Contemporary human values in a materialistic society

I am not the only one. All of us are dazed, amazed and confused!!! It is a common topic for discussions across the world. People discuss this over tea tables, lunch meets, dinner and almost anywhere and everwhere. I am concerned...Where are we heading? Where are human values heading? What is happening to the world? Why is the social code degenerating so fast? What will be the value system of the generation next? and next? and next? Who is responsible for maintaining the decorum of the society? As usual I have more questions and no answers?

I am thinking aloud for a minute. Where is the starting point for all this?As a society where are we learning from? (At this stage I am not questioning what are we learning?)What is influencing my ideas, knowledge, behaviour and values? Are these influences the culprits? Let us try and analyse them. Here I am speaking purely from my own experiences. In a decreasing order of importance most of the stimuli comes from the Television, Print media (News paper, very little from magazines), My office environment, Home or family, Colleagues/friends, Books, Internet, Radio, Internet, Products and services available in the market. It is directly proportional to the time spent on that activity/in that environment.

Am I aware of these stimuli which is reaching me without my knowledge? Not really. With each passing day there is garbage being pumped into my mind/life. I am absorbing all of it. Some I keep some I discard. So much of all this trash is reaching me that I need a higher processing capability to sort out these stimuli. So instead of spending time and sorting out these stimuli, I let them remain. And so the garbage stays. My mind has become a cockatil of tons of useless information. Television is a mixed bag! Print media is a mixed confused bag of information. Advertisments give confused messages. Society is disconnected from entertainmnet and media. The western concept of Marketing has completely taken over life. All mass communication is exxaggeration, misleading and incorrect. There are too many unwanted magazines on the stands...There is just toooo much of information.

It is time for the society to clean up. Clean up and minimise. It is time for the society to move back to a spartan life. Minimise our material possessions, minimise our activities that fill the day, consolidate human existence, consolidate society and relationships. It is time for each one of us who constitute the society to look in. We are all being driven by the external world. Life like a car is driven inside-out and not outside-in. It is time to spend some quality time inside ourselves. The answers lie within us.