We often feel our values are so universal that everyone should hold them.
That is what religion or political ideology is: a set of values we hold that we consider right and good for others. We want everyone to share them. We may even be ready to go to war about them!
One way to do this is to live within a culture of like-valued people, such as the members of our religious or ethnic/cultural group. If you live within a homogenous group you may never find someone who questions your values. Living in a pluralistic world where people of many types gather you will inevitably come upon someone whose are very different.
This can even happen in your family. When your children are educated, work, and live in different places, and choose people from different cultures as their partners (indeed, this happens to just about every family to some degree or another) you discover that there are values differences close to home.
Tension arises when we experience someone close by acts differently than we would. We are particularly sensitive when other members of our family or people close to us hold different values. We want them to agree with us. We prefer to go to a museum; our son prefers to play video games. We want to make more risky investments or have them fit our values about people and the environment, while others want investments that are safe, or that bring a maximum return.
We can easily think that we are right, and they are wrong because our preference is important and theirs is not. But we can look further and see that this is a case of one set versus another. We can argue right or wrong, or we can choose to learn about the differences of our child, partner, or friend. Especially when the relationship matters, the latter approach seems more productive.
Values Are a New World Order
In the past, people lived in more homogenous cultures where they did not face daily differences. In such a culture everyone has closely aligned values. But today values are in flux. Older and younger members see the world differently.
Change is so omnipresent that our values get challenged in ways we never expected. Those that in the past were not questioned are now open to review. When we are faced with people around us having different values we are challenged to face a re-negotiation about what to do. We cannot sometimes just agree to disagree—there are policies to be made, and practices to decide. We judge others and are not tolerant; we value conformity and not tolerance.
A pluralistic society has to acknowledge different values and find areas where people agree, and how to live with the areas where people do not agree. This is a deep challenge for our society, as different communities and groups must live and work in close proximity.
Get Your Own Values Wheel
The Values Wheel is a tool, a mental model that enables a person to organize and make sense of personal versus shared values with a special or important group. The values themes and styles discovered in the wheel enable us to organize our multiple values into useful patterns and talk about them with others about differences and commonalities.
Using the wheel and defining personal values is the entry point to a series of activities that lead you to live a life more aligned, and to share within your workgroup, family, organization, and community.
To purchase a set of eight decks of cards, and other materials to help you define your personal, family, or team, please email Dennis at djaffe@dennisjaffe.com, or visit www.dennisjaffe.com.
This is the last in a series. Find the first here, the second here, the third here, and the fourth here. Reprinted with permission.
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