(By request, a cross-post, from the main feed “over there”; Group Writing for June, 2017. With appreciation and emendations…Enjoy!)
Greetings, fellow netizens of the good ship BDB! This episode came to mind recently as I read various posts and comments here and elsewhere detailing the sad state of civil society and the country at large. Conservatism/Classical Liberalism still holds up as a worldview; but the shared scaffolding holding it – and us – together is tottering. Mortar needs replaced at the foundation. What are the strongest ingredients? Let’s stroll down memory lane together, shall we?
Forty years ago this week, I had completed my junior year at the high school in my cocoon of a small town. My soon-to-finish years as an LHS Bulldog would give me milestone memories and the confidence to take on the logistic and philosophic challenges ahead. Little did I know that the first of these would take place in Spanish class just months before. Our enthusiastic, classically-trained teacher had been known to treat us to homemade paella rather than cafeteria lunch, to play Latin-inspired dance records, and wear a serape to class every-so-often: Her tendency to be spontaneous in her lesson-plans added zest to our learning.
One day in late May, I made my way to class with assist from a friend, got settled in, prepared for a quiz. Instead, Señorita M. handed around a worksheet (entirely in English) with the heading “Values Clarification Exercises”. As I skimmed it, titles like: “The Lifeboat Problem” [12 people of various ages, health statuses, intellectual levels, etc.; the boat has room for 6 or 7. Who stays/goes? Why?] and others – similarly dire – got me to thinking: “What does any of this have to do with Spanish? Twenty minutes of bewilderment, embarrassment, and anger ensued (particularly on the part of our student-body president – whose father taught on the history faculty.) Srta. M. was reduced to tears and dismissed the class. We subsequently quietly returned to conjugation and social conversation en Español.
Thus was I introduced to the “values clarification” strand of public education prevalent in the mid-1970s, now extended to healthcare and other therapeutic settings, as well as some faith communities. (Note here that ours was a strongly religiously-affiliated community, of varying traditions. Our expected system/hierarchy of values were rather clearly-defined, even when we chose not to hold to them.) The approach emerged here from the work of a triad of educators/philosophers/ethicists: Sidney B. Simon, Leland W. Howe, and Howard Kirschenbaum, whose book: Values Clarification: A Handbook of Strategies for Teachers and Students (1972) probably inspired Srta. M. The authors, in turn, were inspired by educator/pragmatist philosopher, John Dewey. These gentlemen all felt that education encompassed transfer of knowledge and encouragement toward enlightened social reform. They argued for the personal, individualistic exercise of value systems/ethical-moral choices, a la the lifeboat scenario.
A colleague of theirs, Paul Raths, suggested a seven-step hierarchy employed in arriving at one’s own ethical framework [“Valuing”]. (Raths, Harmin, & Simon, 1966.) To wit:
Prizing one’s beliefs and behaviors
1. prizing and cherishing
2. publicity affirming, when appropriate
Choosing one’s beliefs and behaviors
3. choosing from alternatives
4. choosing after consideration of cons
5. choosing freely
Acting on one’s beliefs
6. acting
7. acting with a pattern, consistency and repetition
I’ve included this schema to focus on the absence of any observable reference to anything/anyone outside oneself.
How curiously refreshing that everything old is still old. I say this with a smile because this process not only highlights the frequent reemergence of the self as supreme, but also, possibly supplies the mortar to shore up the scaffold of civic society and shared values. For such hopeful thoughts, I turn to that popular translator of theology and lover of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful familiar to many here: C. S. Lewis.
In February of 1943, Lewis delivered a series of three lectures (at King’s College, Newcastle-The University of Durham. These were published shortly-thereafter as, The Abolition of Man: Reflections on education with special reference to the teaching of English in the upper forms of schools. As an educator himself (in medieval English), Lewis noted an unsettling trend in textbooks used to prepare students to reach his classroom. He takes issue with “The Green Book” by “Gaius” and “Titius”; later identified as The Control of Language: A Critical Approach to Reading and Writing, by Alec King and Martin Ketley (1939). Lewis contends that the viewpoint expressed by the authors attempts to reduce aesthetics to the observable and quantifiable: “The waterfall is x feet high and y gallons of water flow over it per minute.” as preferred to: “The waterfall is sublime.” [ See TAoM, pg. 2; HarperCollins, Kindle Ed.] Further, he posits, they reduce value judgments concerning beauty to the affective response it may bring forth in the individual, rather than measuring it against any external standard of Beauty – and, by extension, of Truth or Goodness. In this subjective view, Lewis finds the risk of raising a generation of: “men [generic plural] without chests” (TAoM, pg. 24), as the lecture’s title puts it. Those whose sense of being part of/responsible to something [someone] larger than their own external surroundings and/or internal state is atrophied/non-existent.
This lack would’ve been an urgent catalyst to Prof. Lewis during the throes of the battle for civilization that was WWII. His antidote was a re-framing of the idea of the Natural Law taken as a given across epochs and cultures until the advent of “G. & T.”, so to speak. He termed this schema “the Tao” ( borrowing a Buddhist term for ”The Way”) though not using it in its technical sense. Lewis described the path this way:
“It is the doctricne of objective value, the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of things we are.” (TAoM, pg.19; HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.)
Notice the use of the external and the plural in the description. Recalling Dr. Raths’ focus on the internal and the singular, the difference is striking. Lewis’ concept highlights externally-focused guides for making values-based decisions from ancient texts of: China, Egypt, Greece, India, Israel, Native American and Norse cultures, Persia, Rome.
An eight-fold hierarchy emerges from this cross-cultural exploration. An appendix in The Abolition of Man details these. I’ll simply list them for comparison to “valuing”, above:
1. The Law of General Beneficence [Recognition of Common Humanity/Nonaggression]
2. The Law of Special Beneficence [Kinfolk/Neighbors/Countrymen]
3. Duties toward Parents/Elders/Ancestors
4. Duties toward Children/Posterity
5. Justice:
– Fidelity, honesty, respect for ownership, proportionality of response
– Specific applications to legal matters.
6. Good Faith and Veracity
7. Mercy/Compassion/Charity (with respect to offering one’s goods and time)
8. Magnanimity/Largeness of heart (extended to offering oneself for a greater Good.
At first glance, these may seem mutually-exclusive. (They sure did to me, at seventeen.) I’ve become more both-and than either/or since then. Perhaps one needs a grounding in the shared values and viewpoint of the Tao, in order to have the capacity to gradually internalize and make it one’s own? Have at it, passengers and crew! !Hasta entonces!



Thanks for this, Nanda. You wisely note the ‘values clarification’ chart having “the absence of any observable reference to anything/anyone outside oneself.” I’ve always thought it was infants and children who have no reference to anything outside themselves – because of immaturity – and that as they mature biologically and morally they consider others’ needs more and more. I think this values clarifying should have been called ‘self-centering’ though I don’t know if the authors would get that irony. Most human beings need no help in thinking MORE about themselves!
So true, Pen! Glad you enjoyed it!
I’m going to have to read this a couple times and ponder it to grasp just what it means.