Personal Values Development Current Value

Personal Values Development

Current Value Positions

Religion

I believe that there is a kernel of social value at the center of most contemporary religions in my social culture. On the other hand, it seems that it would be much healthier to promote the kernels of social benefit and do away with the rest of religious values because the harm they do cannot be outweighed by any suggested benefits. It has also become obvious to me that people tend to believe whatever religion their families introduce them to early in life and that everybody uses the same mechanism (blind faith) to justify totally different belief systems.

Same-Sex Marriage

I believe that homosexuality is generally not a "preference" at all but a feature of genetics and environmental factors (combined) that cause a small percentage of people to become homosexual. It is as natural for them to want to pair bond or even to just satisfy their sexual urges as it is for heterosexuals to do so. When a same-sex couple develops the same type of permanent meaningful relationship as typical heterosexual couples who decide to get married, they should be permitted the same benefits that our society grants to other married or (in some states) cohabitating heterosexual couples. I believe that the current objections to same-sex marriage are as baseless as pre-Civil Rights Era laws prohibiting miscegenation and that future Americans will look back at contemporary attitudes about same-sex marriage the same way we now regard anti-miscegenation laws.

Materialism and Conformity

I believe that the deeper cause of the housing market collapse and the current economic recession is a fundamental epidemic of personal psychological insecurity and intercultural competition for largely meaningless goals. It has gradually become obvious to me that it is impossible for sunglasses or a pocket book or a pair of shoes to be worth

$1,000 or more, regardless of how much money someone has. When I see someone who is proud to own a designer product, I now assume the person is overcompensating for some self-perceived shortcoming or that the person is extremely weak-minded (or both).

Evolution of My Value Positions and Relation to Kohlberg Principles

Religion

I do not remember anything from the period of my life corresponding to Kohlberg's Level I Preconventional Moral stage of human development at all. My first conscious memories are of the period of my childhood corresponding to Kohlberg's Level II Conventional Moral stage of human development. At that time, I completely accepted my parent's explanations about "God" and the religious basis of human morality and obligations without question. I was aware that many other people had different religious beliefs but I accepted the explanation that their beliefs were wrong and that they had the opportunity to make the right decision to understand why our religion was the right religion. The question "How do we know that ours is the right one and not theirs never occurred to me during the Conventional Moral stage because I accepted what my parents and other religious influences presented to me.

Now that I am in Kohlberg's Level III Post-Conventional Moral stage of human development, I realize that it is completely ridiculous to imagine that my parents' religion is the only "right" religion of the thousands of human religions in the world. Likewise, I question the entire concept of any conscious "gods" now that I have begun evaluating the strength of beliefs and points-of-view independently. The writings of Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell have also helped me develop confidence in rejecting some of the most fundamental beliefs of my society. Sometimes, it is lonely realizing how much I am now in the minority in that that respect, but now that I have asked the questions and thought about the answers, it is impossible to accept much of what I learned from the adults whose views I accepted and mirrored during the Conventional Moral stage of development.

Same-Sex Marriage

In the same way, I remember that it was during Kohlberg's Level II (Conventional Moral) stage when I first learned what homosexuality was. At that time, I accepted the prevailing perception (at least in my peer group) that homosexuality was a horrible thing to do and that homosexuals were both immoral and "sick." I thought it was a ripe source of humor; I learned that it was a very effective insult, and I also thought that it was very rare in normal society. At that time, the thought of being friends with a homosexual would have evoked the same response as the thought of being friends with a child molester.

After I entered Kohlberg's Post-Conventional Moral stage, I began to realize that: (1) homosexuality probably is not a voluntary choice; (2) homosexuals can have meaningful, committed, and stable loving relationship or superficial, casual, and unstable relationships exactly the same way heterosexuals can (and often do) experience both types of relationships at different times of their lives; (3) homosexuality is not a moral issue at all; and (4) gay people have the same moral right to any of the benefits that our society and government makes available to heterosexual couples who choose to share their lives in a meaningful way.

Materialism and Conformity

During Kohlberg's Conventional Moral stage of my development I admired material possessions and wealth about as much as everybody else. I assumed that anybody who drove an expensive car or owned a big house must necessarily be very smart to be so successful and must be happy in life. At that time, I apparently absorbed and internalized everything on television and in other media that presented material wealth and extravagance as the ultimate measure of a person's success in life. It never occurred to me that there might be something truly ridiculous about any of the things that are universally promoted in my social culture as being extremely positive. I also remember that during the period of my life that corresponded to the Conventional Moral stage I was as susceptible to groupthink and to following trends as everybody else, largely without question.

During the current stage of my life that corresponds to Kohlberg's Post-Conventional Moral stage, I began to realize that the pursuit of wealth, social status, and material possessions is most often a substitute (rather than an expression) for self-esteem and self-confidence. Events such as the earthquake in Haiti, the Pan-Asian Tsunami, and the New Orleans disaster in the wake of Hurricane Katrina helped me recognize how incredibly fortunate even ordinary so-called "middle class" Americans are. We live lives of sheer luxury compared to the vast majority of human beings alive, or for that matter, compared the all of the human beings who have ever lived on earth. That perspective has made it impossible to admire anybody who spends thousands of dollars on a handbag because it bears the name of a particular "designer." I now feel the same way about many ordinary social trends because even the most benign seem to rely on a certain type of mindless conformity or fear of being different.

Supporting My Values through Criteria and Decision-Making

I am completely comfortable with my moral views because of the way that I derived them. During the Kohlberg's Conventional Moral stage of my development, I blindly accepted much of what authority figures and society in general told me. I did not change my mind arbitrarily or because I had some specific reason to dislike gods, respect homosexuals, or reject material wealth and conformity. If anything, my current views on gods, materialism, and conformity cause more conflict in my life and alienate me from more people than my original beliefs.