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| Lady Evelyn Cobbold, daughter of seventh Earl of Dunmore (ca1930):
“The more I read (about Islam) and the more I studied, the more convinced I became that Islam was the most practical religion, and the one most calculated to solve the world’s many perplexing problems, and bring humanity peace and happiness.” |
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Society's Individualism Damages Children
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The wellbeing of millions of children across Britain is being damaged by adults' aggressive pursuit of personal success, a three-year inquiry by the children 's Society concluded in February 2009.
Bob Reitemeier, chief executive of The children ’s Society, said: “Essentially the report brings a taboo into the open which is that we have to confront our selfish and individualistic culture.”
Britain is a very liberal society, founded upon the secular belief. Any criticism of liberal values such as freedom and individualism, and certainly any attempts to legislate restrictions on them, are met with harsh criticism by the supporters of increased liberalism.
The liberals say they have confidence in the average person’s ability to regulate their own actions responsibly, as they are adults and do not need to be treated like children , who are immature intellectually and emotionally. Those who call for more liberalism generally do support censorship for children , but object defiantly to the idea that there should be censorship for adults too. Such a situation, where the government legislates in the area of personal entertainment, is mocked as a nanny state. Adults must not be restricted regarding where and when they can drink, as they are deemed responsible. Adults must not be told what TV shows are good for them, as they are deemed responsible and therefore are assumed to make mature decisions themselves. They are considered immune from any negative influence of popular culture and all exposure to ideas and values is considered healthy, as then they are able to freely make responsible choices.
Yet, we consider it necessary to have anti-bullying rules in schools, with tough punishments for children who insult others. This kind of invasion of personal liberty is justified by liberals, because children - anyone less than 16 years old even by 1 day - are considered too immature to understand and live with insults. Adults, on the other hand, it is argued are mature and can rise above insults. But sadly, bullying exists in the workplace as well as in schools. Adults often feel the pressure to conform to avoid the rudeness of the bullies. They are not immune to the feelings of rejection and may well begin to even look down upon themselves. Much of the diet and cosmetic industry is built upon people’s unhappiness with their own bodies, caused by the cruel words of people around them. It is only the selfish arrogance of the self-superior liberals that would argue that such influenced people are emotionally weak; rather they are victims of constant psychological abuse, not only meted out by their colleagues, but reinforced, even driven, by the popular media and its obsession with the way people look.
Material beauty has developed into an important value, which the media has then incorporated in their desperation to pander to their audience, this in turn has emphasised and exaggerated the importance of this value, which has in turn influenced and pressured more people to adopt it, and so on. Very few media voices are trying to reason with the public about the danger of such material obsession. Generally, they fall on deaf ears anyway, as people don’t like to be told what is right and wrong, rather they like to be left to have " freedom to choose" for themselves - or the ' freedom to choose' what the market offers them.
If mature adults are clearly pressured in a negative by the dominant values in society, then how can children be expected to cope? They have not even been given the freedom to choose. The individualistic culture is so prevailing that they hardly know about the existence of other values , let alone can choose for themselves.
The report said Britain had a higher rate of teenage pregnancies than other countries in Western Europe. "This is the product of many forces including: more privacy when both parents work, commercial pressures towards premature sexualisation and a fundamental change in attitude towards premarital sex." It criticised advertisers who "explicitly exploit the mechanism of peer pressure, while painting parents as buffoons". children spending too much time watching television and using the internet became more materialistic, related less well to parents and had worse mental health.
A mother may grow up with a firm idea that sex outside of marriage is wrong, but will have to compromise that value with her daughter. Her little girl has grown up in an environment of being free to choose. All that is important to her is that she was able to choose for herself, not told by someone else. Listening to elders’ advice is laughed at. She wants to make all her own mistakes and learn for herself. Such justifications are common today, as the youth strive for more and more independence. They will grow into more and more self centred adults who will not be listened to by their children , and hence will have to make all of their own mistakes too. The feeling of making independent choices is an illusion though, as the children are trying to show to their peers’ their independence and strength of character, but really, they are just trying to fit in.
It is not natural for children to have no feeling of compassion for other humans, but if they live in an environment where compassion is seen as weakness, where looking after number one is all that matters, then it is inevitable that many such young minds will be pressured into conforming. Our increasingly violent youth culture is testament to that. Youth music constantly contains selfish messages like “I don’t care, I’m just trying to do my thing”, or “I don’t give a ****”.
Here the media plays a role where it both reflects and shapes attitudes in society. children do not live entirely in TV land. They live in society and attend schools, yet are becoming increasingly rebellious in their behaviour. Non-headline grabbing low-level disruption is becoming more of a problem in the classroom. Parents blame the teachers and teachers blame the parents. The truth is that the children hear about being free in the morning on the radio, on the way to school chatting to friends, at school in assembly, from the teachers in class and friends in the playground. They watch children striving to be individuals on CITV, read about relationship troubles in their magazines, with the only advice Aunt Agony has to offer being ‘its what you want that matters’. They then watch adult dramas and films about men and women hunting each other, having a few too many and dealing with the consequences later. Finally, some may watch the news where they see politicians waging wars and colonising economies abroad all in the name of protecting Britain’s interests, but not considering the interests of them over there. Mum and Dad hardly have a look in, but share in the blame as they were too busy, leaving the kids to do all of these things in the first place.
It is often quoted that with freedom comes responsibility . However, who is the one deciding what responsible behaviour is? You have to have concern for more than number one to even consider the rest of society, so I fear for the future, when today’s children are adults and their brand of individualism is the predominant culture. God forbid what their children ’s future holds.
Anyone can see a problem and point a finger of blame, yet this is just unproductive gloating unless a real solution is presented. We, as citizens of this society are all to blame. We all have longingly discussed freedom at some point, or at least remained silent as others have done so. We are the audience and have created the market for the media. We have accepted the generation gap justification of why the children reject the elder’s values . We are the ones who left our children to be influenced by the society’s existing culture. But, primarily, we are the ones who did not discuss alternative values with our children . We neglected building a new generation which rejects this inhuman liberal freedom in favour of a value system suitable for all mankind.
Thankfully, some people are waking up to the dangers of excessive individualism. However, it’s rare for people to think one step further and consider whether or not the secular basis – that removes God from society and so leaves the individual man or woman free to do what they wish - is itself the flawed and dangerous idea.
The children ’s Society report mentions such recommendations as “People who bring a child into the world should have a long-term commitment to each other and should aim to live harmoniously with each other” and “Schools should be ‘ values -based communities’ promoting mutual respect between teachers, parents and children . They must develop character as well as competence”.
Many parents feel the difficulty of raising children while both being forced into full-time work to afford a comfortable life. Islam makes the family life at the centre of a child’s upbringing. Our current expectation that a mother should be earning, along with our obsession with women pursuing a career, driven by our guilt that she was discriminated against for centuries, has led to a situation described in the report "Compared with a century ago two changes stand out. First most women now work outside the home and have careers as well as being mothers. In Britain 70% of mothers of 9- to-12-month-old babies now do some paid work… Their children are cared for by someone other than their parents. The second change is the rise in family break-up. women 's new economic independence contributes to this rise: it has made women much less dependent on their male partners as has the advent of the welfare state. As a result of family break-up a third of our 16-year-olds now live apart from their biological father."
Many have already realised that unrestricted public drinking has a detrimental knock on effect, so many councils have no-drinking zones, and there is much talk about changing the binge-drinking culture. Islamic society also prohibits alcohol consumption, and builds a society based upon well defined responsibility , where people do not only aim for the escape of a weekend on the tiles.
Many are also realising that excessive greed in banking and highly unregulated trading are not healthy for society, hence they are calling for a more restricted economic system. This is also an Islamic value, which defines in detail permitted trading, such that the public are not harmed by greedy individuals. Tomorrow’s bankers need to learn their values today, as children ; hence the dominant values need to change today, to influence tomorrow.
Recognising the problem is just the start, but it is a major hurdle to overcome. Alcoholics and addicts must first admit their addiction before they can move onto a solution. Today, people are increasingly opening their eyes to the symptoms of the secular liberal sickness, but few acknowledge that this is the root cause and fewer still know that there is an alternative out there.
Yet over 1400 years ago The Prophet Muhammad (Sallalahu alaihi wa Sallam) brought a way of life that set higher standards than this. Islam aims to build a society based upon such values , which influence the schools, media, economy and government . There should be no contradiction between what a child hears at school of respect for others, and what he sees his teachers, businessmen and politicians doing.
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| Categories: An Invitation to Think…,
| Tags: children,
values,
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