Related to the massive migration of Middle Eastern men into Europe is the value system with which they arrive. What is a value system? It’s the set of principles with which individuals live and with which they make their decisions. How does a human being discover the concept of “value”? By what means does he first become aware of the issue of “good or evil” in its simplest form? By means of the physical sensations of pleasure or pain. Just as sensations are the first step of the development of a human consciousness in the realm of cognition, so they are its first step in the realm of evaluation.
The capacity to experience pleasure or pain is innate in a man’s body; it is part of his nature, part of the kind of entity he is. He has no choice about it, and he has no choice about the standard that determines what will make him experience the physical sensation of pleasure or of pain. What is that standard? His life. Ayn Rand…
What about individuals who never ever introspect to the extent that they understand their value system? First the number is very small and second it’s a rare person who can escape the culture pressures and barriers and figure out that it’s their individual life that’s at stake when they accept a value system. Most people simply accept what they’ve been told by people they trust and admire. Most of those people are wrong.
How many people would say their value system comes from their religion? Most people accept that as an axiom. But no religion preaches the individual is more important than the religion. It’s to the eternal credit of America that the nation was set up on the basis of the protection of the individual. That caused and continues to cause many problems as most preachings are not about making the life of the individual the best it can be. Instead of explaining the rules of life, religions issue commands that offer no choice except a penalty if the commands aren’t followed. Suppose the commands are wrong, which they often are? less than ideal life results.
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