Public and Private Attitudes Are Changing - Essay Example

Public and Private Attitudes Are Changing In our 'global village' time is measured at Greenwich. People all over the world set their clocks and watches according to G.M.T. And, for several centuries, Great Britain has been one of the 'models' of the world. And, when speaking of British values, what first come to everybody's mind are especially the Victorian values. There are so many books and so many films inspired from that period, that people sometimes have the nostalgia of a lost paradise. Things were very clear at that time. Although the number one of the country was a woman, politics belonged exclusively to men. Most jobs - and definitely all jobs that required some skills and qualifications - were exclusively held by men, who were the only persons meant to support their families. Loving wives, who had been busy during the day with the household chores and with their children, were dutifully waiting for these 'gods' to come back home in the evenings. Love was synonymous with marriage. Love outside marriage was considered a sin, and sexual inversion was banned. Children were just future career men or future good wives. Almost nothing unexpected seemed to happen to these people: they went on with their daily routine. Work - paid for men, housework - not paid - for women. In their spare time, men could go anywhere, including to some not very respected establishments, as long as discretion was observed. Women used to go out, but only as Mrs. X or as Miss Y., accompanied by their careful fathers and mothers. This was the perfect order, but like in the Greek democracy, this was only for the citizens of Great Britain. Nevertheless the great empire also had people belonging to other races, worshipping other gods, having other sets of values. These people were actually ignored. They were accepted - condescendingly - in the 'civilised' world when and if they had adopted the 'civilised' set of values. These values were actually adopted by many other 'civilised and respectable' societies, in Europe, in the USA, in Africa, in Asia or in Australia. But it is human nature to wish to change something. And many were the people who wanted to demonstrate that the established order was not good, to show that no matter how good these 'long-established values' were, they did not refer to all people, that there were many people who were outside the circle including 'the good and respected' ones. Isolated at the beginning - some pioneers considered merely weird people - then in groups - more and more voices uttered louder and louder their claims. The black people rose against racial discrimination. The socialists and then the communists rose against private property and social inequity. Feminists rose against genre discrimination, which is, actually persisting even in the 'white man's society'. The simplest argument is the fact that women are sometimes still paid less for the same job requiring the same qualification and skills. One by one, the sound values of the Victorian society - actually - the standard values of the leading power of the world at that time, began to shake and crumble. The two World Wars, the communist rule that was being established as an alternative to the unjust capitalist world - accepted not only by poor, uneducated people, but also seen as a better alternative by many broad-minded intellectuals and rich people of the time - made the leaders of the world bring a new order in the chaos that was about to come. And this was materialised in the "Declaration of the Human Rights" issued on 10 December 1948. The first article of the declaration is the synthesis of everything all these liberation movements (anti-racist, socialist or feminist ones) had been fighting for: 'Article 1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.' The phrase 'human being' itself wipes out all differences - racial, social or those referring to genre. However, a declaration is simply something raising awareness. It is easy to declare something, to admit that this is how things should be, but it takes several generations to actually feel, believe and take like granted that things really are like this. Many people lived, worked and died for these ideas, whereas those who condemned, rejected and despised these ideas were even more numerous. A very eloquent example to support this idea is the personality of Martin Luther King. If he is to remain in the history of the USA, and also in the history of human progress, it will be for his famous speech, which includes the even more famous quotation below: "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today." Definitely it was considered a fantasy by most of the 'respectable' white people of his time. If not something subversive, attempting to destroy the good world of the mighty white man. For his kinsfolk, it was definitely a comfort, but probably very few of them believed in it more than they believed in life after death. Fifteen years had passed between the issuance of the Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the day when King gave this famous speech (1963). He was an excellent connoisseur of human nature. He knew that humankind already had the legal background for his dream to come true, but he was perfectly aware that people of his generation were neither willing nor able to change mentality. He knew that mentalities could be changed only by means of education and by offering them models. And the most responsive persons to models and education are the young generations. And, actually, King's dream has come true. An outstanding role in a very powerful state of the 21st century world is a person belonging to the generation of Martin Luther King's children - Condoleza Rice. She is a black person and, moreover, she is a woman. She must have worked extremely hard to get to the top. Obviously she is not the first intelligent, learned woman who got to the top. Mrs. Margaret Thacher is an excellent example to prove it. But Mrs. Condoleza Rice is an Afro-American lady. Therefore, the dream has come true. Many other 'dreams' or things that had been considered outrageous, immoral or disreputable are nowadays common place. Homosexuals, lesbians, children born outside the marriage - all these are things that have always existed. What is different is the perspective society has upon them. Banned, condemned and considered taboo topics in puritan societies, the people included in these categories are nowadays regarded simply as some of ours, members of a varied society (or at least this is how it should be). Former or present communist countries can also be considered puritan societies from this point of view. A levelling ideology - which was actually meant to replace religion - was afraid of diversity. If sexual inversion was tacitly accepted (feigning ignorance sometimes) both in capitalist and in socialist countries, children born outside marriage have been very carefully looked after, in capitalist as well as in communist countries. Low birth rate made authorities to offer special support 'for single-parent families' (which definitely sounds better that 'children born outside marriage'). On the other hand, a child born in a communist country, who was not wanted by his parents or whom the parents could not afford raising, was taken over by the state, as the state wanted to have many reliable citizens to defend the communist order. Children are considered essential in all types of civilisations. Irrespective of the religion or the political system, it is state policy to take care of the future generations. Even over-populated areas, like China or India, prove to take care of the future generations. It is true that in a different way. Most countries have policies supporting families or people who raise children and more and more couples that cannot have children consider their homes empty unless they adopt at least one child. On the contrary, in the over-populated countries the state policy is that of reducing the birth rate. But the target is the same: that of ensuring prosperity and better conditions for the future generations. There are more and more programmes for children all over the world. These programmes have as a starting point family planning, training programmes for the parents-to-be, a huge industry centred on children and teenagers. More and more sophisticated toys, computer games devised according to the age of the child or of teenager. There is more concern for the children than it has ever been. There are more and more foundations and associations defending children's rights. All these are wonderful things. If fifty years ago most children used to have with their fathers dialogues in which their part was only 'Yes, sir' or 'No, sir', nowadays parents tend to have a very friendly relationship with their children. Children no longer face hostility when they go to school. They learn in their rhythm, they are not pushed and there are special programmes for children with special needs. A child having a different colour of a skin, a child having no father or a child adopted by a family where both parents are men or both parents are women is accepted in any kind of school, which was out of question for respectable schools in former times. When they grow up they have their clubs, which was, again, out of question one hundred years ago. If the young people wanted to dance, there were balls where they could go accompanied and supervised by vigilant parents. Children and teenagers can and are encouraged to practise sports, and to choose a way of life according to their wishes not according to their parents' wishes. If a respectable bourgeois of the Victorian age lived in 2006, he (because this person could be only a he, definitely not a she) would be more shocked at the sight of people of all races in the same restaurants, buses, schools or universities than to see our computers, our mobile phones or to get familiar with the Internet. Technology progress is considered inherent. Mentality changes are seen as something against the right, well-established order. Muslims accept easily the Internet, the very sophisticated weapons and every technological progress that comes from the west. What they do not accept is lack of respect for family values and for hierarchy. The paradox is that even those Muslims who are born, raised and educated in western democratic countries do not change their mentalities. And this happened because of the same Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which allows them to stick to their convictions and which makes the western world to accept them as they are. What they do not know or pretend not to know, is that the same Declaration obliges them to respect the others as they are, to tolerate them and their beliefs, and not try to impose their rule. All changes mentioned about the way in which people consider life problems nowadays seem to show a totally different society. It is a society in which young people express their lack of respect for law and authority. The first young people who opposed authorities were the hippies of the 1960s - the very respectable people of today. Then there were the ravers and all the others opposing the Criminal Justice Bill and the Public Order Bill in 1993. But Great Britain is not the only European democratic country facing such problems. France seems to be in great trouble. Young people besieging the streets of Paris in 2005, organising demonstrations in university cities in 2006 show that the young generation in France has - probably - a wrong perception of what law and order mean. Probably most of these young people have no idea why they are doing this, it is just because the others are doing so, and it seems interesting, different from their monotonous and uninteresting life. Theoretically, people - without ANY discrimination - can and may do whatever they want. This is how most people see democracy and liberty. Actually, what they forget, is that the same article in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that human beings are 'endowed with reason and conscience'. Do human beings act reasonably and consciously, do they 'act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood' when they kill one another, when they put fire on cars and houses, when they put bombs in the subways, when they kill one another at football or soccer matches, when they rape or kidnap In the name of the same liberty, there are almost no language taboos in the media or in films. Is it good Is it bad What is it to be done Actually, somehow order should be established in this world dominated by soap operas, sitcoms, trivial language and lack of culture. The famous Latin adage 'panem et circensem' (bread and circus) seems to explain the limits of our world's problems. The great majority of people are pleased that they have enough food, a nice home and almost unlimited ways of having fun. There is plenty of food in the developed countries and more and more humanitarian organisations do their best to provide food in poor countries. On the other hand, the Internet, the TV and the radio offer a great range of ways of spending the spare time. This is for everybody. Richer people can have other leisure activity - tourism, expensive sports clubs and grounds, etc. The great majority of people are pleased when their basic needs are no longer a problem for them. They are not to be blamed if they do not make the right choice about organising their leisure, nor should they be blamed if they do not obey the rules. Self-discipline is something very praiseworthy. But few people have the real strength and wisdom to follow the right path, to take the right decision at the right moment. It is the leaders' job to take care of the people, not to use or ignore them. Most of the politicians make a lot of promises before being elected: higher salaries, less money spent for weapons, lower taxes, higher budgets spent for health and environment, less unemployment, etc. All these follow in fact the same philosophy of 'panem and circensem'. If the politicians have the tendency to simply consider the people an 'amorphous mass' easy to manipulate, it is the duty of the other great power - the media - 'to manipulate' people in an intelligent way, namely to make them wish to do something more. People nowadays do not read enough. Do not think enough. They take everything for granted. The civic spirit has almost disappeared. Are there people who really wonder or care to do something for their small community Very few, indeed. Is there any solution Yes. Whenever people are at crossroads, they can find an answer in the Bible. It offers advice for any problem: 'Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in loneliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.' (2 Phil.:3,4) References http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/S/0135/S.0135.199303250005.html (1993) http://www.iccl.ie/criminalj/order/bill.html http://www.justice.org.uk/ourwork/criminaljustice/main.html http://www.mecca.org/crights/dream.html http://www.mslick.com/kjv/Phil/phil_2.htm http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html http://www.victorianweb.org/vn/victor7.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era Read More