Where does your family derive its values? There are surveys constantly being taken about what Australians think and about what guides our actions.
The Australian Values survey was a very extensive coverage of Australian motivation, which was compared with that of thirty other countries where the same survey was undertaken. It will be repeated every decade to see how our belief systems change.
The Commonwealth Government has commissioned its own survey, and the Morgan Gallup Poll and the Saulwick poll produce commercial versions. The social welfare units attached to our universities likewise chart what we believe and what moves us. Hugh Mackay interprets our changing values to us in his book, “Reinventing Australia.”
“The values of a community depend largely upon families transmitting them from one generation to another. While values may be taught in church and school, they are transmitted very largely within families. Most people developed their value systems from oral transmission down through the generations.”
But with family life coming under many changes and blendings, with the churches speaking mixed messages on many matters of personal morality and sexuality, with the schools coming under pressure from many lobby groups, where do people learn their values?
Increasingly people are absorbing their values from television. That is why parents were recently warned about the influence TV cartoons can have on the violent behaviour of children. Teenagers have their value systems dramatically altered by films, videos and television. Perhaps, even more so in a way parents usually do not understand by their peer attitudes found on the social networking pages of Facebook and the like.
Adults are also influenced through continuously watching TV shows where issues of personal behaviour and morals are debated between guest and studio audiences hosted by people such as Ellen DeGeneris and Oprah Winfrey. Their influence is enormous. Many people live in a moral vacuum, and they take their values from whomever they happen to like. So entertainers can set a community’s moral values.
Many people do not realise that small volatile audiences and uninhibited guests arguing for various changes in our behaviour, beliefs and values, can affect the way they think and what they believe. They do not realise that television sets their morals.
Likewise the Internet, especially those sites that are immoral, set the values and standards for their viewers. Is TV influencing your family’s values?
A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that more than four out of five parents are concerned that their children are exposed to too much televised sex and violence—yet millions of youngsters are still enthusiastically watching hours of TV daily, with little or no supervision.
Most parents don’t spend the same amount of time with their children as the TV set does. It is clear that TV is a huge influence.
There are hundreds of academic and medical studies showing a connection between violence on TV and its impact on children, making them more violent, more likely to use vile language, more likely to experiment with sexuality, more defiant towards all adults (who are frequently shown as bumbling and foolish on TV, especially the fathers).
A US Surgeon General’s report concluded that 61% of all TV programming contains violence. According to the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP), a child who watches three to four hours a day of non-educational TV will see about 8,000 small-screen murders by the time he or she completes grade school.
American children spend an average of 6 hours, 32 minutes each day watching TV or using other media (including the Internet, videotapes, video games, and radio). That’s more time than they devote to any other activity except sleep, according to the AAP.
Modern TV shows contain more sexual reference (and far less mere innuendo), blatant swearing, graphic violence and more offensive behaviours than in the past. If people expose themselves to these programs and the attitudes inherent in them they will be changed for the worse, by being desensitised, and by tolerating what once was intolerable. They may even begin to use such language or express such attitudes themselves. People become more like what they see modelled. If people spend time with a ‘rough crowd’, even if it is only via TV, they are going to be changed by it.
The shock value sought by TV producers wears off rapidly which means an increase in the level of unacceptable behaviour, in order to get a further response. TV programs in the past tended to be very sexist and to portray idealised traditional families, and to use stereotypes, which formed, and limited viewers’ imaginations and presumed knowledge about the real world.
More graphic violence is portrayed on the television than actually occurs in life, leading to a skewed perception about the real level of danger of the world.
TV also often depicts the healthier attitudes of society, such as how to exercise, why not to smoke, and how to drink without risk to health. In the past the ‘happy, social drunk’ was a stock comic character.
Smoking of tobacco has nearly disappeared whereas in the past it was ubiquitous and ‘cool’. More races, cultures and alternative lifestyles are now appearing on TV, which helps to reinforce the idea of a multicultural world, unlike the nearly all white, middle class seen on TV in the past.
Especially in childhood, but even in adulthood, you should choose your friends very carefully because you become more like those with whom you spend time, and that includes your TV buddies. Responsible parents will carefully monitor their children’s TV watching, to help form positive attitudes.
Many viewers just follow the trend, go with the flow, accept the views of the loudest. Their values are fluid, not fixed. Their most important belief systems blow with the winds of uncertainty. They have no reference point. No stable basis upon which to rest. They are lost in a world of change.
That is why God called the Jewish nation always back to His Law. That’s why it was codified into ten easy to remember commandments. That is why every year at Passover the Jewish people remember their roots. They were a people, a chosen people, a suffering people, no random selection of citizens, but a people of similar beliefs and values based upon the scriptures and the Old Testament Law.
Christians are not to be tossed about by every fad and fashionable thought. Their values are not accidentally caught from the latest TV show. Their have a value system that comes from the life and teachings of Jesus Christ as recorded in the New Testament, and taught within the worship of the church.
Christians are expected to understand what they believe and why, and to hold in maturity their values. Paul urged church leaders to teach and encourage individual Christians (Eph 4:13-16) “until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
We are not to be tossed about by every latest moral fad or every belief system promoted on some TV show. We are to grow up, be mature in our thinking and beliefs. To help us, God has given us clear teaching in His word. Paul said: (2 Tim 3:13-17) “evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
Christian and family values in a world where values blow from one trend to another operate from a basis of fixed belief. There are many values that are the basis for personal morality and others that uphold family life.
Christians have always resisted the idea that the Gospel can be domesticated, confined to one people, or held as the property of one state, culture, or race. Instead, they believe that in the person of Jesus Christ, God entered the world that was already His by creation; that the Gospel is relevant to every place and age; new to every newborn generation; and that no idyllic plateau exists where those under the mandate and call to witness to God’s redeeming love can arrive, sit back, and say that their work is done.
So the early Church preached the Gospel, spread the Gospel, taught the Gospel, gossipped the Gospel, used every method and means in the home, the marketplace, the city square, the public hall, the sporting arena and even unexpected events like an earthquake and a riot to evangelise people until they believed that Jesus Christ was Lord.
They also sought justice for the prisoner, the widow, the women who lacked social rights who were accepted as sisters and the slaves who were changed into brothers. They served the poor and needy, sewed clothes for those who had few, fed the hungry, visited the prisoner, nursed the sick, cared for the infants and the orphans, provided hospitality for the stranger and the widow in a way of compassion never before seen on earth.
The earth is one but the world is not. We all depend on one biosphere for sustaining our lives. Yet each community, each country, strives for survival and prosperity with little regard for its impact on others. Some consume the earth’s resources at a rate that would leave little for future generations. Others, many more in number, consume far too little and live with the prospect of hunger, squalor, disease, and early death.
Behind that bleak portrait lie some sordid statistics. More hungry people suffer in the world today than ever before in human history. One-fifth of the persons in Two-Thirds World nations are under-nourished; one-fifth in major industrial nations are overweight or obese. An hour’s worth of the military expenditures of all nations would immunise 3.5 million children who are destined to die from preventable infectious diseases. Some 25% of the world’s population use 79% of the available drugs and vaccines.
Today the dominant values of contemporary Australia are affluence, achievement, appearance, power, competition, consumption, individualism, status and so on.
Our Family First values are an alternative culture in our time. That is why we speak on political and economic matters. There are times when we must say “no”: “No” to Government programs that devalue people; “No” to groups who would turn our public streets into promotions of sexual exploitation as with the Gay Mardi Gras; “No” to the promotion of more forms of gambling to fund social programs; “No” to the legalisation of drugs that destroy the users.
That is why we have to promote ideas and programs that make for a more just and humane society. We have to draw ethical lines and raise probing moral questions. That is why we must suggest policies, procedures, and programs that value persons, why we seek to be catalysts for change.
We are not responsible for developing perfect or utopian social and economic systems, but we are responsible for caring for the planet and all life, especially the poorest and weakest.
These are the values that drive us: not found in the daytime talk programs of television, but inscribed on the pages of the Scriptures and passed down in the best of family traditions.
Recently I attended a seminar from one of the most seminal thinkers in business management in the world, Professor Michael Porter of Harvard Business School. He gave inspiring presentations ‘Winning Competitive Strategies in today’s shifting Global Marketplace’.
His books adorn the shelves of CEOs, heads of state, academics, and business school students alike. Countries and companies all over the world have embraced his theories on competition and strategy in the expanding global marketplace. His work has also been applied to a variety of important social issues, from the economic development of U.S. inner cities to environmental concerns.
Ten years earlier I had attended a high level course with Professor Porter on Strategy Change and I was interested in what had changed in the ten years since. Using his insights Wesley Mission had trebled its staff to 4,600 trained and competent employees and an annual budget of $180 million.
What new thing could I learn? I was surprised. The big new feature in business and economic development was the necessity of businesses to develop good value systems and an involvement in corporate social responsibility.
In other words, clients buy from companies who have good values and who practice them by serving society. Businesses are realizing they can improve shareholder value and profitability by developing a corporate spirit of virtue and usefulness much like a Church or Christian school.
On 22nd November 2000 the then Prime Minister of Australia, The Hon John Howard MP, gave a surprising address to the Melbourne Press Club on “Australian Values”. That address sparked wide debate across Australia that continues to this day.
Mr Howard said, “In a world driven by competitive pressures, national character is an important factor achieving prosperity. The Australian people have outstanding qualities which set us apart. There is an Australian Way – different and so often better than that of other comparable societies.”
He indicated four values we must maintain: Self Reliance. “We believe that “the only real freedom is a brave acceptance of unclouded individual responsibility”. Second, ‘A Fair Go’ to ensure equality of opportunity and equality of treatment, of ‘doing the right thing’ and ensuring that all Australians are given ‘a Fair Go’. Third, Pulling Together. Self reliance and the concept of a fair go are values prized by individuals, but Australians also have a particular way of seeing themselves collectively as a people. The notion of communities and families ‘pulling together’ is seen particularly in times of trouble or challenge.
We see it in the sheer scale of generosity when good causes seek support, when communities battle flood, bushfires and drought, and in the efforts of the volunteers at the Olympics. Fourth, ‘Having a Go’. Great achievement comes about only when people are animated by a sense of purpose. Calculated risk taking, creativity and having the courage of your convictions are innately part of the Australian psyche.
A few years ago The National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools saw all of the ministers of education of State and Federal Governments agreeing upon nine values for Australian Schooling that emerged from Australian school communities and from the National Goals for Schooling in Australia in the Twenty First Century.
Today they include care and compassion, a fair go, freedom, honesty, trustworthiness, integrity, respect, inclusion and tolerance. Nothing has driven parents so much to move students from government to non-government schools than the desire to find a school guided by the best of family values.
The Greeks described character firstly as the impression made in wax by a seal. It later evolved to be the ‘stamp’ of personality each of us possess. I don’t remember who was top of my class at school, but I do remember those who by their presence and participation made the lives of all of us much better.
In the adult world we celebrate financial, social and political success. But it is those who represent our best ideals whom we honour as moulding our collective identity. As parents we want many things for our children. Ultimately we want them to be well-adjusted adults committed to an ethic of service to others.
Professor Tony Lovat, pro-vice chancellor for education at the University of Newcastle referred to the fact that the “shift to religious schools dates from the 1920s when values-based education in public schools was replaced by a “strong secularism.” In his opinion, the large part of the reason for the heavy drift to private schooling came from the perceived role of private schools in shaping personal values.
Professor Lovat has explained values-based education is not the primary motivator of state schools. A secular emphasis is free to run loose in public schools whilst most religious schools have set themselves up on Christian foundations. If the rate of increase in non-government schools continues another five years, by 2012 more than half of all students will be in independent schools.
Parents want basic values prescriptively taught. Imperfect though each of us is as parents, we nonetheless expect schools to reinforce the values we believe important foundations for life. To be trustworthy, loyal, respectful, courteous, accountable, fair, compassionate and imbued with a deep sense of volunteerism are some of the virtues universal to the values that should inform education.
When parents find such behaviour and culture in schools – public or private, they are comfortable. If not, they move on. Each of us needs to be able to know right from wrong and act accordingly. Values must be taught in schools. Whatever our circumstances or levels of education, surely we want our children to be taught in a values-based framework.
A couple of years ago I hosted a luncheon at Parliament for some key people involved in education. I had invited the Minister of Education, a number of University Vice Chancellors (including Dr Terry Lovat quoted above) the heads of Catholic and Protestant educational commissions, outstanding Principals and lecturers in education, heads of education faculties and the like.
I wanted them to hear two people: Dr Nikolay D Nikandrov, Director of the Russian Academy of Education, head of all the universities in Russia and bearing oversight of Russia’s 33 million teachers, answerable only to President Putin personally; and Dr Olga Lutsenko, President of Global Kindness who has been conducting major conferences for educators from the European Union. Tens of thousands of educators have attended these.
The Eastern bloc countries are deeply concerned with the spiritual vacuum in their educational system. In the Ukraine, 15 million teachers are concerned about the lack of values among their students. The Global Kindness Foundation has discovered of a basis of dialogue with different faiths turning their nations back to spiritual foundations.
Interestingly, the basis for such values is accepted as the Bible. Muslim groups participating in the conferences have been accepting teaching the Bibles in their faith schools.
Dr Nikolay Nikandrov, an educationalist without peer in Russia, (Google his name) recently told Russian University Chancellors of the importance of universities including teaching the Bible in their courses. He told them, “You cannot call a person educated who does not know the Bible.” Can you imagine any leading educator saying that at such a conference in Australia?
The Russian Minister of Education asked Dr Olga Lutsenko, a leading educational official with the Academy of Educational Sciences in the USSR to develop a program for teaching morality in Russian Schools. In her research, she began reading the Bible and was spiritually transformed. She has developed the program of teaching values based upon the Bible throughout Russia and the Ukraine. Over 25,000 teachers have been trained in her methods. Her teaching organization is called the Global Kindness Foundation.
The educational authorities in China have investigated her methods, and have invited the Global Kindness Foundation to launch similar seminars across China. The Government of China has agreed to pay 90% of the costs for Bibles and for teacher’s expenses in attending these training programs.
The only word I can think of to describe my luncheon guests’ response was “gob smacked”!
Our values cannot come from television, the Internet or social networking. Family values, such as promoted by Family First, are a positive contribution to society.
Rev the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes AC MLC