How does one live one's values?

By: teacherken
Published On: 1/19/2008 9:30:53 AM

cross-posted from Daily Kos

This is a question with which I wrestle.  Last night Leave on the Current and I went out to dinner to a fairly nice restaurant not far from our house, with an extensive wine and beer list.  The conversation somehow came around to the decision Meteor Blades has made about taxes supporting the war.  I remarked that I knew of Quakers whose answer to the problem of not wishing to pay taxes in support of war was that they reduced their income - and thus their standard of living - to the point where they had no Federal tax liability.   Leaves rightly pointed out that for me the next time I needed computer upgrade such an approach would fail.  The conversation moved on to other topics, but that interchange reinvoked a mental thread which I wish to explore.   What I offer will not be fully developed, but it is something more than merely thinking aloud.   It is offered here because I believe an examination of one’s values and how one attempts to inculcate them in one’s own life is an essential underpinning to political action.   I invite you to share this preliminary exploration.
My values could well be viewed both as less than completely stable and also as at times contradictory.  I do not rigidly adhere to an overarching philosophy, but have modified the collection of beliefs I call my values over time, as a result of my life’s experiences and observations.  Given the contradictory nature of parts of this collection, I am inevitably in situations where I have to choose between conflicting values: there is no automatic process or checklist which can solve these dilemmas for me.   

I can say that I have a strong sense of the value of individual human beings, and a reluctance to ignore that in favor of larger purposes.  At least since my freshman year at Haverford when I first truly encountered the Quaker ideal of answering that of God in every human being this has been a core value for me.   And yet even as a mere  classroom teacher I regularly encounter situations where I must choose what is for the benefit of the larger group of students - the class - and ignore or even reject the needs of one individual student.  That is painful, but necessary.   Does it mean I am abandoning a core value, or does it mean that I accept my limitations as a human being to resolve all conflicts I encounter?  For my sanity I tend to think the latter.

How do I decide when I have conflicts between values I embrace?  I can consider the immediate situation and what makes me most comfortable, I can attempt to understand the longer term consequences, and  I can perhaps even attempt to reassess one or more of the values I find to be in conflict, to see if I misunderstand them or perhaps have taken a position that needs to be rethought.  Some might well criticize this last, labeling it as situational ethics, because I allow for the possibility of changing a value in light of experience.  But I do not have an overarching moral scheme that defines everything, perhaps because I refuse to surrender my own sense of responsibility.

Sometime in the near future I will decide whom I will support for the Democratic nomination.  My choice could be any of the three, or it could be not to choose, despite the fact that I am politically active, that I wish to model for my students the idea of political participation which usually includes the concept of political commitment.   If I am to make a choice, I will have to select a candidate with whom I have disagreements on one or more things I value - I have just spend an hour wading through the web pages of each of the big three finding things with which I agreed and others on which either I disagreed or for which I found an unsettling silence, a lack of a position from that candidate.  In each case I would be required to commit to person whose candidacy presents me with a conflict in things I hold dear.  What if there is no clear enough distinction, am I violating my values if I choose not to select a primary candidate, even when Virginia votes on February 12, when it is possible my vote could make a difference?  And what of my value of doing the best good that I can regardless of whether or not it makes a difference?  For me to say that my words or actions do not matter is to abjure a responsibility that is essential:  to act with integrity,  in Quaker terms to answer that of God in myself.  “Do the right thing.”   If I believe it to be right, does it matter whether it sways an election, prevents global climate change by itself, stops the war in Iraq?   Or is the measure that according to the best judgment available to me at the time I did what I believed to be moral, and now that my beard is gone will not be uncomfortable with looking at my face in the mirror as I shave?

Taking the time to pick up trash that others have left behind.  Not adding to trash by my own carelessness or laziness or being inconsiderate.  These words apply in a physical sense, but also metaphorically.  Trash, clutter, waste, anger, hatred, disrespect - to me they are interconnected.    

In the Political Leaders Program to which I have been accepted I have the opportunity to earn three graduate credits from the University of Virginia.  Should I pursue that opportunity, I will have to write out my political philosophy at the start, and then reflect periodically how my participation in the program interrelates with my philosophy, what if any modifications in my philosophy occur as a result of the program.  As I thought about possibly enrolling for the credits, which I could justify as part of the ongoing learning necessary for keeping my teaching certificate, I realized that I could not describe a political philosophy that was separate from my personal philosophy:  even had I successfully done so before, I can no longer compartmentalize aspects of my life.  Perhaps it is a function of my life winding down now that I am in my sixties, but what I seek, what I most value, is wholeness and integrity.  That applies to how I live, how I treat others, how I want them to treat me.  

“...answering that of God...”   I realize those words might make some here uncomfortable.  If they do, insert another “o” before the “d” -   answering the good in each person, challenging by example, affirming where possible even when challenging, understanding that to call to account is to speak to what is good within each person, to that part capable of feeling  connection with other human beings even of different faiths, races, gender orientation, political party.   Even if that other person offers me only hatred, rejection, destruction.  Perhaps it is that I refuse to give that person the right to define me, to control me, because that would be an abdication of my responsibility for myself.

I accept that your mind might not work as mine does.  It is probable that our collection of values will be in serious conflict.  And if we are not to destroy one another and the world around us neither of us can insist upon imposing our value system upon the other - however much we value it and believe it to be the best way.  If we are not to be destructive we will have to find ways we can communicate, ways we can coexist despite our differences.  For me at least, to act in any other fashion means that I am not “answering that of God” in you.

I began with a question: “How does one live one’s values?”   The answer for me is a paradox, a combination of confidence and humility.   I am confident that I will make mistakes, and that I will find myself having to make adjustments to what I think I hold dear because of the inevitable contradictions in my humanity.  Please note - that is the confidence.  And the humility - to recognize that I am neither as large as my greatest dreams or most positive achievements nor as small as my most terrible fears or my dumbest mistakes.  

And perhaps I can use the words of another, intended perhaps for a different purpose, to help point at my partial understanding of what this means.   They come from the final stanza of “Little Gidding” - the last of "The Four Quartets” by Thomas Stearns Eliot:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.



Peace.

Comments



I do invite your responses (teacherken - 1/19/2008 10:56:35 AM)
the thread on dailykos now has over 70 comments.  The diary has been on and off the recommended list, which actually surprised me.   And the quality of the discussion has been quite high.

Post here or there.  In either case I will read it.

Peace.



Hi, Ken (KathyinBlacksburg - 1/19/2008 5:59:24 PM)
I don't think it's for lack of interest.  I think we are all a bit distracted (with NV and SC) today.

I always read your posts, but confess today (and actualy most of the time I print them to read later.  mY non-ergonomic workstation gets "old" or rather gets me "old" when I spend too much time at the screen.  

So, what I think should happen is a good old frontpager....Like IU'm about to do.  That, hoepfully, will mean folks won't forget to get back to commenting after the election news isn't so fresh.

What you raise are the kind of questions I believe all ethical people need to think about.  And, a usual you do it better than anyone.

More, later, when I fully digest your column.



Well, now... (KathyinBlacksburg - 1/19/2008 6:01:27 PM)
My prior privileges may have been revoked.  I couldn't bump you to the front.  Oh, well...


I believe you're still the same as ever (Lowell - 1/19/2008 6:02:37 PM)
A guest blogger.


You are right. (KathyinBlacksburg - 1/19/2008 6:05:37 PM)
I just couldn't bump Kens up.  Not sure why...


Not completely... (KathyinBlacksburg - 1/19/2008 6:04:02 PM)
In my own sector I can still frontpage (haven't in a while).  But the tools to frontpage you didn't work, or rather didn't show up.  I know you have the same privileges when you first post a story.  But your humility keeps you from using them often.  

Keep writing at Kos and here.  And we will keep reading.



well, I almost missed this was on FP (teacherken - 1/19/2008 8:26:30 PM)
I wasn't expecting it.  Diary had decent play at big orange, and is also posted at the Fellowship of Reconciliation blog.  

I wrote it because it was on my mind.  I expected that it might connect with a few people.  

I am still staying out of the primary fray except to correct misstatements and mischaracterizations, and provide occasional information which others might not have seen.

Glad both of you, Lowell and Kathy, found it useful.

Peace.