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Crisis of values
We live in an age of value crisis. Everybody agrees with this though there is no consensus regarding the causes, the significance and the consequences of this. To quote:
In the perspective of morality modern social systems have degenerated. They are increasingly characterized by oppression, exploitation, deceit, greed, humiliation, revenge, murder, rape, dacoity, cruelty, sadism, mindless violence, destruction, blackmail, injustice, serfdom, kidnapping, corruption, use of terror and torture for political and criminal purposes, gangsterism, mutilation of children for beggary, divorces, desertions, suicides, bribery, nepotism, rampant indiscipline, irresponsibility and negligence, coercion, brutalities, drug addiction and peddling, embezzlement of trust funds, black marketing, adulteration of food stuffs and commodities, bogus medicine, mass starvation and famines, chauvinism, large scale intergroup violence, massacres, genocides and civil wars (Singh, 1995). |
To explore the nature of crisis, one has to look into the value system of society. The values may vary from one society to another but the fact remains that all societies are governed by certain value predispositions. The problems of man are fundamentally the problems of conflicts between his own values and the values of society, which are often the manifestations of the problems of conflict within values. Looked at from this perspective the problem is not whether man and society live by values but whether the individual and social values are harmonious or disharmonious. According to Ohashi (2008), who used Human Satisfaction Measures (HSM) for measuring welfare in three different countries – Sweden, Japan and Bhutan - found that society, environment and economy are three bottom lines for sustainable development.
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