Protected Values

This week I am asked to examine three protected values that I hold and, in short, how far I am willing to go to protect those values.

Protected values are values that a person holds that they adhere to and not trade away for something else. Core values could be another term for them. No matter what they are called, they hold a special place for those that hold them. For me the biggest protected value I hold is equality followed by compassion, and finally courtesy. I am not so sure that I hold much else in the way of a protected value as a great deal of what I consider a value like honesty is often subjective. I usually shade the truth every day when working with patients in order to present things in the best light. I might not shade the truth in other areas of my life but the fact that I know that it is relative seems, to me, to be something that is less a protected value and more a highly admired value.

Equality is the value that I hold most dear. I believe that all men and women are equal in value and that what affects the least of us is a direct reflection on the behavior and attitudes of the best of us. I am by no means suggesting that a utopia of peace and harmony is attainable but I do think find discrimination based on things such as race, gender, sexual orientation, and age to be particularly heinous.  To be sure there are certain jobs, such as a concrete finisher, that I might not hire someone in their 80s for but otherwise I think we should all be judged on our merits. I do not trade this value for much of anything and in fact will go quite far to avoid people, and places of work, that do discriminate. I've lost friends over it and I've distanced myself from some family over it. I don't know that I can describe how much of a blight I feel discrimination is upon human development. With such a strong feeling towards the matter I don't know that I would compromise this value. I certainly don't support policies of discrimination even if I know I may receive a tax break from an elected politician which seemed an odd thing to worry about until this last election.

Along with that is compassion. Compassion for others takes many forms and I believe that when we approach the world with compassion we become better humans as a result. All of that being said, I do trade-off compassion when it comes to protecting one group of people for another. I don't have a great deal of compassion when I know a terror cell leader has been killed even though that leader most likely had a family and was most likely loved by someone or seen as a freedom fighter by others. That isn't to say that I don't have compassion. I don't feel joy in the death of others. I may feel a sense that something needed to be done that was unpleasant but I am smart enough to know that others that seek to harm me may feel the same way. Compassion is born from insight into others. I don't hate ISIS even if they are evil and cannot be allowed to continue. I hate the conditions that allow something like ISIS to form and there is a large distinction there.

Courtesy may seem like an odd thing to hold as protected value but I think it goes back to my view of humans as a species. There isn't much that separates us from higher primates and some creatures such as dolphins. Primates can use tools, they communicate, they have emotions, and they have a social structure. It is my opinion that the ability to temper our base emotions and behavior with courtesy and politeness are a defining feature of humanity, or rather should be. What some cultures view as rude, others view as not rude. For some things like dining habits this is mostly non-consequential but for how people approach fundamental interactions being rude can have real consequences. I don't deal in a great deal of moral relativism, just because a country's culture says women can't drive doesn't make it correct as I view anything that subjugates another to be morally indefensible. This isn't to set up a larger argument of moral relativism as that is a whole different argument and one that is covered in my blog from prior classes. However, it is related to courtesy in that on some level I believe that politeness should be universal even though some aspects of it change from culture to culture. I placed this value last even though I don't really trade politeness very often. That being said, there are times I've smiled and been polite while behind the scenes orchestrating less than polite outcomes when I have felt that I needed to defend myself.

Protected values are something that I tend to shy away from in the larger sense. Dealing in absolutes is not always a desirable trait in a leader. What I find to be more accurate is that a protected value is only so good as it is morally defensible. People can say segregation is bases on a value of one race being better than the other but can it be morally defended? Perhaps it can through twisted readings of religion or even bad science but if you have to pervert a teaching to make it fit your biases you've already lost the moral ground upon which you decided to stand.