Criticism of the value system of modern society

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Without accepting this very system of values, without carrying within himself a truly correct view of the world, a person will not understand why every component in this world is needed, every detail or idea, he will not imagine how and for what they can and should be used all these new advanced technologies, etc. In fact, a society stuffed with super-advanced technologies and equipped with the morality of the Middle Ages is doomed to be a schizophrenic society, where people are just cogs of a giant machine, orienting themselves in a narrow segment of a niche that is close to them professionally and socially, and not being able to imagine some integral, main goal of this entire complex mechanical world, unable to find human content in it. Heaps of books have been written, the authors of which warn mankind against the danger to which it exposes itself in connection with the lag of cultural, intellectual, personal development from the development of technology.

Imagine a world in which miniature robots, genetic weapons and mind manipulation technologies fall into the hands of all these terrorists, fanatics, and criminals that flood modern society is really scary. However, with all that, the authors of these dystopian horror stories and warnings are very poorly aware of how much this problem is connected not with some kind of abstract public morality, not with the problems of harmful ideologies, harmful traditions, ambitions of politicians and groups, not even with any something mythical and hidden mental characteristics rooted somewhere in the subconscious of people, but with problems that lie at the level of everyday, everyday psychology, with those attitudes that are pumped into the heads of the overwhelming majority of society. And it is precisely these attitudes and value priorities, which many people consider almost self-evident, that represent the main problem and the main obstacle to building a happy world that meets the best aspirations of the people of the world. Let us analyze all these harmful cliches and stereotypes in more detail and show their value basis.

“In most cases, a person is not yet mature enough to be independent, reasonable, objective … an ever-increasing understanding of the most important facts of our social life is necessary; awareness is needed that can protect us from irreparable madness, … increasing our ability to objectivity and reasonable judgment" E. Fromm "Escape from Freedom"

What idols are used to worship people living in the modern world?

First of all, it is the idol of "benefits" that each person determines for himself. This idol of "benefit" has developed even more pernicious properties in recent times in combination with the idol of "freedom" and individualism. What is the meaning of this so-called "benefit"? This meaning is that any activity, according to the egoists worshiping this idol, should be aimed directly at satisfying certain needs. These or other egoists.

The absurdity of this idol of "use" is obvious, since it is this idol that leads us to collapse, causing widespread destruction of nature, an absolutely thoughtless waste of resources, especially exhaustible oil and gas, while stimulating, at the same time, the strangulation of fundamental scientific research programs. in particular, the study of space, and causing much more enormous harm. Billions of unhappy people living on the planet see the meaning of their activities in bringing themselves or others "good", in satisfying certain needs, not noticing that a significant part of this activity is completely meaningless or harmful. At the same time, only a very small number of people on the planet understand that "benefit" in itself has absolutely no meaning, because, without showing reason, a person is simply not able to understand what is really the benefit or harm from his choice. The cult of the idol of "benefit" is a general irresponsibility, when people, driven by their selfish impulses and blinded by their ambitions, insist on completely stupid and absurd demands, thereby harming themselves and other people.

In the age of selfishness and individualism, people are sacredly accustomed to the fact that the main thing is not to make an intelligent choice, the main thing is to defend their point of view and their requirements in a collision with the points of view and requirements of others. Having traced the roots of the idol of "use", we will invariably come to the conclusion that they lie in the emotional perception of the world, in the habit of thoughtlessly indulging desires, in defining the meaning of life as receiving pleasure and sensual pleasure. These imperatives force egoists to jam their minds, since the realization of their own wrongness violates their emotional comfort, which they value above all else. Paradoxically, for people of this kind (and there are most of them!) It is much easier to maintain their iridescent illusions than to admit their mistakes. Accordingly, such a person very often defends perfect nonsense as something useful. By mistakenly presenting the main and almost the only necessary task of people to “satisfy needs”, people lose their true tasks and truly necessary values, such as self-development, self-realization, cognition and the search for new opportunities in this world.

Unfortunately, the harmful effects of worshiping the idol of "benefit" are seen everywhere and in people's daily lives. This is what makes them paint their lives by the minute, making decisions on the go and on the run, rigidly cutting off many things according to these very criteria of "usefulness", without trying to understand them in any way. The life of an automaton, who himself has turned himself into a slave to his rationalized "utility", can hardly be considered a good example to follow. Very often, having lived for many years at such a pace, a person accidentally discovers things that he discarded as "unnecessary", and realizes that they are actually much more important and useful than the program that he was fulfilling and the goals that he achieved. However, even people who do not take their worship to the extreme do great harm, both to themselves and to others, guided by the criterion of "benefit." In fact, the only solution to this problem is the refusal to make decisions based on one's selfish impulses, refusal to filter the surrounding world in general, including all incoming information - from books, newspapers, from acquaintances, etc. criterion.

In doing so, you make yourself the slaves of your narrowly egoistic view of the world and choose voluntary imprisonment in a small room, a niche of information, fenced off from the rest of the world. The criterion of "usefulness" cannot be justified by anything. Instead of following this criterion, you should try to discover for yourself in every case and in every moment of your life the understanding of things, instead of limiting your perception, you should give freedom to your mind, the freedom to freely explore everything, the freedom to know everything, what seems interesting - interesting without any selfish or selfish motive, interesting simply by itself. A person who is guided by the criterion of "usefulness" is like a blind man wandering in darkness and grabbing certain objects to the touch, immediately shouting "this is mine!" do. A person who follows reason has vision, and therefore is able to assess the purpose of each object and determine the value that it can represent.

The second idol that is blindly worshiped in modern society is the idol of love. Despite the fact that nothing bad can be said about love in itself, worshiping the idol of love and proclaiming it the highest value has, of course, harmful and pernicious consequences. The exaltation of love and feelings in general has, of course, roots in the fact that people are committed to the perception of the world through the emotional sphere. Love in the modern world has no rational basis. Therefore, people are forced to blindly throw themselves on the altar, sacrificing themselves to this idol, to throw themselves thoughtlessly, and it is natural that such throwing often leads to severe disappointments and other unpleasant consequences.

People are so blindly convinced of the importance of feelings and that it is feelings that should determine their whole life that they do not even have a thought to doubt such a stupid dogma. In fact, of course, all feelings have a base in the form of rational representations, however, the dogma that forces to shift the center of gravity to the emotional sphere violates the correct order of things, and, instead of first thinking and then showing feelings, people act in a completely stupid way - they imagine how nice it would be if … and for the sake of the senses create illusory representations, representations that distortedly show reality. It is these performances, blinding them, make the unfortunate easy victims of all sorts of troubles, about which so much is shown in soap operas.

Worshiping the idol of love forces people not to distinguish between imaginary and true love, to give up love altogether, taking an arrogant cynical position, killing life in search of love or its replacement, actually tormenting and tormenting themselves with reflections on its lack, etc. The only cure for these troubles is again - to give free rein to the mind, thereby preventing the likelihood of becoming a victim or a source of problems for others, to feel freedom, replacing the ephemeral happiness of the search for love with true happiness, the happiness of being yourself and acting in accordance with your understanding of the world, and not under the dictates of emotions … Only an appeal to the mind will allow a person to experience true feelings, feelings that will always be with him, that you do not need to look for somewhere, feelings that will relate to real people and the real, not an illusory world.

The next idols whose worship has harmful and pernicious consequences are the idols with the names "courtesy", "tact", "tolerance", etc. The roots of these idols also lie in the blind adherence of people to the emotional sphere. The harmful influence of these idols affects everywhere and everywhere, especially in an environment where the so-called. "Liberals" who suppress the freedom of everyone and are ready to silence everyone in order to preserve the atmosphere of hypocrisy and duplicity. The first property that egoists strive to ensure for themselves in relations with people is the observance of the so-called. "Rules of decency", which are expressed in the need for others to please these egoists.

As a rule, egoists adhere to rigidly dogmatic traditions, that is, patterns of behavior, manners, habits, etc., which they, for the sake of their egoism, force others to follow. The favorite hobby of the egoists is meaningless empty chatter, the whole purpose of which is to entertain oneself with easy conversations that do not strain the brain, to spend time, that is, to provide oneself with emotional comfort.

Of course, not a single normal active person will consider such a useless pastime and such useless aspirations as an ideal. Nevertheless, egoists are always impenetrable in their belief that the only goal of their whole life in general, and dialogues with other people in particular, is to please themselves, and, worst of all, this "pleasure" is usually combined with a complete shutdown. any mental effort. Therefore, acting from their position on the priority of their meaningless (literally) emotional comfort over any manifestations of reason, these egoists always make efforts to suppress everything that is associated with a reasonable assessment of reality. Any person who will object to an egoist who has said obvious stupidity will be accused of tactlessness, impoliteness, "indecent" behavior, etc. If he continues to insist on his point of view, he will be called a boor and other bad words, after which the egoist will try with all his behavior to show that he wants nothing to do with someone who tried to criticize him from the standpoint of reason.

Unfortunately, the toxic atmosphere of hypocrisy, duplicity and mutual servility has penetrated deeply into people living in modern society, and reigns at all levels and in all its strata (especially among the so-called "elite"). Egoists at all levels, lacking a sincere manifestation of feelings and not being able to find real mutual understanding with people, terrorize those around them with their demands for a formal display of politeness, duty smiles, etc.

In a society of egoists, not only the mind, abilities and personal qualities of people are completely devalued, but also true feelings that are not imbued with hypocrisy and insincerity. People are forced to hide their true feelings, they are "taught" how they should behave, how to whom to relate to, when to smile and say compliments, etc., as a result of which many people have complete discord in the inner sphere, a great the number of complexes and psychological assistance becomes necessary; others, on the contrary, under the pressure of this hypocritical atmosphere and encouraged by trained "tact" and "tolerance" on the part of others, give free rein to their negative emotions and take the path of manifestations that challenge society - behave like hooligans, deliberately aggressively and deliberately violating all norms of "decency".

A completely harmful fiction, leading to completely opposite results, is also the so-called. "tolerance". "Tolerance" gives rise to a huge range of negative manifestations, each of which has detrimental consequences. First of all, "tolerance" puts on the same level any robbers, hooligans, bandits and people who have suffered from them, because it replaces the impudent and open attack of some on others with the simple word "conflict". "Tolerance" only says that there are problems in society associated with conflicts between some people and others, without mentioning anything about their causes. More precisely, it is the absence of this very “tolerance” that is proposed as the reason.

As a result, the inflated tolerance damages precisely those people who are not accustomed to behaving insolently and attacking others, since the preachers of “tolerance” almost grab their hands and deny them the right to defend themselves from the encroachments of bandits. Of course, they will never make bandits and hooligans "tolerant", they will simply spit on this "tolerance" and become even more impudent from impunity. Any normal person understands that a person should receive an adequate response to his actions, because only an adequate assessment of those around him can form in him the correct idea of the world and teach him adequate behavior.

The invariably blurred "tolerant" attitude does not provide such an adequate response and turns people away from each other. Just as in the case of "politeness", "tolerance", that is, restraining one's reaction to the behavior of another, leads to isolation of people and devaluation of truly warm and friendly relations between them. "Tolerance" leads people to indifference, to the fact that it is much easier to dismiss any person, or get off with a smile on duty at any of his antics, than try to find contact with him, try to understand, try to help him, perhaps in certain problems.

"Tolerance" means that a person ignores any crimes, never tries to fight against injustice, lies, against any negative manifestations."Tolerance", corroding modern society leads to the fact that everyone calmly and without initiative looks at any outrage, at any violations, at any injustice, even concerning themselves and their loved ones, invariably lamenting about this and cursing the government, which does not can "do nothing about it" and still "has not taken action." "Tolerant" citizens calmly give bribes to officials, turn a blind eye to the fact that their acquaintances are thieves or drug dealers, do not react to the fact that two-thirds of the money allocated for the repair of their house has been stolen, etc. "Tolerant" citizen I am sure that it is not his business with anyone or with something to fight, not his business to interfere in anything, not his business to judge someone's actions.

Moreover, in fact, this “tolerance” in an egoistic society turns out to be its complete opposite - namely, the persecution of people who are somehow different from others or at least somehow violate the order that has developed in one group or another. Instead of an adequate assessment of a person and the expression of a true attitude towards him, “tolerance” makes people follow a group assessment, an assessment of the so-called. "Public opinion", which is always ready to condemn anyone, always try to stick the label "outcast" on him and throw him out of society. Interestingly, this is the picture we see now in world politics, where the US "stronghold of democracy" dominates. "Tolerance" makes people follow the principle of equalization, follow the logic, the main thing in which is "keep your head down", "be like everyone else."

It is this principle of equalization that makes people pounce on anyone who tried to express even the slightest doubt about this principle, at least somehow distinguish themselves from the general mass, at least somehow move away from the prevailing moods. In the absence of their own opinion, which is forbidden to show "tolerance" in society, people are guided only by public assessment, assessment, the main criterion in which is not to go against. The musty atmosphere of an egoistic society often creates situations from the movie "Scarecrow". Unhappy egoistic people are doomed to drag out their existence in groups of the same egoists, in which everyone is crushed by "public opinion" and forced to "be simpler", that is, not to show any of their own thoughts and opinions, which can be regarded as rejection of the position of others.

The only way out of this sad situation is the rejection of the emotional-egoistic perception of the world and the awakening of your own personality and your mind. Each of us must take an active position in life and make every effort to destroy the false values of selfishness. It is necessary to overcome the harmful and pernicious habit of keeping in the wake of public opinion, treating people depending on the opinion expressed by egoists. You should invariably defend your positions and those principles that are correct, not succumbing to any tricks and pressure of egoists. It should be REMEMBER that a truly conflict-free coexistence of people on our planet is possible only on the basis of mutual understanding and rejection of selfish impulses, unfounded ambitions, stupid claims, a truly conflict-free society that meets the aspirations of people can be built only on the basis of dialogue and the achievement of a correct, objective understanding of things, not by simply forcing others to accept their foolish selfish demands without complaint.

Well, another idol that can be mentioned in this thread is the image idol. An absolutely stupid thing, which, nevertheless, everyone is trying to follow, makes people assume certain roles and behave unnaturally, as the stereotype imprinted in their minds prompts them. There are many sides to this idol. By thoughtlessly worshiping this idol, people put themselves in a stupid position - officials sit pouting like turkeys to give themselves an important look, politicians stretch their mouths from ear to ear and bared their teeth, becoming like nutcrackers in their photos before the elections. The same stereotype asserts that a girl must be “cool and cool”, and a guy must be “real and cool”. The image becomes for people a replacement for their own "I", a kind of standard tool for self-identification and self-identification in society. Falling out of their image, people just feel out of place.

The reason for this idol worship of the image lies in a particularly superficial, thoughtless emotional perception. Despite the fact that the proverb says “they are greeted by their clothes, but escorted by their minds,” in fact, in most cases, people limit themselves to a superficial impression, the impression that their emotional sphere, sensory perception, and aesthetic assessment gives them. Therefore, it is the very clothes, manners and grimace built on the face that become important for them. Yes, a grimace becomes a substitute for a person's true attitude to a particular event, a substitute for true experiences and true thoughts. Getting used to this grimace, a person no longer even tries to think and experience on his own. Of all the grimaces this idol gives off, the one he prefers is the grimace of amusement. For most of its existence, a selfish society should be imbued with fun. It doesn't matter if the fun is ostentatious, it's still good form to have fun.

Just as this society prefers all kinds of tinsel, beautiful rustling wrappers, attractive design (despite the fact that there may be a gross fake inside), it makes an element of this general simulated atmosphere of beauty and people. Despite its, well, at first glance, harmlessness, the image idol also plays a detrimental role. This idol distributes in advance what should be good and what should be bad, what should be cool, at the highest level, a role model, what should not. Not every person will find the strength to resist the idol of the image and prove that his thing is no worse, and even much better and more correct in content than the so-called. The "best" stereotype. This idol teaches people to pay attention only to form, to surface properties, which, as a rule, are used to hide properties that are much more significant.

Is it a normal situation when the president of a country is not elected according to the program that he proposes, not according to his abilities, but according to his image, according to his ceremonial portrait on a poster, etc.? The idol of the image stimulates deception, instilling in many people the belief in the omnipotence of political technologies, PR, advertising campaigns, etc., gives the temptation to replace unsightly content with a beautiful wrapper. And the point here is not even the honesty or dishonesty of politicians, businessmen, etc., the point is that the image idol has its basis, like all other idols, in the basic properties of people's worldview, their approach to the perception of things in general.

"Thinking is not fun, but a duty" Strugatsky A. and B. "The snail on the slope"

So, in this article we examined some of those harmful dogmas and stereotypes that prevail in modern society, and showed the way on which to look for a replacement for those false values that are now in the minds of people. The gradual overcoming of backwardness and medieval morality is possible only through the introduction of an objective view of things, through the transition to a rational perception of the world, through teaching people to think, instead of mindlessly submitting to their desires. The mind, which gained confidence through the realization of its righteousness in understanding the world, will never return to slavish submission to emotions that displace the personality in a person in the underground of the subconscious, and bind it there with all sorts of dogmas, prohibitions, illusions, etc. A rational person will never exchange true freedom for a thoughtless existence on the path of indulging in all his obsessions and complexes.

In fact, it is very easy to see the absurdity of these backward stereotypes and, having understood, just once change yourself, your psychology and your vision of the world. And thereby to take a step into the world of the future, increasing the population of this world by one person. However, it will be difficult not to live, obeying these principles, on your own, but to fight the ignorance and misunderstanding of the representatives of the surrounding world, who did not realize these simple things and do not understand you, continue to stupidly argue, prove something, trying to cram their ambitions everywhere, not understanding the obvious the senselessness of their fussy and wrong activities and the unproductiveness of communication with other people. Moreover, many of these representatives will zealously defend all these things, imagining them to be something like a sacred cow and accusing you of encroaching on these archaic stereotypes and not following them. This is the situation I faced myself (like many people before me), but the evidence that all these stupid things must be destroyed will not leave any hope for those who still continue to cling to them today.