Readers' responses: Do we need core values?

Does America lead the world in economic terms because its citizens have bought into a set of common values? I don't think so. Do the British continually agonise over "values and guiding principles" and "basic ideals, a sense of who we are and what we want to be"? Not much, although the pro v anti-Europe debate has something of that flavour.

Any downturn in New Zealand's economic fortunes has to be addressed on economic and political levels. Attempting to distil "core values" from our society is futile and irrelevant. Any mature democracy should be comfortable with its own diversity of opinion. New Zealanders, as you would expect, have widely differing opinions on just about everything. I don't believe that we can discover any more in the way of "common values" than exists already in the political sphere.

Our national character emerges naturally, in response to everyday challenges and political situations, rather than in any predetermined way. Our national and cultural identity is being preserved and will continue to grow and develop.

Our geographical isolation and small population base requires us to work harder and smarter, but let's not kid ourselves that some mantra of "core values" will change anything. We are a diverse, multicultural society just as are the British, French, Germans, Italians, Americans and Aussies.

Let's stop the teenage-mode self-examination and anxiety and just get on with the job. That job is to continue developing our existing businesses, to start new ones based on sound business plans and good advice and to persuade overseas businesses and entrepreneurs to invest in New Zealand.

I look forward eagerly to a New Zealand which doesn't panic and display a deep lack of self-confidence when the latest economic indicators are disappointing or when the All Blacks are defeated in a World Cup semi-final.

I also look forward to a New Zealand in which all sectors of society are able to accept with good grace that the Government of the day happens to be left of centre (or right of centre), rather than trying to spook people into "crisis mode," constructive or otherwise.

If we believe in ourselves and our abilities, are prepared to work hard and take some risks, we'll be fine. New Zealand is a permanent fixture down in our little corner of the world. Our fortunes will rise and fall, but we don't need to panic and neither do we need "core values."

Better to ensure that a high proportion of our society remains involved in, and votes in, national and local elections. There we determine our consensus and our "core values." We don't need any more.

Carole Webb, Castor Bay

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Rodney Wilson's Dialogue page article on the importance of history was a welcome contrast to recent trends when history has been disparaged in schools and universities.

My son was told at Auckland University that history was bunk; the new generation would find its own way, ignoring the historic Judaeo-Christian culture that European civilisation was built on. Time has demonstrated the stupidity of that rebellion.

Your newspaper is asking for "the values and guiding principles that are the signposts for the future." These can be found in history; we do not have to reinvent them.

The disgrace of the Parahake massacre lies in the fact that the Maori had adopted the English missionaries' Christian gospel, forsaking their traditions of utu, cannibalism and war. Other members of the same nation that had brought the message of peace betrayed them. It was members of the same Ngati Tama tribe from Taranaki who had earlier invaded the Chathams, eaten most of the inhabitants and enslaved the rest under brutal conditions. But they were transformed. The documentary Feathers of Peace on TV One told it all.

Pakeha roots are in the Judaeo-Christian values and principals. The Maori excelled when these were adopted. Yet these roots have been disparaged with dire consequences. It is time to re-examine their worth.

Wyn Fountain, Glendowie

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New Zealand is not the land of the fair go. An article in the Herald Online featured a Bangladeshi accountant who had spent five 1/2 years looking for work in New Zealand but was in an accountancy position within 10 days of arriving in Australia.

My nephew, a professional engineer in Auckland, told me of an applicant for an electrical apprentice's position at his company who would be rejected "because he was black." There is anecdotal evidence to suggest widespread rejection by employers in New Zealand of immigrant applicants for positions.

But, if you want to look beyond the anecdotal, you need look no further than the New Zealand Education Gazette in which job advertisement after job advertisement contains the caveat, "must have experience teaching from the New Zealand curriculum" or words to that effect, an ultimate filter for keeping "outsider teachers" from contributing, through teaching New Zealand children, to the formation of a genuine multicultural, fair-go society.

Interestingly, caveats like this seem never to appear in Australian teacher-position advertisements.

The evidence suggests that New Zealand, far from being the land of the fair go, is a land of insularity and prejudice. A lot of work needs to be done before the fair go takes genuine root as a core value in the New Zealand national psyche.

Barrie Stephens, Alice Springs

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Daily we read of violent murders, of babies molested and battered to death and the effects of drugs on society. Strident minorities attempt to reprogramme us using words like "recreational" in connection with drugs and no one questions why anyone needs drugs at all to enjoy life.

They pass off abnormal sexual and social behaviour as "normal," fill our TV programming with pornography and violence, batter us into submission with "political correctness" and persuade governments to throw vast amounts of money at their pet social problems.

However, the problems continue to grow, new problems add to the overwhelming list and all the while society thrashes around in pain, unable to understand why "the good old days" have gone and why we seem to be submerged under an inexorable glacier of horrible stuff.

The answer, however unpalatable, is that we have brought all this on ourselves. Under the delusion that we are now clever enough to scrap thousands of years of accumulated wisdom, we have thrown out all of our value systems.

Without a set of agreed values to guide us, we simply blunder about as if in the dark, banging painfully into obstacles that have always been there.

Our value systems were the outcome of what was once a widespread faith in God. These beliefs have increasingly been pooh-poohed, but read the Herald reports of the "surreal" good behaviour of some 20,000 young people at the Christian Parachute music festival last week and you will see the effects Jesus has on those who truly know or seek him.

Like it or not, God is the answer and until people turn back to him this pain will not go away, no matter if governments spend billions trying to cure it. The problem you see, is that we don't see the real problem.

Garth Jones, Manukau Heights

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