The new morality

phil30k SG

Here is my humble submission for your comment and discussion.

There seems to me to be a new morality gaining ground in Singapore. The earliest communities comprised groups of families living and working in cor-ordination. The common currency was goodwill. Ability earned you respect and teaching others earned you loyalty. Integrity earned you trust while honesty earned you trade.

Intelligence meant you were consulted. The amount of goodwill you possesed was reflected in your status in the community. Even among the people who may not have dealt with you.

I see a trend towards the currency of goodwill being replaced by money.

Ability has been translated to the ability to make money. On it's own it does not seem that much of a change. The practice of teaching at best is geared towards money making and at worst is to teach people to make mistakes that can be taken advantage of.

Integrity has taken on the aspect of foolishness. Integrity makes a person predictable and this was a desired trait if others were to be confident in relying on you. Now it means that you can be easily deceived because the truth can be manipulated and mixed in with lies into a mixture of misinformation to pander to your principles and ease your misgivings. Hence it's current day equation to foolishness.

Honesty has given way to the law. The law was meant to enforce honesty but more often then not it is used to protect dishonesty. The groups which influences the judiciary or are familiar with the judiciary process can now use the system to hide their lies by carefully promising what cannot be enforced or is not recorded on contract or has a carefully hidden loophole to protect the deceiver. Dishonesty no longer loses you trade.

People who pattern their morality after the law mostly make a mistake of confusing the intent of the law with the use of the law. They all too easily find themselves slipping into a moral quagmire.

Intelligence is no longer respected unless it is accompanied by wealth. In a sense it takes intelligence to make money but now liars and cheats who make a lot of money are also seen as intelligent people. That virtue has become diluted.

More and more, wealth is now seen as the new standard for reputation but the morals that lead to the creation of wealth is very different from the traditional morals that lead to the creation of reputation.

Some may say that you need to evolve and adapt and perhaps they are right. Maybe if the world adopted the new morality, we'd be able to move forward. The old morality has no place in modern society and is dying out.

It was once said that "money is the root of all evil". That was changed to "the love of money is the root of all evil, money is good". Perhaps it's time for that to change to "the acquisition of power though money is the root of all evil, money and power are good".

HyperFocal SG

... I feel that at the rate Singapore's Costs of Living is escalating, whatever Original Morality there were, will be shot to hell in double quick time... ethics are first out the window, followed by compasion and the rest that makes for a Wholesome Society of people in this "country"...

... reality is, people are becoming increasingly desperate to survive... and money is the only thing on people's minds and hearts...

... why has it become like this? Well, you know it as much as I do...

phil30k SG

... reality is, people are becoming increasingly desperate to survive... and money is the only thing on people's minds and hearts...

... why has it become like this? Well, you know it as much as I do...

The parents of a friend of mine told me of their retirement plan. They wanted to buy a small farm in thailand and grow vegetables and live simply and rely on money as little as possible.

My friend was cringing at that and kept saying "seow! you'll miss TV, there's nothing to do, so bo-oring. Old already still want to plant vegetables. Don't expect me to visit."

Perhaps the answer is as simple as that?

Maylar SG

Money and power are neither good nor bad. It becomes symbolically good when it is being put in good use and symbolically bad when put in bad usage.

Morality is a subjective and intangible quality that can't be possibility be categorized in a narrow context as quoted above. Nevertheless, it is either right or wrong. Life is too broad in its context and is unstable by its nature to be perceived like there.

Teaching others earn one loyalty? Why could one expect loyalty by teaching others? I don't know what the new-world-morality is. For what i know, this world is pretty messed up and we are going merry go round with it till the day we died. Goodwill will help make the world a closer-knitted and a pleasant place to live in.

Integrity is a core value, to each of his own. It is a subjective and personal thing, a character's strength which displayed time after time. I could say it is more of the folly of the external ones who do not observe the situation properly and quickly make assumption. It is a fact that no one can be predicted all the time. How can one behaviour be predicted unless you are god or telepathic.

Morals creation of wealth vs Moral creation of reputation. It is seperated by one fine line. Having wealth could indicate higher social standing, but nevertheless does not represent having a clean nor good reputation.

phil30k SG

Dery Maylar

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Teaching supposes the sharing of knowlege and helping another person hone their skills to make a living. We don't see the loyalty because our school system is pretty much a manufacturing process. You'll see the relationship more clearly when you examine the process of mentors and apprentices. However because of the detachment created by our school manufacturing process and the supposition that we've payed for it with money or flattery or opportunity cost etc, this effect is extremely diluted.

Integrity is a consistent behavior in line with a principle. For example if someone believed in children's welfare and you wanted to use children as slave labor and they stood in your way, you'd focus your arguments on how there are too many children and they were starving to death. Then you'd say with child labor, employers making a profit from such could be legislated to bear the responsibility to feed and house such children as well as provide some education. So you'd argue that you were on their side and also were looking after children's welfare.

Predictably, the person would ask, what sort of food and housing and education as he is interested in the children's welfare. You already won as what you wanted was child slave labor. If he continued to oppose you, you could argue that he was misguided and foolish and idealistic and then disregard his views and you could always "review" the legislation later or fail to enforce it for various reasons. That would be an example of how that works. There would be no need for telepathy or godlike powers.

You seem to accept that wealth indicates a higher social standing and not a clean or good reputation. The problem I see here is that it should be a clean and good reputation indicates a higher social standing, eg a priest who does a lot of charity works who may still be poor. I see it as a problem when people accept wealth as indicative of one's status in society.

Wealth only shows how much money you have accumulated. I see the attachment of human virtues to the accumulation of money as the new morality. Or lack of morality as some others may put it.

Maylar, I can see that you have already succumbed partially to the new morality. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. Maybe we all need to succumb to it so that society can move forward. Whether to destruction and rebirth or to a new equilibrium is beyond my ability to predict.

I am still a believer of the old morality. It's just that with the advent of virtues becoming connected to money, I'm not sure if other people like myself are becoming out of tune with society and being left behind as we "progress". And is why I'm bringing up this topic for discussion.