Human and Cultural Values

Salova Olesya 11 "A”

 

UNESCO defines culture as an "aggregate of distinctive, spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional traits, which characterizes a society or a social group. It includes, alongside with arts and literature, ways of life, basic human rights, systems of values, customs and traditions, and faiths". This is the definition that helps to articulate the concept of cultural dimension of development.

Obviously, the concept of cultural dimension cannot be tackled as a usual one, as long as it represents the fundamental reference to measure and compare the importance of other factors. No development or modernization will be real and sustainable unless it makes allowance for and turns to good account the power of culture; unless it does not ignore the life style, values systems, traditions, faiths, talents and knowledge of the human community. The decision-making persons who neglect the cultural dimension will be punished by the generations to come. The famous Romanian writer Nocolae Iorga says that "without a culture banner a people is not an army but a band". In other words it is culture that defines us as an entity, unites and inspires us and rallies us to progress and ideal. The modernization, which does not take into account the cultural dimension, focusing exclusively towards external (foreign) models, shuts off the domestic potential of creativity and diminishes the resistance capacity of society against the sterile and or dangerous cultural influences.

And on the contrary, laying stress on the cultural dimension of development, favors synergies: including not only the adoption of concrete measures to improve the situation in the priority sectors such as education, communications, science and technology, agriculture, health, etc. It also implies encouraging the creativity spirit of local people to find proper solutions for the problems any society faces in its process of qualitative transformation. The example of Japan and other prosperous Asian dragons proves that one can eclectically choose the techniques and patters to be followed, providing they are assimilable from the cultural point of view. The development of new technologies, globalization respond to the over growing needs of the society, to the relative importance paid to meet them, and to the desire to apply new, different solutions in practical matters, calling to the creative imagination, perspicacity, resourcefulness and experience of people. The implementation of new technologies often generates new social conditions, which, at their turn, form values and needs, thus catalyzing the progress. The uttered goal of the human development is to improve the living standards of the population in a country. The issue is to find the most efficient and urgent methods and means necessary to attain this goal. The implantation of the European economic pattern, without taking mechanically over the value system it is based on, its proper adjustment to the local traditions, involving also the active and committed participation of citizens, inspires hopes, and not only in the Republic of Moldova. The economic success of Western countries, alongside with the political, cultural and military advantages, always fascinates, persuading other countries to plead for their model of development, for a western economic and social structure and especially for a western consumption and life styles, despite the local values and social and economic structures, very different in many cases. In order to fairly and judiciously evaluate the pro-culture policies it is necessary to apply for help to other disciplines and sciences (not only sociology and economics, but also history, law, ethics, etc.). A conjugation of synthetic knowledge is required — not very popular in this part of the world - in order to objectively appreciate the components of public policies in favor of culture: their past and present, the vectors and core lines of cultural field, the agents and decision making bodies (State, judets, communes, domain partners of local public administration, (more active as far as opinions are concerned than far-reaching actions), trade unions, diverse clubs, sponsors etc.); the relationships between the Ministry of Culture as the main decision making body and other ministries and departments; the artistic education, the network for training the administrators and cultural amateurs... Following from the socioeconomic configuration of our present evolution, all the aforementioned components are important due to their social impact. It is up to each country and its decision making bodies to decide on how to make use of the cultural trumps from the perspective of modernization, But imposing the respect and public recognition of the importance of arts, culture and science as agents of human development, is an urgent imperative when the major task is to build a state starting from the reconstruction of economy based on modern principles, and draw at the same time the local population into profound political and social reforms.

'Culture is the essential spring necessary to open a new horizon of real hopes and perspectives for the young people, who are looking not only for a job good enough to assure a decent life, but especially for a system of reference and a mobilizing elan...

Ended, culture is unable to immediately solve the urgent problems a society is facing. Its actions and results are lent and require time to get mature, but without the proper cultural instruments the task to improve the quality of life is almost impossible. Art and culture must be supported by the governments to realize the special role they have in the process of building a new society (not less valuable than the one of abolishing the old regime), to dynamically and positively solidarize, getting rid of negativism and the Phanariot attitude " don't disturb me and I won't disturb you" and a total detachment from the public affairs (from Latin res publics). Today the sate policy on culture must set up strict, objective, competent, and judicious norms and rules and assure their observance (regardless the rank, social status, party, ethnicity, confession!) in order to favor the total access to highly valued cultural and artistic achievements and stimulate creativity.

The cultural sector, fluctuant and hard to quantize, is very often marginalized compared to other sectors as for instance economy, justice, defense, health. In reality, elaboration of a coherent, fair and balanced cultural policy is one of the most complex priorities for the present government. It is not the question of the quantity of administrative resources - on this changing ground, the individual action of just one or several personalities may unleash events of far-reaching effects, while considerable sums of money could be thrown away without any social result - but of the capacity of competent bodies to formulate tactic decisions, which would stimulate synergies to bring forward concrete objectives, to fairly make use of all the money coming from the tax payers, to efficiently propagate culture, to respect the relationship between society, art and cultural patrimony, avoiding the elitism trap, art isolation, and catalyzing the emergency of "fan" and horizontal actions.

Definition:

"Human values are conceptions of basic categories of desired."

 

... are concepts...

In their essence, human values are cognitive representations of human motives. They are not direct perceptions of needs nor are they other feelings. Values are conceptions, by reason reshaped ideas of what is good and desired for an individual.

... desired...

Values are unconditionally desired to everyone. Their importance can be judged only relatively - in relation to other values. No higher measure ("supervalue") exists which could be used to judge the importance of human values.

... of basic categories ...

There are not many values, because they are the broadest motivational categories. There are as many personal values as there are basic human motives (biological and social).

Human values risk being lost. We feel as if being carried away by a delirious crowd.

Which direction should we follow? Where is the cultural and social progress? A useless, methodical, myopic impoverishment of natural resources is spreading outward, without taking into account sustainable development.

Individuals living in countries governed by totalitarian regimes often close themselves up, trying to defend their personality and values.

We wonder whether the lack of democracy in those countries may have preserved some of the ancient values.

Human values are an individual matter, because each person judges what is good and important and what is not.

These judgments relate to things that are good and important for him personally, for a social group he belongs to or the society as whole and in general. The taxonomy of human values should answer questions: "Which human values exist in reality?", "How many human values exist?" and "How can we classify human values in a logical system (What are the relations among human values)?"

Because human values are the conceptions of basic categories of desired and because their number is the same as the number of basic human motives, my list consists of the following human values:

social gathering hobbies / free time

food / drink

property / money

beauty / art

power / influence

moral, ethical principles

new experiences / adventures

personal safety / health

children partner / love

rest job / work

friends

self-image

sexuality

parents / home

freedom / independence

sport activities

pleasure / comfort

prestige / fame

creativity

faith / God

knowledge / wisdom