Does anybody aspire to be a better human being any more?

Question

What happened to honour, decency, morality?

Answer 1

I think many people aspire to be better. I am one of those people. I do what I can to improve upon my knowledge skills and abilities so that I can in turn help others. I feel that there are many other people like me, however there are also people that are still honorable, decent and moral they just have different agendas and must do what the will for their life. No one fits into a perfect mold. It does not mean they are bad. I will use the phrase "back in the day"...say like when our grandparents were growing up and even the time before they were born the same or similar things happened back then as they do now. The difference is that communication has improved so we hear about all of these horrific things that people do. The world as a whole has become a lot more communicative and refusing to hush things or brush them under the table anymore. So, perhaps while people are seeming as though they may not be honorable, decent or moral, these folks are only few and far between. Give thanks to the honorable, decent and moral people who flush these unbearable folks out.. they are out there.

Answer 2

Yes there are good people in the world only because of this virtue its running otherwise ur have beastly humans the world will become an jungle. I can substantiate this point of view from my personal experience, my close friend met with an accident in India , he was not hurt much the other person ankle got fractured, my friend in order to show humanity took the stranger with whom he met accident and took him to hospital and payed all the expenses till the time the person was discharged from the hospital and fine. Even though the person was from an poor family my friend also was not that rich but he took loan from his friends to pay the hospital bills.
This is an classic exampe of that human are better and they honour decency morality. The problem is there number is few, is diminishing everyday because the so called corporatist culture is eroding the value patterns of the soceity. This is cause of concern, for human beings. Again we come to point what is morality who defines its? What are the parameters of honour ? decency? According to the liberatarianians its my liberty to rome naked on the streets, some dressing up may be morality. These questions are in mind to define a better human being. The word better is too subjective to be defined, some people may be expert in all the three criteria mentioned above but may be criminal, or good for some bad for some.

Answer 3

Unfortunately since the PC, arm waving liberal types have had their say in everything qualities such as honour, decency, morality, good behaviour and manners seem to have gone down the pan! This is why we now have so many dropouts on the dole and single teenage 'mothers' with their housing and benefits provided by the government. Its a reason for increasing crime and even race riots.

I TRY to be polite and a good person and set an example to others too.

Answer 4

Yes. Most of the people I know do not only aspire, but try hard to be better human beings. Honor, decency and morality are still attributes you can find in some people, although I will admit you do have to look for them.

Answer 5

I do! My manta is that through life I do my utmost to ensure that no person is worse of for knowing me. Emotional needs I fill, and offer my hand to lift their spirit. Financially supported many and freely give my time to charity. There is no reward, people say I am a weirdo, but if that gives them amusement, thats ok as well. Honour, decency and morality were washed away years ago.

Answer 6

Most are aspiring to be better human machines.
Honour, decency and morality are not words in the dictionary of machines, man!

Answer 7

the world we live in is deteriorating, all people care about these days is themselves, so if kindness, respect for others, decency, honesty don't serve them or get in the way they are easily tossed aside! If you are kind to people they see it as a sign of weakness or they try to use you, its sad!
Noboby teaches 'Respect' anymore!!!! And i guess parents are too busy working and have no time to instill good values in their children, so all kids have to learn from is TV which has more bad examples than good! If you observe younger generations you'll notice the big change in their behaviour to the worse, and i'm speaking from experience here!
I can't say i'm perfect, but i can honestly tell you that I TRY, i try to hold on to the good things, i try be a better person, i try to teach my little sisters to be respectful of others and to be kind, and i try to see the good in others because it might help them hold on to it!
We just have to look within ourselves, and if we see the bad in us then there's hope and we can try to be better!

Answer 8

Honour, decency and morality form parts of what is known as Conventional Wisdom in Ethics. These are the universal values upon which the very fabric of our social life has been woven over centuries. Conventional Wisdom with its strict and unquestionable moral and ethical codes has been the only source of our sense of honour, decency and morality. We have never dared to question the validity or the usefulness of the wisdom of our forefathers, this until only recently.

The technological revolution at the beginning of twentieth century proved to be the starting point for an unprecedented and irreversible change in human life. In an ever so more newly emerging world after that, we find our Conventional Wisdom unable to help us resolve many moral and ethical issues and dilemmas we face as part of our normal day to day life. For example, single sex marriages in conventional societies are still unacceptable, as something unimaginably bad. The societies that have ventured out of strict moral and religious codes, however, have developed tolerance towards such issues.

In this modern world people perceive themselves, and their place in a society in a sense that is radically shifted from the traditional sense of a better person or a better life. People nowadays know themselves in terms of their individual rights, and responsibilities. They believe personal autonomy, empowerment, tolerance, freedom and equality to be the most important of all human social values. People are living in societies, especially western societies, based upon commonly recognisable value, whereas conventional societies were entirely and strongly based upon moral virtues.

In our times me, you and many others do believe that something wrong has happened to our good old sense of honour, decency and morality. This can be both discouraging and demoralising. We therefore need to realise that all is not lost; we all still aspire to be honourable, decent and virtuous but may be in a slightly different way. You see, we still strive to become better human beings all the time. But our sense of an ideal human being has altered, may be a little, but it has. The explosion if hippy culture as alternative culture after the Second World War, for example, was an earlier sign of our growing needs to break free from the restraints of ‘invalid’ conventional wisdom in search for new horizons of individual and collective excellence – the alternative to Conventional Wisdom is called Modern Knowledge. Events in our recent history pronounce a growing sense of general disbelief towards conventional human wisdom. We after all have not been able to get rid of poverty, decease, injustice, inequality and war from our societies.

Then there is the global consumer culture of affluent societies of the world where individuals enjoy comparatively very high spending power. And they set standards for the rest of the world to follow - the standards for the quality of life. You see, life of an honest, hardworking and pious person is no longer a standard in the eyes of the modern generation. Our extended material needs due to our unprecedented access to things worldwide have made it possible for us to live differently.

Our new life style with its elaborate needs in turn shape our perception of what we should aspire. Where this spiralling journey will take us, only time can tell. But one thing is for sure we human beings never find total contentment in the things of the world. We always look out for things that enable us to see further and farther beyond. We aspire for better things in many ways, sometimes we ascend and sometimes we transcend and sometimes we come round a complete circle to find again what we lost long ago in the dusty plains of our own history.

Answer 9

I'm afraid I agree with Chiron - americian values of consumerism and worshiping the superficial seem more appealing than anything that might take real effort! However, I am sure there are small pockets of people out there trying to do the right thing despite the globalization of of the american dream!

Answer 10

America