true value

There are a number of words in the English language I find are so overused, they lose their actual meaning. Words I often hesitate to use for fear of cheapening my sentiment. Words like awesome or love or… f^ck. They are so frequently thrown into vernacular, I wonder if the use of them waters down my intent, if not completely bastardizing it. Words that when I hear them used in a conversation are like fingernails on a chalkboard, because I have to wonder… how much do they mean what they say? Or are they just using the word to pretend they mean it?

One word that drives me CRAZY and has since… well, I will throw it back to the whole Lewinski debacle… values. I hate when any politician or morality police start tossing the idea of values into the ether. Because… well… what does that mean, really? Principles. Ethics. Morals. Standards. But… isn’t that… as murky as the meaning of a word when it is used, overused, and abused?

I suppose the fingernail scraping got under my skin yesterday when I read the NY Times piece on Glenn Beck. He claims this country has no values. His followers believe him when he says that Woodrow Wilson was the root of all evil. Seriously? Is that… a value? I suppose it is. To value something is to hold it dear, to give it a sense of worth, to place it at the top of priority. But… does the absence of his beliefs in my own philosophy mean I have no values? Because I sympathize with the progressive movement – even though it is a century out of date – does that mean I have no morality? And just because I disagree with him and his followers… does that mean he doesn’t have values?

I think one of the things that annoys me most about people like Beck and the people who choose to follow him is that they presume they know enough to understand. That somehow they have the answers that no one has been able to figure out throughout history. Indeed, he re-writes history so he can prescribe the answers the dead people should have created in a different era. But… I suppose one of my ‘values’ is that the more I learn about this world, the less I really understand. Never mind KNOW.

Whatever. Glenn Beck is a tool. I hope he goes away. I hope, hope, hope he will implode with all his hot air at some point. But if that was all… if it were merely that article and the description of a philosophy… maybe I wouldn’t be writing this blog.

But in a world where we talk so much about values… where is the value in another person? I hear parents tell me how they want to protect their children from the dangers of this world, explicit sexuality, and hurt that might evoke tears. I hear others say this society doesn’t respect hard work and just uses and abuses this system to get off easy. Are those values? Is that a lack of values? What about the value of not wanting to cause anyone pain, not just your own child? What about that other over utilized word, karma?

Nobody is going to step forward and say they have no values. That the philosophy that drives every motivation is tainted with malice or self-interest. Who is going to own up to being evil? Because even if there is a recognition that something is wrong, there is always a way to argue the justification of that evil. 

This morning I read another piece in the NY Times. Maybe that’s what finally prompted me to set down these thoughts that have been spinning in my head. Where is the value in posting a boy’s sex act online? Is it because it was a gay act? Or just because he was quiet and kept to himself? When the result of that act is a suicide… what is the value in the entertainment of that lark? Or in those of us who read the story and then write about it. 

I read that story and wanted to cry. Because, in the end, isn’t the most valuable thing in this world, life?