Dialogue: These core values worth a fresh look

Humanity has had a common core of behavioural values for thousands of years, ever since the Jewish leader Moses came down from Mt Sinai with two tablets of stone upon which had been inscribed what came to be known as the Ten Commandments.

And I am convinced that if we are prepared to take a fresh look at the principles contained therein, we might go a long way towards solving the pressing yet apparently insurmountable social and economic dilemmas that confront us today.

Now, before you switch off and turn the page, let me say that I am talking here strictly about principles - not about God, or Jesus, or Christianity, or any other religion.

I am simply inviting you to take a rational look at the some of the core values enunciated in those 10 simple rules for living which have served civilisation well for millenniums and which still serve well those who are prepared to try to live by them.

Take, for instance, the Fourth Commandment, the one about observing the Sabbath Day as a day of rest for everyone on the basis that six days work a week is enough for anyone and we should have at least one day a week of rest and recreation.

The Sundays in which I grew up were just that - days of rest for all save those who were in occupations which required us to work, but for which we were given another day off instead.

They were days for family get-togethers, trips to the beach, picnics, gardening and lawn-mowing (nice quiet hand mowers in those days), maintenance around the house, big Sunday dinners and afternoon naps. As the years went by sporting events and other entertainments were gradually permitted, but the pubs and the shops stayed closed.

Yet today for most of us Sunday is just like any other day of the week. That's sad, not because I think Sunday should in some way be sacred, but because we have been deprived of the leisure time a shut-down Sunday provided.

So I believe that one of the core values we should have a new look at is the value of adequate leisure time in which to rest and refresh our minds and bodies, do what we want to do and not what someone else wants us to do, and to develop and enrich our relationships with one another in our families, among our friends, our neighbours and our community at large.

And I suggest that if we were to return to a six-day business week, productivity would soar, retail turnover would suffer not one whit, and we as individuals, our children and our communities would be much the richer and stronger for it.

Now, how about the Fifth Commandment, the one that says we should honour our fathers and our mothers (and implicit in that, I think, is to respect our elders in general and those to whom we as a community have given authority - schoolteachers, police officers et al).

Just imagine how a whole raft of social and educational problems would improve if children were once again taught and encouraged to honour their parents and respect their elders. Yes, I am perfectly aware that a lot of children don't have both father and mother and that a lot of parents and other adults don't deserve respect let alone honour, but that's not the point.

Learning to, and having to, defer to adults was once part of the discipline of childhood, and if we were to accept again the core value of letting children be children until they mature naturally, we would soon see the beneficial effects in our education system, crime rates, mental health, sporting achievement, to name just a few.

The Sixth to Ninth Commandments exhort us not to murder, not to commit adultery, not to steal and not to bear false witness (lie and cheat). Now I know that murder, adultery (and fornication), theft and lying and cheating have always been with us - and always will be.

But that is no reason not to remind ourselves, and to teach our children, that these are core values, that to disobey them is hazardous to ourselves and deeply harmful to others, and that if they are indulged in there is invariably a penalty to pay.

And that brings us to the Tenth Commandment, the one that tells us we should not be covetous (jealous and greedy). Now for my money this is the core value which we transgress more than any other, yet it is the last one most of us will ever admit to.

But just imagine what the nation would be like if most of us suddenly stopped coveting our neighbours' wives, husbands, sons, daughters, money, businesses, houses, cars, boats, clothes, jewellery "or anything that is your neighbour's."

Why, it might even lead us to revive a couple of other core values: (1) money isn't everything; and (2) it is better to give than to receive.

garth_george@herald.co.nz

Herald Online feature: Common core values

We invite to you to contribute to the debate on core values. E-mail dialogue@herald.co.nz.