to how, with the passage of time, distractions increase and grow in strength or get upgraded.
Moving forward, even after accepting the caveat, we can understand that neither does the fundamentality of this awareness disappear, nor does its existence; for given the dynamism of human thought (which, in turn, is linked to and affected by extremely different circumstances), individuals (or thus, by extension, at least some part of society) will also find themselves grappling with the Fundamental Awareness.
IMPORTANCE OF “VALUE”
“What do you do if you’ve got everything? There’s only one thing you can do. More.” (Pete Waterman, British producer and songwriter)
Carrying forward from the ground laid prior, we can understand how the Fundamental Awareness can cause society and individuals to fall apart. This holds true because of the insatiability of human character. In this respect, such a fundamental void in our lives would destroy us if it weren’t for “value”.
Before proceeding to clarify what I mean by value, I believe that my act of defining value will, in itself, prove the importance of the same.
Now, value, for me, is the “be all, do all” drug. The drug for which and by which we exist.
“Values are basic and fundamental beliefs that guide or motivate attitudes or actions. They help us to determine what is important to us.” In a narrow sense, values entail that which is good, desirable, or worthwhile. Values are the motives behind purposeful action. They are the ends to which we act, and they come in many forms.
More extensively, values specify a relationship between a person and a goal. This projects a relational sense because what one person values may not be what another person values even in the same situation.
Now, the definition of what value entails can be extended forward to the societal plane without much resistance. Even societies, albeit with greater resistance, are not completely devoid of holding certain basic and fundamental beliefs or regarding certain issues, developments, concepts, and demands as important. Elections stand as visible and undeniable instances of societies collectively projecting value for different things.
It is clear that any purposeful action necessitates the presence of value in the backdrop. Even apparently unpurposeful actions have, at their root, value.
VALUE CRISIS OF NIHILISM
“The only absolute knowledge attainable by Man is that life is meaningless.”
-Tolstoy
“Nihilism (from Latin nihil ‘nothing’) is a philosophy, or a family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values or meaning.”
(Wikipedia; Nihilism; URL:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism)
Friedrich Nietzsche writes there is no objective order or structure in the world except what we give it. Penetrating the façades buttressing convictions, the nihilist discovers that all values are baseless and that reason is impotent. Here, we find the greatest crisis and conflict to the routine value addition and retention function that we perform. The nihilist discovers that all things have empty roots that are voids filled with axioms whose justifications are beyond our grasp. Such axioms whose reasons cannot be reached are hid behind dogma, religions being the most potent form of myth creation for survival.
Given the indispensability of some, conscious or unconscious, value for continued existence, what we discover is that survival demands an assumption that something in existence is beyond this apparent omnipresent void of value. In other words, a nihilist cannot be saved unless there is a shift to an absurdist or existentialist perspective. A nihilist must either accept absurdism, i.e., the “absurdity” of life and “...live without escape and with integrity, in "revolt" and defiance, maintaining the tension intrinsic to human life….” (Albert Camus), or what the existentialists have generally advocated as the individual's free construction of their own meaning in life.
CONCLUSION
If, as previously stated, values are basic and fundamental beliefs that guide or motivate attitudes or actions and help us to determine what is important to us, the Nihilist is either an highly enlightened or troubled entity for whom the world and everything within it has no value. One who simply, at least in my case, exists because cutting existence short prematurely would entail value addition to Death as a cathartic escape. Nihilism is quite comforting. Values do motivate and do drive us. But just allowing life to flow along and not allowing anything to hold us captive is worth considering.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Ecology; Oxford University Press; Madison Avenue, NY, NY 10016
"What are Values? Do you Value, Values?”; URL: https://www.ethicsage.com/2018/08/what-are-values.html; accessed on: 3/12/2022
Wikipedia; Nihilism; URL:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism; accessed on: 4/12/2022
ABOUT WRITER
Avhinav Bhusal is a second-year student at the Department of Political Science, Hindu College. Passionate about political theory and international relations, he’s drawn to the questions that shape our world and the ideas that challenge it. When he's not reading, he turns to poetry and music for expression, leading the indie band Dhua as its frontman.
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