Traditional Values

[Thanz]

But that's the whole point isn't it, glorifying "traditional values" is all about nostalgia, idealizing a past society whilst ignoring inconvenient historical facts.
A "value" should be good or bad on it's own merits, not because it was espoused during some mythical golden age.
Anyone who presents "traditional values" as intrinsically good, because society was better "then" (whenever "then" may have been), is in serious need of reminding that that society had it's problems too.
That does not mean that all values which may be labeled "traditional" are intrinsically bad, that line of thinking is just as flawed as labeling all "traditional" values as good.

Agreed. I think it is meaningless to talk about "traditional values" without saying what those actually are. If you want to talk about specific values, great. Labelling them traditional or not adds nothing to the debate.

I haven't seen the BS episode so I don't know how they handle it. Do they look at a bundle of specific values, or do they just point out that not everything in the past is as rosy as people like to believe?

 

[TragicMonkey]

The only phrase more overused and more ephemeral than "traditional values" is "family values". Neither traditions nor families are all the same.

 

[Mark]

Traditional Values are just another way of keeping the serfs yapping at each other over trivia rather than paying attention to the things that are really going on.

It works, too.

 

[mumblethrax]

I don't think it's quite as simple as that; I think the emphasis on family and tradition betrays a fondness for particularly authoritarian social institutions.

Consider, for example, that France's national motto was changed from the famous Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité (liberty, equality, brotherhood) to Travail, Famille, Patrie (work, family, fatherland) during the Vichy regime.

NB, I'm not saying that American social conservatives are inheritors to fascism, only strongly implying it.

 

[Mark]

I don't think it's quite as simple as that; I think the emphasis on family and tradition betrays a fondness for particularly authoritarian social institutions.

Consider, for example, that France's national motto was changed from the famous Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité (liberty, equality, brotherhood) to Travail, Famille, Patrie (work, family, fatherland) during the Vichy regime.

NB, I'm not saying that American social conservatives are inheritors to fascism, only strongly implying it.

I think the technique is used by both sides...anything to divert our attention from how badly we are being screwed.

 

[DavidJames]

Here is a current example in Denver...

Last Friday, the day the sex show opened, Rep. Jim Welker, R-Loveland, sent letters signed by himself and seven other GOP state lawmakers to convention-center general manager John Adams and to Philadelphia-based SMG, encouraging them not to host that type of event in the future because it "undermines the family values from which the United States was founded."

. I don't think Rep. Welker would object if you replaced the term "family values" with "traditional values"

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_3553123

 

[TragicMonkey]

I love it when people oppose sex because of "family values". Good luck acquiring that family without having sex.

 

[Charlie Monoxide]

"Traditional values" is a meaningless catch phrase employed by politicians to appeal to the ignorant. I've never once seen it quantified.

I always felt is was just a GOP/religious-right codeword meaning "us and them". It has morphed into a meme that attacks single moms, liberals, gays, atheists and anyone who doesn't goose-step to the GOP/religious-right agenda.

Charlie (invoking the Nazi attribute rule) Monoxide

 

[brodski]

I always felt is was just a GOP/religious-right codeword meaning "us and them". It has morphed into a meme that attacks single moms, liberals, gays, atheists and anyone who doesn't goose-step to the GOP/religious-right agenda.

Charlie (invoking the Nazi attribute rule) Monoxide

The "family values" movement predates both the "religious right" as currently understood, and NAZI/ fascist ideology by decades. If not centuries. And it has been used by both the left and the right.
For example Octavia Hill had significant financial support from John Ruskin.

 

[pgwenthold]

I love it when people oppose sex because of "family values". Good luck acquiring that family without having sex.

Jesus, does the guy even know the basis on which Denver was founded? It was a call-girl stop for the cowboys passing through.

 

[Cylinder]

I'm guessing you aren't African-American.

No, but I have lived close to southern black communities most of my life. The last generation of African Americans were actually more closely-tied to traditional values than the Caucasian communities of their day.

The concept of tradition and civic and familial duty really has no particularly compelling context for the vast majority of persons without children. I understand that. I'm a huge proponent of sowing wild oats. Everyone should have that chance.

I'm planting a nice little vegetable garden in my nice little suburban neighborhood this year so my nice little girl can share a nice little slice of my own nice little childhood. I think she deserves that. I can't sit around and get FUBAR every weekend. It would not the best environment that I can provide for my child.

You may mistake me for an hapless victim of The Man, but you'd be wrong. I've smoked more dope, pissed more beer, told more lies and - well, you get the idea. Those days have passed. Now I get some time to gather some moss. When I made the decision to raise a child, I punched my own ticket. I have no regrets and no apologies for my decisions no matter how offended any particular group may feel about it or how square it may appear to someone else looking in. Other people are not my responsibility - my child is.

 

[Just thinking]

I was just wondering what the americans here generally think of these " so-called " tradtional values "?

1) Opportunity for a good education and lifestyle.
2) Freedom to worship or not as to my liking.
3) Freedom from others imposing their religion on me or my family.
4) Liberty.
5) Freedom to raise my family as I see fit (within reason, of course).
6) To both give and receive respect to/from others.
7) Personal ownership.
8) Having capitalism as an overall (but not absolute) economic system.
9) Freedom of political views and affiliations.
10) The ability to protect myself and my family as needed.
11) To enjoy recreational activities such as hunting and fishing.
12) A fair justice system.
13) Reasonable taxation.
14) Free elections with a representative government.

It's just a smattering ... but I think you get the idea.

 

[pgwenthold]

1) Opportunity for a good education and lifestyle.
2) Freedom to worship or not as to my liking.
3) Freedom from others imposing their religion on me or my family.
4) Liberty.
5) Freedom to raise my family as I see fit (within reason, of course).
6) To both give and receive respect to/from others.
7) Personal ownership.
8) Having capitalism as an overall (but not absolute) economic system.
9) Freedom of political views and affiliations.
10) The ability to protect myself and my family as needed.
11) To enjoy recreational activities such as hunting and fishing.

It's just a smattering ... but I think you get the idea.

Hmmm, seems to me that some of these are "traditional" whereas quite a few (1, 2, 3, 6) are anything but, and, if they are exist, are fairly recent incantations.

 

[Just thinking]

Hmmm, seems to me that some of these are "traditional" whereas quite a few (1, 2, 3, 6) are anything but, and, if they are exist, are fairly recent incantations.

Of course, like anything else, they evolved over time -- women and blacks weren't always allowed to vote, but our system of government and our people eventually allowed for this inequality to end.

Did you expect every single value to come into existance all at once and for everyone at the same time?

How is not having the opportunity for a good education and lifestyle not a traditional value? Or freedom to worship? Or expecting respect?

 

[drkitten]

Hmmm, seems to me that some of these are "traditional" whereas quite a few (1, 2, 3, 6) are anything but, and, if they are exist, are fairly recent incantations.

Most of them enjoy at least a two hundred year history in the United States.

For example, "freedom to worship or not as to my liking" is a pretty good description of Jefferson's rationale behind the Virginia statute on religious freedom and of part of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The modern question is what constitutes "worship" -- for example, is listening to a prayer before a school game "worship"?

"Opportunity for a good education" dates back to the early Colonial state-supported schools, and was codified in the late 18thcentury by requring surveyors to set aside land (one "section" out of every thirty-six section "township") for the support of free public schooling in that township. "Giving and receiving respect from others" predates the founding of the United States (see the history of slander and libel for details).

The only one that I would really object to as a "traditional value" is number 11 : "To enjoy recreational activities such as hunting and fishing." But in a much broader term, this is arguably on one of the most cherished of traditional American values. It's called "liberty" -- the ability to do whatever you enjoy doing.

 

[Skeptic]

Traditional values are good. Fetishizing traditional values--as is, "he is a crook and a thief and a burglar, but he supports traditional values so that's all that matters"--is bad.

 

[FreeChile]

1) Opportunity for a good education and lifestyle.
2) Freedom to worship or not as to my liking.
3) Freedom from others imposing their religion on me or my family.
4) Liberty.
5) Freedom to raise my family as I see fit (within reason, of course).
6) To both give and receive respect to/from others.
7) Personal ownership.
8) Having capitalism as an overall (but not absolute) economic system.
9) Freedom of political views and affiliations.
10) The ability to protect myself and my family as needed.
11) To enjoy recreational activities such as hunting and fishing.
12) A fair justice system.
13) Reasonable taxation.
14) Free elections with a representative government.

It's just a smattering ... but I think you get the idea.

Many of these carry absolutely no significance. Take personal owenership, for instance. You can probably go very far back in history and find instances of values for personal ownership in different systems and civilizations. Also, you could probably go back in history and find times when there was no such concept. So the question would be how far back do you want to go to call something a traditional value or not.

 

[pgwenthold]

Most of them enjoy at least a two hundred year history in the United States.

For example, "freedom to worship or not as to my liking" is a pretty good description of Jefferson's rationale behind the Virginia statute on religious freedom and of part of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The modern question is what constitutes "worship" -- for example, is listening to a prayer before a school game "worship"?

"Opportunity for a good education" dates back to the early Colonial state-supported schools, and was codified in the late 18thcentury by requring surveyors to set aside land (one "section" out of every thirty-six section "township") for the support of free public schooling in that township. "Giving and receiving respect from others" predates the founding of the United States (see the history of slander and libel for details).

Yet, somewhere between then and now, it seems to have been lost.

You consider Jim Crow laws to be "giving and receiving respect from others"? Similarly, they provided "opportunity for a good education"?

In fact, even your claims about "free public schooling" in the 18th century didn't apply to everyone then, either.

No, not everyone had an "opportunity for a good education." Applying that to everyone is not in the least part of the American tradition.

 

[drkitten]

You consider Jim Crow laws to be "giving and receiving respect from others"? Similarly, they provided "opportunity for a good education"?

Of course not. "Values," like "rights," have always been reserved for "people like us." And they've always been more often the subject of rhetoric than of actual practice.

Even the traditional triumvirate -- "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" -- didn't apply universally. But that doesn't make the virtues any less virtuous, or any less traditional.

If something has to be practiced universally before it becomes a virtue in your life, you obviously live something of a life of vice.

 

[Tirdun]

To answer a previous post, the P&T:BS show in question looks at both the idea of "traditional values" and singles out several for critical review.

My 13 year old son loves the show but couldn't watch this ep because it got the MA rating for the nekkid people.