Abstract
Values are deeply embedded beliefs that hold societies together. The more voluntaristic and universal, the greater their impact and combined effect. Traditions matter a great deal. Common experience, historic consciousness, a sense of shared triumphs and tribulations surmounted, engenders togetherness, joint identification, a spirit of loyalty, plus expectations of future success. Yet adaptability is also important. History does not stand still. Internal conditions undergo change, the world outside presents new exigencies, and new challenges arise. What had seemed timeless and immanent might well turn obsolete. If it does, it poses a hindrance to progress, produces confusion and drives people apart. Demographic factors, material change and new inventions, often in concert, transform the scenario. They invoke novel insight as well as a response, demand adaptability, plus a readiness to modify values which are no longer functional. At such crucial times, responsible guidance on the part of those who hold power, is critical. The adherence to redundant and obsolete values, the resistance to making way for imminent change, indecisiveness, prevarication and lack of leadership can turn order into chaos and unity into discord.
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© 1999 Otto Newman and Richard de Zoysa
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Newman, O., de Zoysa, R. (1999). The Melting Pot. In: The American Dream in the Information Age. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333983591_2
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