Emerging Dynamics: Science, Energy, Society and Values by Loucas G. Christophorou

Author:Loucas G. Christophorou
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

5.3.2 Contextualization of Values

Values arise in the lives of persons and are thus influenced by the circumstantial conditions of life; they are related to the values of the local environment which gives them context and constrains their meaning. Values, therefore, are in practice contextual. The values that existed in ancient Sparta and in ancient Athens, the values that existed in Europe in the Middle Ages, the values that existed in the plantation life of the American South, the values that existed in societies occupied by colonial powers, the values of peoples under fascist dictatorships, under the totalitarian regimes of communism, or under the extreme fanatic state-rule of late, are not identical with the values of peoples in twentieth century industrial “democratic” societies. There have been societies in which stealing from or lying to the enemy was permitted, history reminds us. In such circumstances, then, honesty is not an unqualified value, but it is determined by an appeal to a higher precept, a superior value, and the value context within which the act is embedded.

This contextualization of values is clearly seen in situations where abrupt changes in peoples’ lives took place as a result of changes which ended totalitarian rule. It is instructive to refer to a recount given in a paper43 by Professor Jüri Engelbrecht of the abrupt changes in values in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in the twentieth century that occurred because of changes in society caused by two World Wars. Freedom, he says, was for the people in CEE a basic value, but he then asks “freedom from what?” He goes on and compares the values of the CEE peoples under a century-long totalitarian rule and recently in the European Union this way: The totalitarian system that governed most of the CFE countries, “was spiritually very oppressive and brutal”, constantly pressing the moral and value systems of these peoples. The escape from authoritarian rule meant freedom, personal independence and rational choice, a change from survival values towards individuality and diversity, towards the right to have different values and to honor them. Sadly, after all that trying experience under totalitarian rule, he sees in the lives of these same people, now in the EU , “freedom running away from responsibility” and diversity of values eroding. In practice, then, values are displayed differently in the behavior of people, and the values – and their value (αξία) – a society upholds evolve depending on culture and context. Of course, even in those regimes, people might have secretly held totally different ‘hidden-from-the-state’ values that sustained them in their private life and resistance to the system.

Relevant, I believe, to the contextualization of values is also the question: How are values changed or distorted in a society and how long does it take to change or to distort a given society’s values? In contemplating such questions, I recall a discussion my wife and I were part of during dinner at a colleague’s house in Kaiserslautern in 1991, where a number of guests from former West and East Germany were present.

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