© 1998 Nina Bravo
© 1998 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
This excerpt from the introduction of Nina Bravo’s book Human Values, edited for space, was translated by Susan Ransbottom and Rosey Lieske.
All of humanity is confronting a grave problem — not a crisis of values, as it’s being called, but rather their total revitalization. On a personal level you know that something’s going on. You may sense you’ve not chosen well ethically, but don’t know how to interpret your own perceptions, either to sort out the influences of the people or society around you, or the ideological isms, the current trends, or media influence. You might hear and talk about values, but if asked what they are, you probably couldn’t define them.
There are many definitions already proposed by ancient philosophers, as well as those related through history and legend. Among them there appear to be two very strong but antagonistic views that have been maintained to the present day.
One position points to values as goals, ideals that man can achieve. Values are seen as objective realities not subject to culture, time, science, or any other variable. They are external to man, not depending on him, but in accordance with innate natural law are eminent, transcendent, and atemporal. For example, love, which many confuse with mere feeling, would correspond here with cosmic order. (Have you stopped to think about the perfection and organization of our Universe?)
The second position asserts that values are subjective, depending on the quality which each person gives them, in accordance with his or her own points of reference (culture, age, gender, education, religion, etc.). They are subject to change with the history and circumstances of the moment, even the feelings of the moment. This is the view most prevalent now. The world is valued in accordance with individual perception.
Think of the chaos which confronts you every day: those who cheat and lie to you because it serves them; those who rob you of your time and peace, thinking only of themselves; those who overwhelm you with their phobias for order, making you a slave to their psychological tyranny. There are myriad examples with which you live every day that you feel are unjust to you.
Ask yourself now, “Are others feeling the same about me?” In a world in which each person chooses what they want we end up feeling what Sartre expressed best, “The Other is my Hell”, or in modern terminology, “those closest to me frustrate me the most.” This is the world of the subjectivists and is the cause of most of the suffering of body, mind, and soul.
Now another flow of thought is emerging — values by consent, or values defined by the majority. Do you believe, are you certain, that the subject of values — a subject so complex, of which so little is known, neither taught with precision at home nor in the schools or universities — can be discerned by majority opinion, matters as delicate as the bioethics of genetic engineering, for example? Values determined by the majority are an undermining of values themselves.
Today mankind needs to remember, return to its roots and review its history, extracting from it the experience that existed prior to humanity’s opting for either a purely objective or subjective view. Plato, in his dialogue “Timeo,” speaks to us of the values practiced in Atlantis, the submerged continent. As legend or reality, a review of their values would support a vision of a marvelous civilization. They were mere men, but they did possess clear, definite, practical, transcendent values. They had strength, patience, valor, perseverance, and all this contributed to the creation of beauty, harmony, culture, poetry, art, and music.
What happens when we compare them to the world today — a society of terrorism, consumerism, and disposable human relationships? We have great technical advances but also tremendous spiritual decline! Man is permanently discontent with himself, in an eternal search, without finding an answer to the reason for his existence.
It may be that we have to turn our gaze back and look deeply to discover what those people had that took them so far and carefully review also the cause of the destruction of those great, past civilizations. We may discover that the cause was the use and abuse of opposing qualities, or values and their devaluations.
What are “Opposing Qualities?”Aristotle said that “Virtue (or value) is a point of equilibrium between two extremes.” For example:
| OMNIPOTENCE | STRENGTH | WEAKNESS |
|---|---|---|
| (Excess) | (Midpoint) | (Absence) |
One pole is always a negation of the value, while the other is the exaggeration of this same value. For instance, punctuality is a value. Yet its excess can become agonizing for the person who possesses it and a burden for those around him.
In this book we are going to devote ourselves at length to the moral values or virtues that are, for us, the necessary guide. Within our general culture man finds himself facing other value systems — religious, ethical, aesthetic, etc. These systems will be mentioned and be touched on tangentially, but our work will be principally dedicated to the moral values that we feel, believe in, and affirm. These values are at the base of a solid inner structure for a human being, and therefore apply to the family and society.
Certain prerequisites are required for man to embody and realize values. Freedom, the capacity to choose, is inherent in the concept of morality. Man is free through his nature and design. We are given free will. Always, from the moment we wake up each day, we have various options. We can choose to have a good day, a bad one, or even a mediocre day devoid of pleasure. The option is ours. No one compels or forces us.
The Three Keys
In order to open the door of wisdom and happiness, which we all seek, three keys are necessary. The first key is Thinking. We have the intelligence to learn, understand, and adapt ourselves, in addition to many other functions of mind such as imagination, memory, creativity, discernment, discrimination, and appraisal. The second key is Feeling. We have the full range of our emotions and feelings, such as the capacity to love, to be astonished, ecstatic or bored. The third key is Action. Acting is carrying out what we think and feel. It is executing and realizing the power of our will.
What happens when you feel and act but do not think? You know many people who do this and you may also be like this at times. They are people of action and reaction, like caterpillars on the ground, curling into a ball the instant you touch them. They are the ones who throw themselves into a dry pool, never looking to see if it has any water. They become furious and strike out.
Values take root in intelligence-they are operational habits which are learned and acquired. If we don’t use our intelligence, we are more beast-like than any animal since they possess the instincts of their species and do not need to learn as we do. They are born knowing what is necessary, controlled by instinctual parameters. While we have impulses rather than instincts which can be governed with our intelligence and will.
What happens if you forget to use the key of Action? You feel discontent because you haven’t organized your life, and yet you do nothing except lament. You do not write that book you’ve proposed, or finish the letter you left half-written. You belong to a species of builders of castles in the air. You are constantly lying to yourself, and your self-esteem is plunging.
It may seem strange to you that the key of Feeling may be unused, but unfortunately that’s the way it is. Here we find the hardhearted type, trampling over anything and anyone, climbing the ladder of success at the expense of others. These unfeeling persons, who believe themselves to be superior, have no idea how to put themselves in another’s place. Or, carried to an extreme, they become the kidnapper or assassin, completely unconcerned about the damage they cause. Does this horrify you? It is something that happens, and can happen to you, if you’re not using the key of feeling!
You realize now that in order to open the door of wisdom and happiness you must use the three keys simultaneously. If you forget even one, you’ll never cross the threshold to the happiness you long for. The keys need to be used in complete, coherent harmony among themselves. How many times have you found yourself thinking one thing, feeling another and acting in a way unrelated to either? The result is that you find yourself fragmented, your psyche broken or unbalanced. This is what happens when our inner selves are not free.
To choose implies a deep understanding of how one thinks, feels and acts. If we do not integrate these keys of behavior, we become slaves of ourselves. Think about this. Am I coherent in my thinking, feeling and acting? Am I truly free or a slave to myself? Which key is it that I’ve most hidden away?
Nina Bravo is a Chilean psychologist and lecturer who has given seminars on value recognition in her work as a family and group therapist.
She brings her Spanish readers into an intimate and ongoing review of their own relationship to the 28 values covered in the book through a series of questions they must pose to themselves. Her years of experience as a therapist is revealed by the wisdom of the questions themselves. Hopefully, there will be a full English translation soon of this fascinating and practical workbook on spiritual values.
The author, along with Oly Tartakowsky, has founded and nurtured a vibrant Urantia movement in Chile, South America.