THE VALUE CRISIS IN TODAY’S WORLD

If values are not only important, but critically important for us to survive, thrive, and become all that we can become, fully experiencing and enjoying life (Neurons #42), then why is there a crisis of values in today’s world? Why do so many people not even know their values? Why do so many other people seem to be without values—living a valueless life? Why are so many depressed, discouraged, in despair, suffering ennui, etc.?

Nor is this a new problem. It has been around for a long time. As the modern age began arising in the 19th and 20th centuries, the more industrial the world became, as science provided more and more material goods and raised the standard of living, people began to depend less and less on tradition and religion for guiding them about how to live. And as societies began drifting from the old moorings of the values which had held people together, people looked elsewhere for guidance. While Abraham Maslow was not the first person to speak to this, many, many others had and continue to, he did address it succinctly when he wrote: “The ultimate disease of our times is valuelessness ... this state is more crucially dangerous than ever before in history...”

Maslow argued that values give us a value life which is actually essential if we want to become fully alive/fully human, that is live a self-actualizing life. He even called this value-life, the spiritual life (1971, p. 320) because it satisfies the human hunger for a set of values.

“If you don’t have a value life, you may not be neurotic, but you suffer from a cognitive and spiritual sickness, for to a certain extent your relationship with reality is distorted and disturbed.” (1971, p. 194).

We start then from the understanding that values are important. When there is an absence of values, then we can suffer various meta-pathologies. This refers to simply lacking values to experiencing meaningfulness, despair, hopeless, etc. Maslow described these meta-pathologies, pathologies of your spirit, your heart as a form of value sickness. It is a form of being deprived of the Being-values (i.e., beauty, truth, honesty, honor, dignity, excellence, etc., 1971, p. 193). That is, deprivation of the B-values leads to meta-pathology.

Value sickness explains a great many psychological problems. That is, at the heart of what we call neurosis or character problems are often the lack of values or the valuing of the wrong things. How many people who made materialism or fame or riches “the purpose of life,” later found it all meaningless, empty, and despaired to such an extent that they took their own lives? As they became depressed, it was not a depression due to the loss of money, of love, of a job, etc. It was the loss of meaning. And we see such suicides, not in poverty stricken countries, we see them in the wealthiest of countries, countries that have the highest standards, and by those who are at the peak of their careers. Perhaps man does not live by bread alone.

Maslow created a table in The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (1971, p. 317-9) of all of the meta-pathologies that can arise: alienation, anomie, anhedonia, loss of zest in life, inability to enjoy, ennui, apathy, fatalism, desacrilization of life, defeat, hopelessness, futility, cynicism, and much more.

All of that obviously describes, in part, the value crisis of today. But it does not tell the whole story. There’s more to it. It made science (and makes sense) that science should conduct studies, research, and experiences as objectively as it can. The best science identifies possible biases and using various means (double-bind studies) tries to discover what is actually there with as little agenda as possible. But that’s a far cry from trying to be value-free. That’s a very different thing.

Actually, real science has a set of values—truth, honesty, replicability, responsibility, ethical practices when using animals or humans, etc. We know that today. But in the history of science, there was a time when science was casting off the influence of tradition, church, and religion when it went to the other extreme and sought to be value-free. Maslow’s comment about that was, “A value-free model is quite unsuitable for a scientific study of life” (1971, p. 5).

So also with education, courts, media, television, movies, and just about every other aspect of social life—when any one of these try to be value-free, then end result is a crisis of values. Back in the 1960s Maslow said “Advertising is a rich source of meta-pathology” (1971, 319). What would he say about advertising today or social media today?

If we agree that disturbances, illnesses, pathologies, or diminutions are indeed a diminishing of full humanness or of the human potential, and if we agree that the gratification, or fulfilling, of the B-values enhances or fulfills the human potential, then clearly these are intrinsic and ultimate values may be taken as instinctoid needs.” (1971, p. 320). The bottom line means that there is within us an intrinsic set of values—values that we can live our lives by.