The Myth of the Value

In a multicultural, diverse society, we do not have values "like we used to". (I put "like we used to" in quotes, because this is pure speculation on my part, I wasn't there and I have not studied history deeply enough, so I don't know.) Values are socially learned; we learn them and absorb them from the people we socialize with - our siblings, our parents, our neighbors, our schoolmates, etc. What they find important and care about, we tend to, at the very least, notice and become aware of.

"In the past", when our social circles were much more limited and monocultural, our values were probably also much more clear and concrete - we knew what was important because it did not change much and everyone else felt pretty much the same way. Now, however, especially in larger cities, there is an ever changing crowd of anonymous and semi-anonymous people from various parts of the world. Where they came from, people had at least some different values. When we connect with these people in any way - either through seeing the way they dress, decorate their homes, or speak - what we feel to be important is altered slightly. "If they care about this, then maybe it is important," we seem to feel. Our attention is drawn and our sense of importance is scattered. Since our values are connected to what we feel to be important, our values are scattered too.

Which is why, in a multicultural, diverse society, we do not have values "like we used to."