Social Values

Social Values:

On account of radical changes brought about by technical, scientific and technological advancements, our society has been undergoing rapid changes in every walk of life. The basic objective of socialism is to establish a new social and economic order on the basis of equality of opportunity and on the social, political and economic justice. Individuals constitute society which has certain ideals, models and norms in respect of social behaviour, duties and responsibilities towards one another. Social values refer to those values which are oriented towards social amicability and coherence. They necessitate the interaction of two or more persons. Social values are always practised in relation to our neighbours, community, society, nation and the world.

Social Values:

Some of the social values may be listed as follows:

i) Love towards humanity - Brotherhood, Sharing

ii) Sincerity and honesty - Dutifulness, forgiveness

iii) Faith in co-operative living - Friendship, team spirit

iv) Good citizenship - Sympathy, sportsmanship

v) Integrity of character - Magnanimity

vi) Faith in change and peaceful methods - Patience, tolerance

vii) Scientific temper of mind - Responsibility

viii) Concern for environment - Conservation of natural resources.

Inculcation of Social Values:

a) Laboratories: Students develop scientific attitude towards social life.

b) Libraries: Practice patience while sitting together for study by self.

c) Hostels: Lead corporate life imbibing the spirit of living together, sinking differences and behaving harmoniously.

d) Academic activities: Develop intellectual activities

e) Extra-curricular activities like N.C.C, N.S.S etc: Inculcate patriotic virtues and strengthen common bonds of spirit.

Needs of the Self are Qualitative:

Human beings are a complex combination of the sentiment ‘I’ which relates to all the feelings and the material ‘body’ which refers to all the physical facilities available to them. Need of self is sukh (happiness). Sukh is qualitative. Therefore the needs of ‘I’ are qualitative. They are not quantifiable. We also want them continuously. We cannot talk of one kg of respect or one meter of happiness. Our feelings are qualitative. Either they are or they are not. Ex. Happiness is qualitative. Either we are feeling happy or we are not. Also if a feeling is not naturally acceptable; we do not want it even for a single moment. If acceptable, we want it continuously. We can see this with the example of respect. We don’t want the feeling of disrespect even for a single moment, since it is not naturally acceptable to us. By nature man is fond off comfort and happiness so he goes on making desires and ambitions one after the other to enjoy more in life. To lead a comfortable life he also accumulates many facilities, so that his life may become full of comfort and happiness. Sukh depends upon our thinking, so many times we are surrounded by materialistic possessions but we feel unsatisfied. People think that their happiness depends upon suvidha (facilities) but is it not so; happiness depends upon our thinking or our mental satisfaction.

Human Being is more than just the Body:

There is the familiar shape and structure of a human being that is immediately apparent to us and we imagine someone with similar human body-like features. But in addition to the body, there is also the aliveness of the person – the entity that keeps the body ‘alive’ and makes it operate in various ways. We perceive this aliveness in the activities demonstrated by the person like their seeing, talking, listening, walking, and eating, etc. This aliveness is called Jivana. Thus, a human being is coexistence of the body and jivan. This jivan refers to itself as ‘I’ (self). Thus we say “I am so and so” or “I feel tired” or “I am happy” and not “my body is happy”. This I or self is also called ‘consciousness’ and is the sentient constitute of the human being. The human being is the sum total of sentiments and physical aspect, the self (‘I’) and the body, and there is exchange of information between the two, i.e. ‘I’ and body exist together and are related. There is a flow of information from ‘I’ to the body and from body to the ‘I’. We can make this distinction between the self and the body in three ways in terms of the needs, activities and the types of these two entities. All the needs of I, say respect, trust, etc., can be called as Happiness (such), while the needs of body are physical facilities (suvidha) like food. The two things are qualitatively different. There is no relevance of quantity for the needs of I as it is qualitative, while the needs of body are quantitative, and they are limited in quantity. The activities of ‘I’ are activities like, desire, thinking, selection, while the activities of body are activities like eating, breathing etc. The mode of interaction of ‘I’ includes knowing, assuming, recognizing and fulfilment. The fulfilment depends on recognition depends on assumptions and assumptions depends on knowing or not knowing (beliefs). If assuming is based on knowledge, then recognition will be correct and fulfilment will be correct. If assuming is not based on knowledge, then things may go wrong. The mode of interaction of body is only recognizing and fulfilling. Self is a conscious entity and the body is a material entity, or physicchemical in nature. To conclude we can say that the human being can be understood in terms of a co-existence of two entirely distinct entities, namely sentient ‘I’ and material body. Their needs and activities are quite different and have to be understood accordingly. But these two constituents of human being are to act in close synergy with each other.