“I am right.”
Certain as the sun, rising in the east
A person’s morality and conscience, and by extension, thoughts, speech and actions, are ruled by his values. I’m sure you would have heard this hackneyed expression: “Our values define us.”
To him, his values are what he perceives as truth. Not the absolute truth, mind you, but a truth significant enough for him to be content with in his own tiny bubble.
In other words, every person, including you and me, believes that his values are right. At least, it feels right to him at the present. That is why he holds on to them tightly in the first place. Why would he even believe in something that he doesn’t think is right, right?
History and fiction has provided us with umpteen examples of people who were convinced that they were doing the right thing and did terrible acts because of it. No one thinks of himself as a villain, and few make decisions they think are wrong. A person may not be proud of his choice, but he will stand by it because, even in the worst circumstances, he believes that it was the best option available to him at the time.
With such sure belief, you would expect a person’s identity markers, that is, his values, to be immutable. Why would he imagine changing something that he considers a fundamental part of him? If his very core is susceptible to change, imagine how unstable it would make him. A change of values is simply an agent of confusion.
Growth by change
Yet, that confusion is vital for his growth. Questioning his own values would unseat himself from his ensconced position in a fool’s paradise and allow him to approach the absolute truth. Of course, his progress would be asymptotic. But bending one’s self to that is far better than being a straight line that runs parallel.
Doubt
There is no example better than religion to understand the significance of doubt. I think it is safe to assume that a person’s first beliefs is heavily based on the religion the family he was born into practises. When he is young, he accepts it without an iota of doubt. But as he ages, grows curious about the things around him and begins to explore the world, he starts to question, “What if?”
“What if I was born into another family? A family that practises another religion? Will my beliefs still be the same?”
The answer is, of course, “Quite unlikely.”
In that case, does it make any sense to practice a religion with a highly specific, inflexible set of tenets? There is, I dare say, little or no proof that this is closer to the absolute truth, as compared to another religion. All that exists is a bias that is tagged with one’s birth and ancestry.
Doubt is useful; it keeps faith a living thing. After all, you cannot know the strength of your faith until it is tested.
Pi Patel in Life of Pi (2012)
Sure, doubt is useful to test the resilience of your values. I also find it useful to debunk them if necessary. Once we realise that our values are shaped and influenced by circumstances, such as the environment we grew up in, we know that they are not certain to be right. As the seeds of doubt begin to spring in our minds, we find ourselves refashioning values and expanding our search for the absolute truth, even if it may seem as hard like wrestling to stretch a stubbornly inelastic rubber band.
Ambiguity
A curious thing about values is that it is usually impossible to label them right or wrong.
This is because values vary from person to person. They are subjective. If Person A values honesty over empathy for one’s feelings, the notion of lying would be unacceptable to him. On the contrary, for Person B who believes vice-versa, lying is a necessary evil.
I believe this is why a clash of values in a conflict is hard to resolve. Technically, both sides are ‘right’. So unless both parties agree to disagree, overlook differences and come to a compromise, the conflict can take quite an ugly turn. Hence people who hold similar values tend to coalesce easily.
There are exceptions, of course. Things like committing a murder. But I do wonder. I wonder if our values would still be the same, say punishment (by law or religion) as a deterrent was not to be meted out. Would we still abide by what we accept as moral or immoral now?
It isn’t the desire to abide by the law that makes everyone behave as society requires, but the fear of punishment.
Paulo Coelho, The Devil and Miss Prym
Anyway, the beauty of ambiguity is that our ‘right’ is someone else’s wrong. And his ‘right’ is our ‘wrong’. This makes me ever more certain that values are not certain to be right or wrong. Understanding this will help us empathise with people whom you do not agree with. It also means that it is never a bad thing to constantly review one’s self.
“I am (plausibly not) right.”
The Sun does not rise in the east. It is Earth that revolves around the Sun.
Actually, does it?
Values are fundamental to any being that is able to think and feel. So I don’t think I am exaggerating to say that this is the best road to take toward greatness, that is, to keep challenging yourself by doubting the validity of your own values.
All you need is to do is step out of your bubble and consider. Consider the possibility that you could have been wrong all this while.