Bland, politically correct values

Teaching values will be as boring for both teachers and students as teaching health education to which it is closely related. Students spot an agenda as quick as you like and they will simply turn off when it occurs to them that this class is designed to make them good.

It is not that our problem is that we do not know the difference between good and evil, we learn that in kindergarten, it is that our characters are now formed by the popular narratives of lifestyle and material progress.

It is the inherent nihilism of these narratives, their shallow narcissism that produces the anomie that leads to drug taking as self comfort. It is ridiculous to think that a dry course in values will be able to compete with those backed by multimillion dollar corporations and their expensive, subtle and seductive advertising campaigns. We live in a time in which all things are commodified, sex, prestige, power, style, adventure, you name it, everything may be bought off the shelf and everything is promoted everywhere.

What is values education in the face of such an onslaught on the human psyche? The imposition of values will do nothing for the person who lives without hope or a rich narrative that tells them who they are and why they are.

Character and the behaviour that derives from it cannot be imposed from without by simply asserting values. Character is born of passion, not from common sense. I hate to harp, but it is true, Western civilisation has been formed in large part by the Christian story.

We may think that democracy came from the Greeks but a much broader base is to be found in the New Testament. Our equalitarianism comes from the teaching that every person is made in the image of God. The character of our forbears was formed out of biblical narrative which dramatically, in story and song and poetry and legend fired the imagination and the belly.

In contrast, values education is a poor thing, a weak attempt at social engineering aimed at making us better. Governments are caught in their own web of allegiances. They have insisted on removing any influence of the church so that they may do what they want without interference and now must proceed on the church’s business without the assistance of the church.

They have insisted on fairness in multiculturalism and because one voice may not be privileged over another, all voices are banned from the public square.

So what we are left with is this bland, politically correct, committee-driven motherhood statement that will go the way of all such things, into oblivion.