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Comment by dkhenry | Hacker News Reader

Reminds me of the Greek Cardinal Virtues[1] , or The Resolutions of Johnathon Edwards[2]. It seems that is modern society we have failed to explicitly pass the importance of these kind of character qualities to our kids.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_virtues 2. http://www.apuritansmind.com/the-christian-walk/jonathan-edw...

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Why do you think we've failed in this respect? People always automatically assume that things were better in the past and that the current generation is ruining things.

Maybe we're succeeding at passing on these character qualities to our kids at a higher rate than at any time in the past? There were thieves and liars and murderers and lazy people and scum bags 200 years ago too.

I say we failed because I don't see many adhearents to this. We don't live in a society of prudence, justice, restraint and fortitude. I also don't know of any explicit planing to pass these on to our kids explicitly. We might _hope_ they pick up a few of them along the way, but do we as a society actively try to teach our kids these things ?

And I am not saying what you personally as a parent do. As I know that I plan on explicitly trying to teach moral principles to my kids, but I don't think we as a society teach them.

Here's an example of an explicit plan to pass on a similar list of virtues: "A Boy Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent." Not as good as Franklin's list in my opinion, but it's exactly the type of thing you're saying we need, there are many boy scouts, and there are other organizations with similar goals and explicitly taught virtues.

Perhaps you should take a look around outside your echo chamber and join or start the type of movement you're complaining doesn't exist.

>Not as good as Franklin's list in my opinion, but it's exactly the type of thing you're saying we need, there are many boy scouts, and there are other organizations with similar goals and explicitly taught virtues. Perhaps you should take a look around outside your echo chamber

The boy scouts are a far smaller echo chamber --and not only they are not that many, but they have almost zero influence to modern society and kids.

Plus the issue is not about some specific private club or organisation catering to the matter, but for societal norms in general.

I actually agree with you about the boy scout echo chamber, and I shouldn't have taken the conversation in that direction in the first place, because it's irrelevant.

What is relevant is that you say that we need to teach lists of virtues like this to future generations, and there are plenty of examples of that very thing. I'm not sure how you think "societal norms" work besides groups of like-minded individuals (a.k.a. "organisations") getting together and propagating their belief systems. Are you suggesting there is some sort of over-arching group representing our society that should be defining these sorts of norms?

>Are you suggesting there is some sort of over-arching group representing our society that should be defining these sorts of norms?

Yes, exactly. I suggest that "society" itself is that very "over arching group".

So what I mean by this is that schools, parents, the media, the overall societal fabric that is, should teach this things, and not just some individual group.

I think people admired lists of virtues in Franklin's time for the same reason we admire them now; we think "Gee, if I could do all those things I would be as good as (whoever)". Then, when we have children, we say "god, if only I had followed (whoever's) way to live, my life would be better. I want my child's life to be better than mine. I am going to make sure my kids follow all these rules." Truth is not even the people who write such lists are much good at following them--and if you can't follow them yourself, even when you try your hardest, why do we assume that children just need to be taught harder? Maybe there's something wrong with lists altogether.

Have you ever seen a church?

Our society decided there's no survival value in living a virtuous life: saving money for a rainy day, delaying gratification. This is unfortunate because the word virtue used to mean excellence and valor.

>Our society decided there's no survival value in living a virtuous life: saving money for a rainy day, delaying gratification.

I think the problem is that it's not society that decided that (as a collective) but individuals.

And it's a shame, because while maybe "there's no survival value in living a virtuous life" for an individual, it's an absolute necessary survival condition for a society.

This "every man for himself" is the undoing of society. That's how you get crazy high homicide rates (that make the rates in similarly developed societies like Germany or Japan pale in comparison), substance abuse, rising poverty rates, etc.

>Maybe we're succeeding at passing on these character qualities to our kids at a higher rate than at any time in the past?

Not judging by the behaviour people one sees in any major city, or their kids, compared to historical norms of behaviour one can read about in history books.

One small example: attitude and rudeness like you see today from high-schoolers, would be totally unfathomable in a 1930 or 1950's school.

>There were thieves and liars and murderers and lazy people and scum bags 200 years ago too.

Sure. That doesn't mean societies are stationary. They change with the prevalent motives of the era, the changed ethical norms, the economic and political situation, etc.

Which history books? I bet I can find history books that talk about streets filled with pick pockets, muggings, fights, drunks, homeless people, all being rude to each other, threatening each other etc.

This happens today and it happened in the past. I'm not going to believe any claims that it's worse today than in the past without evidence. It's certainly not self evident.

Do you have any better examples than school children? You can't really compare the force behaviour of oppressed children who are scared of being tortured, to the behaviour of children today in schools today. Maybe we could make them less rude by beating them into submission, but that's not a reasonable compromise.

On the other hand, the attitude and cruelty (e.g.,beatings) you would routinely see from high school teachers is also totally unfathomable in 2012.

Yeah, and maybe that's the problem. The lack of the same attitude, I mean, not the beatings. As in:

http://ideas.time.com/2012/02/10/why-american-kids-are-brats...

et al.

Couldn't it be that history books give a sanitized view of society, and gloss over relatively minor issues such as disobedient youths? The books might say, "young people were expected to be x, y, and z", and tactfully omit, "but they were frequently a, b, and c despite our best efforts". As an alternative viewpoint, look at works of fiction from the time, which are willing to be more gritty. For example, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were disobedient in spite of societal pressure. (disclaimer: I have not read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, But I did see a retelling of it on "The Simpsons" ten years ago)

Also, the following is commonly attributed to Socrates: "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise". If this is to be believed, rude kids with attitude have been a constant for at least the last 2400 years.

>Couldn't it be that history books give a sanitized view of society, and gloss over relatively minor issues such as disobedient youths? The books might say, "young people were expected to be x, y, and z", and tactfully omit, "but they were frequently a, b, and c despite our best efforts".

Frequently yes. Kids will be kids. We're talking about societal norms, and those have changed tremendously. Even in your example, the important thing is "young people were expected to be x, y, and z", not if they actually were x,y and z 100%. Why? Because today they cannot even be expected to be x, y and z in the first place. A lot of the past's x, y and z sound unbelievable today in themselves.

Anyway, regarding all this, if people have doubts, try talking to older people, your grandparents if they are still alive.

>Also, the following is commonly attributed to Socrates: "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise".

That's nothing of the scale you see today. Plus, he was speaking in an Athens that was about to go down the drain, i.e in a society that has lost the "connective social tissue" and people were becoming more selfish and greedy. So, if you see a parallel maybe it's not because it's been like this for 2400, but because we live in a similar era of societal decline. Things do reappear in history, after all.

Can you elaborate on which societal norms you feel have changed for the worse? And can you explain your criteria for eras of societal decline?

Aside: speaking metaphorically for the moment, you could characterize the early history of the United States as: young upstarts (puritans) disagree with the social norms of their forebears (the Church of England), run away from home (colonization of America), and misbehave often in violent ways (the American Revolution). The English may have regarded that time period as a societal decline, even as Franklin was writing his 13 virtues!

Not to get all relativistic[0], but the primary reason we don't actively instill these values is because we no longer look to classical Greco-Roman society for inspiration.

Variously throughout history (Renaissance, Neo-Classical era - Franklin's time, etc.) society has upheld ancient values as the highest. In modern times, they've largely been replaced by scientific values. This was a big debate around Darwin's time (replacing the classical "liberal education" in Latin and Greek with modern scientific study.) It's also increasingly prevalent today, as universities are basically just for career-preparation. The dominant metric when evaluating universities is almost always "earnings following graduation".

[0] I don't necessarily agree or disagree with Classical values, but I do think we should sit down and make our own decisions, rather than blindly do it because Franklin/Plato/etc. says so.

These virtues lead to a dull and unfulfilling life in today's society. Many will ignore these tenants and behave badly out of boredom. But they sure do sound good, especially in a list like that. I'd argue that these values aren't necessary to most people today in that the value doesn't solve a problem the person has.

Don't forget that Jesus went around defying elders and authorities. Do you want your kids to have that type of humility?

Everything in moderation, including moderation. I think these virtues are a good rubric for your general lifestyle, but no one is saying you have stick to them every waking moment.

Respectfully, I think you don't know enough about my lifestyle to know what makes a good rubric for me.

Neither do you know what problems most people have.

No, but I know people don't have problems which these virtues would solve, or more people would value those virtues more highly. Granted, some people would have reasons for not following them, but others would implement them if they were useful in each individual person's life.

Openly committing to a policy such as this is only really useful for putting yourself on a moral pedestal above others, to improve your own self esteem or make others look bad.

> I know people don't have problems which these virtues would solve

I can identify plenty of situations in my own life which would be improved via pursuit of Franklin's virtues. I'd be awfully surprised if few or no others did as well.

> Openly committing to a policy such as this is only really useful for putting yourself on a moral pedestal above others

Really? Perhaps if the key word there is 'openly', you may have a point, at least within a certain constrained context; but actually committing oneself to the pursuit of these virtues, or similar ones, can certainly serve a useful and valid purpose, and if it does so for you, then you may feel motivated to discuss the relevant ideas with others 'openly', without having any of the vain intentions you list.

I can identify plenty of situations in my own life which would be improved via pursuit of Franklin's virtues. I'd be awfully surprised if few or no others did as well.

Do you pursue Franklin's virtues? If not, why not -- wouldn't you benefit?

Yes, I do aspire to some of them. I expect that many others do as well. I'm not certain of what point you're driving towards here, though.

How did Jesus defy elders and authorities?

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