Moral Values : Are they to talk or to practice ?

We always see the people talking about values a lot, but seldom practice. It's not about any big theory, it's about things like "people should be honest, should not take bribes, do one's duty perfectly".

If you translate them into dictionary language they may be like "integrity, morality etc may come.

I just thought about, is there a division in the society ?

Is it that a part of society is ethical and moral while the other part is unethical and immoral always ?

I would like to address this question with the help of some incidents.

Incident 1:

I was watching news in the tv. It was about three people who died in river kaveri in rural Tamilnadu. The three people went into kaveri for a holy dip in the river. Unfortunately they were not aware that due to unlawful sand mining in that area, the depth of the river has increased many folds. The moment they walked a few steps into river they slipped into the abyss created by sand mafia and within seconds they were no more.

All the villagers came and some were talking about the un lawfull activities of the sand mafia, the political connections etc.

Can we conclude that these are the people who practicing and living in the right way?

Incident 2:

For another few days the focus was on sand mafia and un lawful mining of sand in the rivers where so many reporters took pain in surveying the width and breadth of kaveri river.

Astonishingly after few more days when most of media people abandoned kaveri, the un lawful sand mining started again. In one of the news report I could see villagers working as labourers and doing the mining.

When the un masked reporter asked questions to the masked laboures as to why they are involving in such activity, the answer was "livilihood"

I am not going to say anything about this livilihood issue. But when I know that my livilihood costed the lives of three people just a few days back I dont think that reason is valid any more.

Now let me come to the basic question I started with, is there a section of society that is ethical and other part that is unethical ?

The conclusion that I can arrive at is NO

When people are in trouble because of somebody's unethical or immoral behavior then we become value leaders.

If we have a chance to any short cut then we don't bother about the values.

To give you some more examples:

1. If I can buy tatkal train ticket in black market, I don't bother about the values. If I could not get booking, then I blame the people for doing the black marketing.

2. If I can get a recommendation and could get a job, I don't preach values. If I lose my job opportunity because of somebody else getting it in a wrong route then I will be a value champion.

3. If I am able to avoid the queue and could get a seat in the bus then I dont bother about values. If I find, when I enter the bus that there are no vacant seats, then I talk about behavior of people in Singapore and how disciplined they are.

Though my intention is not to say that everybody in society is opportunist, but we find RAW VALUES very rarely.

If we can talk and practice values most of the time (not when we lose) then I think our life (society) will improve.