A Society Driven by Values, instead of Principles, is Dangerous
By: Joseph Kamanda Kimona-Mbinga
Tags: Politics, Values, Decision Making, Government, Principles

I have found a very interesting New York Times article of 1984 by William Safire that better shows the difference between Values and Principles.

According to William Safire: At the beginning was the principle : The Latin principium meant ‘’source, origin, beginning.’’ That came to mean a primary truth that formed the basis for other beliefs and then to mean a rule for ethical conduct. The word, as well as the kind of conduct it signified, was put forward by theologians. Not so with values . Rooted in the Latin word for ‘’strength,’’ the plural meant what Bacon used it to mean: material worth. It gradually came to acquire a meaning of intrinsic worth. And then, about 50 years ago, psychologists and sociologists glommed on to the word and made it their own, until politicians came along recently to adopt their meaning. In this sociopolitical meaning, values are neither standards of intrinsic worth nor eternal verities. They are relative, not universal: Sociologists used the term to describe the behavior that is accepted by consensus. These values are emphasized within the society and become central to each member’s social acceptance: For Titanic passengers, ‘’women and children first’’ was a value, while among some aborigines, ‘’kill only what you need to eat’’ is a value. Values can change but principles do not. David Guralnik, editor of Webster’s New World Dictionary, explains: ‘’ Principles , being theological in origin, are fixed, invariable, absolute, eternal. Values , being in a sense scientific, are nontheological and therefore subject to change and alteration as the demands and needs of a society change.’’

In fact value is a mathematics and statistics concept. It means a number that a variable takes in a precise time and space. A set or collection of values of one or many variables can represent a sample or population with many features. Applied in social and human patterns, values become a set of personal, individual or collective beliefs from faith, traditions or other considerations often from subjective basis.

Value can also mean the worthiness or uniqueness of an individual. Never confuse such worthiness with value as a subjective or collective belief. The intrinsic worthiness of an individual doesn’t depend on the collection of opinions or perceptions from others. By the way, never let anyone downgrading either your worthiness or what you are capable. Value as worth of individual character, talents, skills, competences, qualifications and experience is priceless. It is important to know the difference between humility and humiliation…

Principles in opposition to values are objective rules beyond subjective experiences. They are impersonal, neutral, impartial, universal and founded on strong self evidence. Principles transcend cultures, traditions, time and space to become universal self evidence. They are the foundation of what makes Humanity and its Civilization the humankind commonwealth.

The diversity of values among mankind requires the Principle of tolerance to accept their divergence and avoid violence. This is why society as a RES PUBLICA is dangerous when driven by values; no matter such values come from either the majority or the minority. Values often end up in despotism and tyranny. Principles ensure the peaceful coexistence of different values in the same space and time.

The art and science of decision making are among leadership skills, competences and experience. Poor decision making is the first feature of leadership failure. Beyond leadership, the decision making is part of everyday life from individual one to societal scale. One or successive decisions can have impacts on many generations… The survival of the mankind species itself depends largely on their decision making…

This is why we should always be aware of the consequences of our decision making. Part of idiocy and stupidity is to be totally unaware of the consequences of your own decision making at individual or collective levels!

There are some tools to avoid making idiotic and stupid decisions! These tools are part of the science of decision making. However the most important part of the decision making lays in its art; for example the motivation beyond the decision making is part of such art. Principles and Values are the most powerful drivers of the motivation beyond decision making. While our values can motive our personal decisions; it becomes dangerous when those values undermine principles in leadership decision making at the societal scale. When Principles are in conflicts with values of leaders in their decision making; smart leaders will put principles first. When they can’t, they step down and let those capable of respecting principles over values to decide.

When leaders begin in imposing their values or those of a faction over principles to control power for their personal ambitions, gains or any other benefits; you get a disaster such as the rise of Nazi regime, fascism, religious intolerance and fanatisme, ideological extremism and other societal flaws that have manufactured manmade calamities.

The difference between values and principles is that values are a set of subjective beliefs while principles are set of factual evidence. As public servant or leader; your decision making should be founded on principles; not on values… Governance by values is the perfect fabric of societal disasters… All the human progress made in institutionalizing political systems is to get a government by principles and avoid a government by values… You can never measure the efficiency of decisions made based on values. Because you can’t measure values… You can measure the outcome of principles… Let be humble in not making values a matter of public affaires. Values by nature are strictly private matters.

Medieval societies were often governed by values of the dominant powers. It took the Enlightenment Revolution of ideas to make the mankind understands that there are Universal rules known as Principles that should govern societies and leaders over subjective values when they are mandated with the government power. These Principles are Unalienable Rights of people, the rule of law that prevents abuse of power, etc. Today more and more these principles are being shaded by the rise of values imposed in the name of democracy. The most barbaric and evil atrocities have been inflicted to other human beings in the name of values, often by justifying them as the will of the majority! No value should be imposed to anyone, no matter whether they are from either the majority or the minority.

The Moral Equivalence within a human society should not come from values; they should come from Principles above values… The Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God are the Moral Equivalence that has founded the rise of the Human Civilization since the beginning of the Awakening of the Human Spirit. These Laws are Principles of the Universal Concept of Justice that transcends cultures in space and time.

Ancient Egyptians, for exemple, knew these Principles throughout the concept of MAAT. However Ancient Egyptians were not alone in experiencing these Laws. There are variants of the same concept in the Ancient Chinese culture and others. The Principles beyond remain the same… This is why in many human cultures around the globe; there are many quotes, fables, mythologies or parabolic and metaphorical allegories to express the same wisdoms from the human existential experience. These universal wisdoms are self evidence principles, which are part of the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God. They are above values that change in space and time, generations after generations.

Every time the human societies have been driven by principles; the human civilization has experienced the moments of its apogee; every time values have been dominating over principles in the societal building of nations; the human civilization has experienced its decline and collapsing!

Our generation may be witnessing one of those critical moments in the human history when values begin to drive the decline and collapsing of the human civilization… Since the end of the Cold War; the world has seen an incredible progress in science and technologies made from the discoveries of principles that drive nature. The World was even capable of avoiding a manmade cataclysm in ending the Cold War by accepting principles as the basis of solving tensions and conflicts over ideologies and values…

While principles have been driving the human experiments; values have been emerging as the basis of the human experience at the societal scale… Politics and the economy have been dominated by values since the end of the Cold War… Post Cold War leadership in politics and economy is essentially driven by values instead of principles with few exceptions. This dominance of values over principles is one of the major risks to the future of the mankind civilization for generations to come unless new dynamics change the trajectory…