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[Editor's note: Unfortunately,
we've received quite a few eMails recently telling us of people
close to them who have committed suicide and wondering how the
values material can be used to help stem this epidemic (I'm in
the same situation myself, having had a 17 year old cousin
commit suicide not so long ago). As a response I thought the
following article may be of interest and assistance to you all.]
Camus (1942) begins his novel Le
Mythe de Sisyphe with the following lines: "There is only
one philosophical problem: Suicide. To decide if life is worth
living or not is to answer the basic questions of
philosophy". This quotation easily comes to mind when one
considers the background for the many suicides, attempts to
suicide and thoughts of suicide which have occurred in many
Western countries during the last few decades. This tendency is
strange and surprising because we have believed that the Welfare
State would give everybody a better life. Of course we should be
proud of what has been built up during this period: more and
more people have been able to satisfy more and more needs. Have
material values been given a high priority at the expense of
spiritual values? Is this the reason why the suicide frequency
has gone up? Has society - despite material wealth - grown more
inhuman to live in? Why do not the majority of people in Danish
and other societies consider suicide as a temptation or
possibility? Or in other words: Which values give the majority
of people in Denmark the spirit to live? Which values give an
elementary experience of what gives meaning to their life and
what role does values education have in this?
Background
In 1993 a short article was
published in about twenty Danish newspapers (Varming 1995). The
article told about the rising number of suicides, suicide
attempts and suicide thoughts, and ended with the question: What
makes life worth living for you? Readers were asked to write
short essays answering this question. The idea was to throw
light on which reflections and experiences based on values and
philosophy protect a large number of people from suicide
thoughts. Or, in order to connect to the quotation from Camus:
How are the basic questions in philosophy answered in the modern
life? An analysis of the reader's essays is reported later in
this paper.
The research literature has shed little light on this topic -
probably because there was no reason to pose this question. The
meaning of life was more or less instilled into children during
their upbringing. Everybody who grew up in the "old"
society became part of, by direct or indirect influence, the
same values, which all could be derived from the same concepts:
God, King and Country. A solid common basic set of values was
the result of open and hidden influences in home and school.
Today, life is more or less handed over to each of us to create
our own meaning: we do not have a common basis of values. In
other words, it is handed over to each of us to find out what is
important in our life and what the good life is, because there
are many different ways to understand and explain life. Modern
humans' lives become personal projects, where each person
through constant choices creates his or her life. This is true
for both children and grown-ups. We must acknowledge that the
common basis of values has crumbled away and that everybody
experiences ethical confusion. This confusion is partly due to
the Church no longer being an authority in questions of ethics
and values* and to different sciences taking over the role of
the authority. There is no longer only one authority for
meaning, but many authorities, each of which gives good
explanations about how life is organised and could be
understood. In modem life we have to live with this secularizing
and pluralism, and we have to understand that in the future we
have to survive with continuing values confusion. Neither
secularization nor pluralism need in itself to be problems, but
they can develop to relativism where everything seems to be
unimportant.
This modem situation is especially difficult for young people
who have problems in finding an identity. In earlier generations
identity was developed in a local environment making common
cause with family and local society. Today young people have to
create their own identity. This demands (1) personal and social
competence (2) self confidence (3) breath of outlook, (4)
ability to look at life as a whole (5) skills of communicating
demands/wishes in a socially acceptable way, and (6) full self
control so as not to offend the group. As most adults know, it
is not easy to attain these criteria of maturity. However, it is
the development of these criteria that are needed to cope with
secularization nor pluralism, and to escape relativism.
A Study of Spirits
A few days after the publication
of the newspaper article, the first essays arrived. After about
two weeks 240 essays had been received. I will now share some
main results of an analysis of the responses. Of the 240 answers
88% were written by women and 12% by men. The main age range of
respondents was 50-80 years, about 20% between 20 and 50 years,
a few above the age of 80, and a substantial number of 12-15
year-olds. Responses from middle-aged people were lacking and so
the data are not representative. However, it was important that
so many elderly people had responded, because it was regarded as
an advantage to have many people answering the question on the
basis of many years of experience.
What were the main themes in the essay? A large majority
concentrated on solidarity - the importance of others in our
lives. The answers mentioned the importance of partners,
children, friends, parents and family, where code words were
"trust", "helpfulness", “sympathy"
and "contact". Most answers expressed solidarity in
one form or another, and indicated that meaning to life is given
by:
-
Breaking the tendency to
regard yourself as the centre of everything and go beyond
selfishness: for instance, to take care of other people,
animals and nature;
-
Feeling of being close to
other people, especially the family and close friends - that
is, to love and be loved;
-
Together with other people
building up a community of values: for instance in
associations and clubs; and
-
As an ethical ideal,
cultivating those parts of the human personality, which
makes it natural to take care of other people and to show
unselfishness. For example, taking care of ill members of
the family such as sick children, and senile parents.
These types of answers
characterised by solidarity could also be labeled under the
concept of transcendency formulated by Frankl (1970). His
understanding of being human means to go beyond yourself in
searching after life's meaning and to establish a meeting with
another human being, and that human beings are able to take part
in creative activities which do not have ourselves as a centre,
but have a broader meaning as a purpose.
The concept of self transcendency could also be used as a
headline over the large number of answers coming in as a second
choice: nature. Many essay writers gave very beautiful
descriptions of what nature means to them. In third place came a
Christian attitude to life and a fourth priority was given to
good health including healthy eating habits. After these five
priorities came good leisure activities, engagement in life,
curiosity, humour and capacity to make decisions about your own
life.
It is amazing that only three people mentioned work as
important. This is interesting, especially that since childhood
everybody is told of the importance of being able to manage a
job, to make a career, to become wealthy and take care of a
family. Three people who mentioned work did not attach
importance to work itself, but to the possibility it gives them
to meet other people. Seemingly, work does not count, when
people consider what makes life worth living. Although it was
expected that schooling would be important to living a good
life, school is not mentioned at all.
The following example is cited to show the general tendency in
the 240 essays. The essay is written by a twenty-one year-old
woman and as with the other essays it is written in order to
answer the question: What makes life worth living? "That I
feel at home in two places - with my parents and childhood - and
youth friends in my native town and also with my boyfriend and
new friends in Copenhagen. I regard this as two bases. That I
have somebody who takes care of me and that thereby I myself
have somebody to take care of. That I am loved and valued by
those I love. That I feel that life is a school, where I can
influence my learning. That I try to be open and positive to all
impressions and experiences I get every day and that I think of
what I can learn from all that. That I tell myself that every
second is a gift, which has to be enjoyed in the best possible
way. That sometimes I succeed in enjoying the present moment
instead of looking forward and wondering how something should
possibly be better. That sometimes I think of what I am happy at
and feel lucky with my life."
Consequently, when many people are asked what makes their life
worth living they think of other people, especially family and
friends. In Denmark at least most schools - intentionally or
non-intentionally - prepare students for the future with values
belonging to the labour market - not with values belonging to
grown-up people: family life, leisure-time activities and the
political life.
Conclusions
We ought to ask ourselves, and
one another, about how relevant it is to stress training for
work in a situation where people attach minimum importance to
work and maximum importance to getting on well with people. The
topic is seen in perspective when illuminated by results from
the research of Adler-Karlsson (1983). He found that the total
working hours is much shorter than most of us can imagine. Work
plays a much lesser part in our life than we generally imagine.
He found that work only accounts for 12.5% of people's total
waking state. Consequently, he concludes, "work is a very
small part of life. If you prepare yourself for filling life,
the only life you've got, with a worthwhile content you have to
direct your attention much more towards your leisure time than
towards your working life."
Perhaps we have to re-evaluate the extent of training for work
that goes on in schools. Even serious politicians doubt that it
is possible to totally reduce unemployment. Some people will be
without work. Perhaps we need to question the school's main task
in a modern society. Perhaps we should consider the main purpose
of education as helping students to find answers to the
question: What do 1 want to do with my life?
In a Danish understanding of values education there are two
central concepts: spirits and life ability. "Spirits"
implies an elementary experience of life's meaningfulness and
"life ability" implies a content of leisure ability,
family ability and political ability, with a definite meaning
wish and ability to take responsibility for your own life.
Logstrup (1985) coined the phrase "life understanding"
which is important in this connection. Life understanding gives
priority to children's experiences of identity building and
self-esteem. In this way children are assisted to create meaning
by giving confidence and feelings of belonging to a
comprehensive life and a social network. Without each other we
are nothing. Therefore values education primarily is an ethical
subject, if ethics is defined as follows: A vision about the
good life together with and for other people.
Ole Varming is a consultant educational psychologist with the private firm Paedagogisk
Udyikling & Fomyelse (PUF): GL TORV 11, DK 4880 NYSTED, Denmark.
* In the Danish literature it is common to distinguish between morals, ethics and values.
Morals are standards/norms for identifying right and wrong.
Ethics is the theory about what is right and wrong. Value
indicates a firm conviction that a particular behaviour or
kind of life is personally or socially preferred for other
kinds of behaviour or kinds of life. For more detail on this
see Rokeach (1973).
References
Adler-Karlsson, G. (1983) Skolan
- parkeringsplatsf6r on6diga eller vdgen till det inre reviret? Bakjbrlaget
flrisma, Arldy.
Camus, A. (1942) Le Mythe de Sisyphe. Paris.
Franki, V. E. (1970) Psykologi og eksistens. Gyldendal,
Kobenhavn.
Logstrup, K. E. (1985) 'Skolens formal'. In: Lauridsen, L and
Varming, 0 (Eds) Skolens formal - debat om
skolens opgave. Danmarks Lxrerhojskole, Copenhagen.
Rokeach, M. (1973) The nature of human values. Free Press,
New York.
Varming, 0. (1995) Selvvoerd og selvvoedsudvikling. Kroghs
Foriag A/S, Vejle.
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