Relationships - Are values disintegrating?
Not all value changes are disgraceful and bad.
I often meet people complaining about how the values we used to hold in the past were now disintegrating. Some complain that the last years have seen drastic neglect of what were primary values, including religion, loyalty, commitment, love, solidarity, and so on. My personal opinion is that values are changing rather than disintegrating and we need to be constructive about such changes rather than destructive.
Values are a bit like fashion, they come, go, and reappear after some years. They depend on the context within which we live and are also contingent upon the interaction of various factors including politics and culture. A change in values has been detected from time to time since time immemorial. Values were reportedly changing even in ancient Greece. Who doesn't remember the Genesis' story about Noah's ark and the deluge, ordered by God to cleanse earth from ill faith?
Are today's values different from the values people held in the past? No, they are not. The priorities are different. The set of values remains eternally the same but their application and their prominence depends on the factors described above. It is easy to understand for example how the values people held around womanhood and manhood changed, and are still changing, over time. As are our values around children and childhood. Even fundamental values, like the value of life, change rather than disintegrate. Life, while a universal value, is still interpreted and practised in different ways.
And so we find ourselves struggling to understand what is going on. We look at our children and see a difference between the values we uphold and the values they uphold. It is obviously the wrong comparison. If we had to compare theirs with our own values when we were their age we would probably be surprised to remember that we similarly rebelled to traditional values as much as they are doing now.
Traditional values are there and definitely retain their standard status against which to measure progress. Many parents are shocked to find out that their children have pierced an ear, or got tattooed for example, without understanding that tattoos are valued differently to tattooing in their time. The meanings attributed to it nowadays have to do with personalisation and body decoration and therefore are often a statement of uniqueness rather than rebellion and toughness, which are the statements done by tattooing 20 or 30 years ago.
It is the same with early or teenage pregnancy. Its unexpected nature definitely still brings shock, disbelief and discomfort. Nonetheless, people are less likely to hide the pregnancy because of shame. Gone are the times when the "stained" daughter was hidden away from home, somewhere in Gozo, while the mother took on a fictitious pregnancy to cover up, saying her daughter was studying in the US. At least, while traces of shame can be detected still, families are less tragic about it, and don't isolate the pregnant girl unsupported.
Similarly, values about disability have changed along with the progress in the terminology describing the various conditions. Until not so long ago children born with disabilities were hidden away in cellars and garden rooms. They were considered a disgrace on the family and a shame. I remember how one family who lived nearby in my childhood gave birth to a baby who later turned out to be suffering from quite a severe condition of autism. The kind-hearted neighbours gossiped that the birth was God's punishment for an affair the father allegedly had had before.
Thank God, we don't believe in such crap anymore. We neither believe disability is a curse nor that children with disability are a punishment. More than that we don't hide them any more. On the contrary we send them to special schools or integrate them in mainstream schooling, depending on their ability, condition, etc. We make sure they can enjoy life as much as children without disabilities do. Specialised services, private and public, and associations sprouted like spring roses all over the country.
The point is one: Not all value changes are disgraceful and bad. It's true that some people take them to the extreme, but can you imagine being beaten by your husband day after day and not being able to leave because of the stigma?
If your opinion about a person changes because he or she does a tattoo you are only trying to fit the world into one perspective - your perspective. But it's good to remember that there is not only one right. Traditionalism, through its moralising stance, would like us to believe there is only one right way of doing things and only one truth to adhere to. This position is quite regimental and judgemental. And hypocritically then we admit that we're no one to judge others. But how often we do!!
Plurality is one difficult concept to grasp, let alone practice. Being pluralistic means that people are able to handle different and contradictory concepts, behaviours and values simultaneously. It is moving away from the either-or duality to a position which is more flexible, tolerant and accepting of differences. The Maltese are famous for this. You're either red or blue (that's why the greens never really picked up), you're either supporting St Joseph or St Mary. You cannot support both, you cannot love both.
The point is one. Values change over time and continue to change according to a fashion designed by all the forces around us. We often have no control over such forces but we have control over the way we decide to value life and all we go through.
Making those healthy choices often means that we have to be more flexible and tolerant of ambivalences and contradictions, and accept that they are also part of the human nature.
One woman recently told me how at times she wished her son dead rather than imprisoned for drugs.
Her husband brought her to me because he was shocked by this love-hate contradiction. He thought she was going crazy. The feelings associated with being caught between contradictions are worse than the contradictions themselves. Thinking that his wife went crazy created more problems in the relationship and the love-hate ambivalence the mother was experiencing.
• Mr Azzopardi is a systemic family psychotherapist.
Values are a bit like fashion, they come, go, and reappear after some years. They depend on the context within which we live and are also contingent upon the interaction of various factors including politics and culture. A change in values has been detected from time to time since time immemorial. Values were reportedly changing even in ancient Greece. Who doesn't remember the Genesis' story about Noah's ark and the deluge, ordered by God to cleanse earth from ill faith?
Are today's values different from the values people held in the past? No, they are not. The priorities are different. The set of values remains eternally the same but their application and their prominence depends on the factors described above. It is easy to understand for example how the values people held around womanhood and manhood changed, and are still changing, over time. As are our values around children and childhood. Even fundamental values, like the value of life, change rather than disintegrate. Life, while a universal value, is still interpreted and practised in different ways.
And so we find ourselves struggling to understand what is going on. We look at our children and see a difference between the values we uphold and the values they uphold. It is obviously the wrong comparison. If we had to compare theirs with our own values when we were their age we would probably be surprised to remember that we similarly rebelled to traditional values as much as they are doing now.
Traditional values are there and definitely retain their standard status against which to measure progress. Many parents are shocked to find out that their children have pierced an ear, or got tattooed for example, without understanding that tattoos are valued differently to tattooing in their time. The meanings attributed to it nowadays have to do with personalisation and body decoration and therefore are often a statement of uniqueness rather than rebellion and toughness, which are the statements done by tattooing 20 or 30 years ago.
It is the same with early or teenage pregnancy. Its unexpected nature definitely still brings shock, disbelief and discomfort. Nonetheless, people are less likely to hide the pregnancy because of shame. Gone are the times when the "stained" daughter was hidden away from home, somewhere in Gozo, while the mother took on a fictitious pregnancy to cover up, saying her daughter was studying in the US. At least, while traces of shame can be detected still, families are less tragic about it, and don't isolate the pregnant girl unsupported.
Similarly, values about disability have changed along with the progress in the terminology describing the various conditions. Until not so long ago children born with disabilities were hidden away in cellars and garden rooms. They were considered a disgrace on the family and a shame. I remember how one family who lived nearby in my childhood gave birth to a baby who later turned out to be suffering from quite a severe condition of autism. The kind-hearted neighbours gossiped that the birth was God's punishment for an affair the father allegedly had had before.
Thank God, we don't believe in such crap anymore. We neither believe disability is a curse nor that children with disability are a punishment. More than that we don't hide them any more. On the contrary we send them to special schools or integrate them in mainstream schooling, depending on their ability, condition, etc. We make sure they can enjoy life as much as children without disabilities do. Specialised services, private and public, and associations sprouted like spring roses all over the country.
The point is one: Not all value changes are disgraceful and bad. It's true that some people take them to the extreme, but can you imagine being beaten by your husband day after day and not being able to leave because of the stigma?
If your opinion about a person changes because he or she does a tattoo you are only trying to fit the world into one perspective - your perspective. But it's good to remember that there is not only one right. Traditionalism, through its moralising stance, would like us to believe there is only one right way of doing things and only one truth to adhere to. This position is quite regimental and judgemental. And hypocritically then we admit that we're no one to judge others. But how often we do!!
Plurality is one difficult concept to grasp, let alone practice. Being pluralistic means that people are able to handle different and contradictory concepts, behaviours and values simultaneously. It is moving away from the either-or duality to a position which is more flexible, tolerant and accepting of differences. The Maltese are famous for this. You're either red or blue (that's why the greens never really picked up), you're either supporting St Joseph or St Mary. You cannot support both, you cannot love both.
The point is one. Values change over time and continue to change according to a fashion designed by all the forces around us. We often have no control over such forces but we have control over the way we decide to value life and all we go through.
Making those healthy choices often means that we have to be more flexible and tolerant of ambivalences and contradictions, and accept that they are also part of the human nature.
One woman recently told me how at times she wished her son dead rather than imprisoned for drugs.
Her husband brought her to me because he was shocked by this love-hate contradiction. He thought she was going crazy. The feelings associated with being caught between contradictions are worse than the contradictions themselves. Thinking that his wife went crazy created more problems in the relationship and the love-hate ambivalence the mother was experiencing.
• Mr Azzopardi is a systemic family psychotherapist.