(scroller alert. something to think about before bed-time, peoples.)
Social stability depends on, to a large part, all members of that society holding the same ethical and moral values.
Those values are formalised and expressed in the law of the land. The Law, which is a reflection of the values which the society holds to be precious and desirable and even essential, so that everyone in a said society can be depended upon to hold the same or similar values such that their behaviour is predictably reliable.
There will always be deviants; those who deviate from the commonly held values, but they are always in the minority (there is a social theory of deviance which explains this).
These commonly held values are the very glue which holds a society together, where everyone in the said society can be depended upon to behave essentially in the same way.
There will always be deviants; those whose behaviour or whose ideas or beliefs deviate from the common ; from the majority.
This happens in every society. I'm not talking about tastes in food or customary dress fashions or ways of decorating one's house or even one's car. I'm talking about how we treat each other.
We say we are a multicultural society. We have people from many and diverse cultures who live here and they bring a vibrancy and a richness which enahnces our collective experience of life.
Usually.
I think we need to be careful though, to not extend our tolerance and acceptance to those who appeal to their cultural difference to excuse attitudes and actions (behaviours) which are so deviant as to threaten the welfare of the majority of the People.
But we also need to look deeper. Why do people behave as they do?
The Americans have a saying. "Your freedom stops where my freedom begins". or put another way, "The right to swing my fist stops where another person's nose begins".
We can all enjoy our freedoms no matter where we come from providing that we hold some essential beliefs in common.
Think about that for a moment.
Those who hold essentially very different beliefs to those of the majority, or those who don't recognise the limiting boundary between their fist and another's face may indeed consider themselves to be just expressing their "cultural difference" and go on to demand the freedom to do that.
And even to demand that we respect their (deviant) choice even at the expense of their actions' resulting in a limitation on the freedoms of others.
If someone wants to know what a "culture" holds dear, then look at how that culture teaches its members to treat other people (regardless of those peoples' race or socio-economic status or what sort of food they eat or what sort of clothes they wear or what language they prefer to speak, or even what religion they follow)
There is a problem with that last one though, because religions teach us certain moral and ethical values which followers of other religions may not like or may even feel compelled to not even tolerate.
Some people want to take their babies in their prams and knock on doors on a Sunday morning, while others might like to sleep in, where others might like to assemble on another day to preach their lessons.
It does matter what people say and what people believe if they then go on to act out what they are taught.
How can peoples from different cultures ever peacefully exist together unless they hold at least a few basic common values and beliefs?
Believe what you want. I don't care. What I care about is how you act, informed by those beliefs.
