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3. Understand their values and moral beliefs and how and why they may differ from those of others. Be able to accept and address criticisms of his/her values and beliefs.
Part of your growth and frame of reference is a development of values and moral beliefs.
VALUE: ...to consider with respect to worth, excellence, usefulness, or importance. What do you value within your makup? What makes you have worth? If your interest is academics, do you "value" a "A" grade, or is a "C" acceptable. The higher your value, the harder you work towards that goal. That is why grades are representative of your efforts. An employer likes to see those kind of values, because it indicates you will be a hard worker, independent, organized, loyal, etc. College recruiters always say that high school grades are the best indicator of success in college. Establishing goals early in life and striving to acheive them makes you work and find out how to acheive things that you may never thought you could.
MORAL BELIEFS: Of or concerned with the principles of right and wrong in conduct and character: teaching of conduct standards of good behavior; conforming to the rules of right conduct: sexually virtuous: judged by one's conscience to be ethical or approved: capable of distinguishing between right and wrong.
Moral beliefs are taught by parents, the village, the government, church, and the friends developed over years. The main portion of moral beliefs is knowing the difference between right and wrong AND ACTING IN THE CORRECT MANNER. Politically speaking, do you vote for a person of proven good character, or someone of lesser character. The church provides morals and ethics that are examples of proper behavior.
Your values and beliefs will not always be the same as others. Do you know why you have your values and beliefs? Can you justify your beliefs in the face of criticism in a "debate" about questioning those beliefs and having people try to change your position? Can you accept others position with their values without making enemies? Remember, if you are entitled to your values/beliefs, so is everyone else . This is an area of political discourse that gets out of hand. Several religious entities become overzealous about their views and attempt to "convert" those that they evangalize. They think if the potential convert does not agree with their position they will go to hell. If you think this is not a big thing, rethink the Iraq war situation. The Muslims think Christians are not a respectful religion because they do not do church-like things everyday like the Muslims do. Christians only go to church once a week. Look at World History, most of the wars through-out history have to do with "religion".
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
#2
An educated person should...
#2. Understand and evaluate their own and other's decisions.
"Understand and evaluate..." To understand beliefs and values that you accept in your life, you call on reserves first. An example would be: Your frame of reference. This has been discussed in earlier blog messages. In your "frame of reference", you have amassed a tremendous amount of "education", that you call on everyday. It depends upon how diligent you have been in your life to accumulate a good "stockpile", of information. It is good information if you have received it, hashed and rehashed it, and accepted it into your existence as a belief or value that you stand behind. For instance, if your parents were/are conservatives, you have been privy to their discussions and beliefs and have accepted many into your "frame". To you, that becomes the way you look at current happenings and reports. After many challenges to those beliefs, you feel comfortable with some and uncomfortable with others. This is now starting into the "evaluate" portion. You need to see how strongly you believe in those comfortable ones, what makes you comfortable, and why you feel uncomfortable with the ones you can't believe in--and why. You are now starting to weigh what you can support and what is needed for that support and why you can't support an item. One of the most polarizing issues is abortion. If your religious beliefs feel that the mother should carry the fetus full term--NO MATTER WHAT, then that is what you would choose. However, if you believe that the mother's rights to free choice, supercedes the rights of the fetus, then you will desire a mother the choice to have an abortion or not.
New evidence:
Once you have established your value system, you then need to keep current on all the latest technological,current events, local, national and worldwide, Congressional events, your federal political subdivisions (House of Representatives) and Senators for your state , State government members and city government representatives. You should be able to read about an event, enter or not enter it into your frame of reference and be able to stand up and voice an opinion on that event. You also need to keep current on world events and be able to support or not support what is going on and be able to get involvled in discussion about the way you feel about what is going on. How does this effect you? The George W. Bush Presidency made so many "errors" that the public rose up and elected a Barak Obama as President. The people were so insensed that they took their "well-formulated opinions" and put them into action by electing a new political party to the Presidency with new ideas, similar to their own. Those original opinions were ideas that people saw didn't work, they accepted new ideas to alter their "frame of reference" and put that new altered opinion into action.
#2. Understand and evaluate their own and other's decisions.
"Understand and evaluate..." To understand beliefs and values that you accept in your life, you call on reserves first. An example would be: Your frame of reference. This has been discussed in earlier blog messages. In your "frame of reference", you have amassed a tremendous amount of "education", that you call on everyday. It depends upon how diligent you have been in your life to accumulate a good "stockpile", of information. It is good information if you have received it, hashed and rehashed it, and accepted it into your existence as a belief or value that you stand behind. For instance, if your parents were/are conservatives, you have been privy to their discussions and beliefs and have accepted many into your "frame". To you, that becomes the way you look at current happenings and reports. After many challenges to those beliefs, you feel comfortable with some and uncomfortable with others. This is now starting into the "evaluate" portion. You need to see how strongly you believe in those comfortable ones, what makes you comfortable, and why you feel uncomfortable with the ones you can't believe in--and why. You are now starting to weigh what you can support and what is needed for that support and why you can't support an item. One of the most polarizing issues is abortion. If your religious beliefs feel that the mother should carry the fetus full term--NO MATTER WHAT, then that is what you would choose. However, if you believe that the mother's rights to free choice, supercedes the rights of the fetus, then you will desire a mother the choice to have an abortion or not.
New evidence:
Once you have established your value system, you then need to keep current on all the latest technological,current events, local, national and worldwide, Congressional events, your federal political subdivisions (House of Representatives) and Senators for your state , State government members and city government representatives. You should be able to read about an event, enter or not enter it into your frame of reference and be able to stand up and voice an opinion on that event. You also need to keep current on world events and be able to support or not support what is going on and be able to get involvled in discussion about the way you feel about what is going on. How does this effect you? The George W. Bush Presidency made so many "errors" that the public rose up and elected a Barak Obama as President. The people were so insensed that they took their "well-formulated opinions" and put them into action by electing a new political party to the Presidency with new ideas, similar to their own. Those original opinions were ideas that people saw didn't work, they accepted new ideas to alter their "frame of reference" and put that new altered opinion into action.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
What should an Educated Citizen Be Able to do? #1
An educated person should be able to do the following:
1. Be able to make conscious, informed decisions in the public sphere and in their private lives and be able to explain their reasons for the decisions.
Be able to make conscious, informed decisons...
A person needs to keep an open enough mind to hear all sides of an issue, make a decision based on his/her frame of reference, plus new evidence that your research has uncovered, and be able to formulate a decision backed up with well-thought out reasoning for your belief.
...in the public sphere...
A person needs to be comfortable enough with that decision to discuss his/her belief so when "threatened" by outside critical opinions, that decision will stand the test of time. That would include being able to talk in public groups, such as a city council meeting, or a planning and zoning meeting. It would be up to you to convince the public entities that you are dealing with that your point of view has: Sound reasoning, the latest available data...that is researchable, and you do it in such a way that people want to be on your side...not against you. When you are talking in the public sphere, you are trying to convince someone to your way of thinking about an issue.
...in their private lives...
Sometimes, there are private entities that need the benefit of your "research", that you need to bring on your side, or just explain, your point of view. All of the above would apply.
...and be able to explain their reasons for the decisions.
When a person "cries Wolf" too many times, people do not listen after being burned. If you tell data in a conversation/debate/ whatever, that is unsubstantiated, people will listen until they find out that it is unsubstantiated. After that, it will take many attempts to gain their "trust" in anything that you say. When you make a statement based on a newspaper/magazine, make sure you remember the date, issue, etc., so people can go back to it and look it up in total. They are entrenched in their own opinion/belief and it will take substantial evidence for them to come to your way of thinking. If you cannot deliver a date of the article...etc....it is the same as being without value.
1. Be able to make conscious, informed decisions in the public sphere and in their private lives and be able to explain their reasons for the decisions.
Be able to make conscious, informed decisons...
A person needs to keep an open enough mind to hear all sides of an issue, make a decision based on his/her frame of reference, plus new evidence that your research has uncovered, and be able to formulate a decision backed up with well-thought out reasoning for your belief.
...in the public sphere...
A person needs to be comfortable enough with that decision to discuss his/her belief so when "threatened" by outside critical opinions, that decision will stand the test of time. That would include being able to talk in public groups, such as a city council meeting, or a planning and zoning meeting. It would be up to you to convince the public entities that you are dealing with that your point of view has: Sound reasoning, the latest available data...that is researchable, and you do it in such a way that people want to be on your side...not against you. When you are talking in the public sphere, you are trying to convince someone to your way of thinking about an issue.
...in their private lives...
Sometimes, there are private entities that need the benefit of your "research", that you need to bring on your side, or just explain, your point of view. All of the above would apply.
...and be able to explain their reasons for the decisions.
When a person "cries Wolf" too many times, people do not listen after being burned. If you tell data in a conversation/debate/ whatever, that is unsubstantiated, people will listen until they find out that it is unsubstantiated. After that, it will take many attempts to gain their "trust" in anything that you say. When you make a statement based on a newspaper/magazine, make sure you remember the date, issue, etc., so people can go back to it and look it up in total. They are entrenched in their own opinion/belief and it will take substantial evidence for them to come to your way of thinking. If you cannot deliver a date of the article...etc....it is the same as being without value.
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