A DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR AND EXECUTIVE SECRETARY (MEDIA)
PROFESSOR, POET AND EDITOR
ON INTEGRATING ETHICS FOR HOLISTIC DEVELOPMENT: YOUTH AND THEIR ETHICAL ORIENTATION
In digitalized era of gizmos and gadgets, where technology is an indispensable part of our lives, providing us conveniences at many levels, paradoxically has led human beings towards technological isolation and value degradation. Therefore revisiting the fundamentals of human values via integration of it in educational curricula of budding professionals including various professions like Engineering, Journalism, Academics, Law, and Medicine etc. may play an important role in assisting learners to explore and evolve themselves as sensible and compassionate individuals and professionals as engineers, journalist, teachers, lawyers and doctors etc. for establishing harmony at all four levels that are individual, family, society and environment.
Every community or institution functions on some fixed fundamental values or ethics that lead to mutual benefits without disturbing others’ peace. Without positive interdependence and interactions, and restricted high moral standards, any family, society or organization’s subsistence would be in danger. Today’s techno-advanced generation or youth in specific if we highlight is so engrossed in the virtual world with their smart phones and electronic gadgets, therefore they have distanced themselves from family and real world.
No doubt, Internet has been the connecting link amidst countries and has altered the lifestyle of people in the world that new changes and trends have immersed the old-style ways of actions. Therefore this plunge has extreme impacts negative and positive both. Excessive use of Internet and gadgets assisted in loss of ethics, hence, youth is all the time busy with electronic devices secluding themselves from family and community, where they could learn values and this has directly or indirectly led youth towards loss of real happiness and success or sustainable growth and inculcated some bad values in them which are horrendously harmful for one and all.
Human happiness is interrelated and complimentary and it depends how a person perceives human happiness. The great Greek philosopher Plato has said that happiness is not the goal of human strivings. It is consequence of pursuit of goodness. According to his philosophy pursuit of goodness is pursuit of human values.
Foundational values such as discipline, affection, compassion, honesty, frugality, cleanliness, non-violence, bravery, truthfulness, courage, integrity, equality and respect etc. have been discoursed about by various saints, philosophers, writers and poets being symbolic of values in our culturally rich country.
These are the values which one needs to understand and express through one’s behaviour with right understanding. Values also help in building social cohesion, harmony, peace and global integration and ideal humanity leading towards the dream of creating an ‘Akhand Samaj’.
The youth has misunderstood the concept of happiness and success connecting it with money, electronic gadgets, social media and virtual world, that is with materialistic pleasures and with fulfillment of needs and desires. Individualism has been deeply rooted in young generation due to technological isolation and moral degradation turning towards attaining personal success or worldly success defined in merely materialistic terms as acquirement of wealth, supremacy and status in the society.
Bonachristus Umeogu and Ifeoma Ojiakor, in their article entitled ‘The Internet Communication and the Moral Degradation of the Nigerian Youth’ explained the condition of country Nigeria that Internet and social media that were initially “meant to be a blessing and to aid development” and to achieve success and happiness in life, now have been categorized “to be the leading cause of moral decadence in country with special emphasis on the youths” (Umeogu & Ojiakor, 2014).
In our country too, young generation is misled to accumulate wealth by hook or crook without understanding the importance of values in their life shaping their persona, hence unfortunately getting indulged in theft, honey-trapping, and cybercrime etc. Moreover, there is an increase in disrespectfulness, usage of foul language and the feel of discrimination in them.
This is a crisis situation of human values in the youth. Thus youth of our country should be educated to develop social consciousness, sovereign temper and communitarian outlooks to remove social inequalities, disharmonies and lack of social cohesiveness. Youth should be directed towards making the society an enlightened and egalitarian society with better humans in it instead of focusing and utilizing all their energy in attaining physical facilities and achieving high status. It creates a dire need for the nurturance of human values in youth of the country so that by implementing these values with right understanding in them, they serve the nation establishing harmony at various levels including individual, family, society and nature, athough National Education Policy-2023 is bringing lots of changes and new policies for better education and holistic development of youth of our country.
To add to it, ‘International Academy of Ethics’ initiated by Dr. Jernail Singh Anand, President, IAE, Chandigarh is a much needed and a widely appreciated step towards understanding the need and scope of fostering universal core values among the youth as a supplement for their individual transformation and welfare of mankind through their holistic growth. In addition, the academy will assist oneself to explore one’s capacities and in transforming from animal cognizance towards humanistic essence of life in present scenario where humans turn to be wild like vultures.