I watch Dr. Zhivago the other night… great film…
anyway, there is a point where after Zhivago is taken
by the communist partisans and there is a meeting where
the military people try to allow Zhivago to leave but the
man from the party makes Zhivago stay… his statement
goes something like this…
“we are all to be judge, but not judge by our military records, for
they don’t matter and won’t count, no, we are to be judge politically,
that is the only way we are going to be judge, politically”
which is an interesting point… to judge people only politically means
that the people who get judge are the ones who get judge by the political
people…in other words, the party is the only one who gets to judge…
no other factors are involved… when you judge people based on
the very narrow criteria of what is in you own best interest…
so for example, we Americans decide to judge people based
on money by people with money… it is in those wealthy people
interest to force people to be judge by money because wealthy people
have a lot of money and it is in their best interest to be judge by
something they have a lot of… selfish interest demands you get
people to judge other people based on something you have…
if I have a lot of something, I want the judgement to be about that
something…because I have a lot of it and I will look better being judged…
so the value we judge people is money which fits nicely with actual
wealthy people because they get judge better because they are already
wealthy…
so, what if we were to judge people based on humor… we would judge
people with humor higher then people without…well that suddenly
lowers or demeans wealthy people but raises funny people…and so
funny people rise in status in America and because of that, funny people
want and will continue to allow status to be determined by their
ability to be funny and by no other value…
so, where in my job, the values that are rewarded are punctuality…
we are constantly being reminded to clock in on time, both at the
start of the shift and at lunch and going home…practically every
single day, at the time clock there is a notice about clocking in and out
at the right time…
there is no mention of any values outside of that… the only two
things I can be fired for is stealing and insubordination… and those
are the other two values that are punished or rewarded for that matter…
it is irrelevant or unimportant if we are nice or kind or fair or just or
funny or any other human trait… these traits are not relevant to my job
or to work……. I am not valued for being honest, I can be fired for stealing,
but that that is for stealing from the company… the company actually couldn’t
care less if we steal from the costumers, which we don’t because the checkers
are actually honest… but honesty as a value is not preached or rewarded…
so what values should people have? should people be honest or kind or nice
or punctual or fair or just or mean or boring… or…….
if you could legislate values, what values would you require people to have?
now it might be that you think that the situation demands certain values…
for example in wartime, the value of love and kindness and charity
are not useful values but hate, anger and violence are values worth having…
during wartime………
regarding people who deal with money… you would want honesty as a value
but not someone who disregards the rules involving money… someone who
casual handles money to the point of losing money…
to judges, you want someone who understand what justice is
and how to apply the law fairly to people… each profession
and each situation requires different values to be applied
the same value cannot work in the different professions or
in different situations………
now think of all the possible values and their are hundreds if not thousands of
possible values, which value would seem to be appropriate to the majority of
situations? so love is a powerful value and justified in a lot of situations but
love is not appropriate in every situation or in every job…think of a value
that would have the widest practical use in situations or in a career…
the one value I can think of that would have the widest application for
situations or job is justice, which I have defined as equality… for justice
applied is really justice applied equally to everyone… justice is equality……
and that is the value I believe fits into the largest number of situations or jobs
we encountered in our daily lives…….
so what value/values do you believe is right or necessary for most situations or jobs?
Kropotkin