How do cultural values, like conscience, wisdom, and courage, shape our future? |
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Copyright © 2009 Soy-n-Joy®
How do cultural values, like conscience, wisdom, and courage, shape our future? Culture represents enlightenment through civilization; it is the summation of socially transmitted thought, behavior and work characteristic of a people. A value is a principle, standard, or quality that people consider worthwhile or desirable. Socially-communicated cultural values, once internalized by individuals, define their character, how they will think, prioritize, decide, and act. Confucius has identified three qualities desired of leaders, namely, conscience, wisdom, and courage. He defined them in clear and concise terms: the person of conscience is not worried, the person of wisdom is not confused, and the person of courage is not fearful. And they represent the most revered values in traditional Confucian cultures. Conscience not only deals with the rational capacity of telling right from wrong on an internal scale of righteousness, but also the emotional capacity of inherent empathy and self-control. Empathy means understanding the feelings of others by putting oneself in others' shoes. Self-control means having the internal discipline to follow through decisions with determination, and not to act in violation of one's internal codes of goodness. Conscience is often expressed as kind-hearted words or deeds showing consideration for other people's well-being. Outstanding physicians often earn the praise of embodying "kind heart and benevolent craft." Wisdom means the shrewd brain power for making good judgments about truths and non-truths, benefits and risks, practicality and impracticality of plans, high and low priorities, high and low urgencies, long-term and short-term, and high and low probabilities. It implies the cognitive sharpness to cut through complexities to focus on the truly relevant, and also the capacity for creativity, whereby innovative solutions are found for pressing problems or important challenges. Wisdom is often observed in well-thought-through strategies in creating possibilities for desirable ends. People who lack brains and know only to use brute force to resolve issues are often branded as "showing daringness but bo strategy." Courage means the ability to overcome the fear-inspired inertia and turn thoughts into risk-taking behavior. For a lot of people, this is a constant struggle and represents a quantum leap from inaction to action. Shakespeare's Hamlet is always remembered well for his famous line of "to be or not to be?" Only people with conscience, wisdom, and courage can act decisively to make good things happen. Luck or uncontrollable factors may intervene, but setbacks are only temporary if we can bank on all three qualities to make good adjustments. If we execute consistently based on good principles, good outcomes will build on one another to lead to the desired future results. Zhuge Liang is the legendary prime minister of the If you are a fan of the NBA, you must be familiar with Kevin Garnett's leading the Boston Celtics to a national championship in 2008. Garnett was originally drafted by the Minnesota Timberwolves, and grew his career there in tandem with another talented young guard, Stephon Marbury. Because of egoistic rivalry between young talents, the two did not get along well in Among conscience, wisdom, and courage, which should play the dominant role? First, let us look at people strong in one quality and weak in the others. We can imagine that people with courage but weak in conscience and brain power are bulls in the china shop. People with conscience but lacking in wisdom and courage are often described in Chinese history as exhibiting "unmanly conscience;" the ruler of the State of Song was so branded after deciding not to let his army strike the enemy's attacking forces who were vulnerable crossing a river in midstream. People with brains but short on conscience and courage are at best dreamers and at worst schemers. But what if people are strong in two qualities and weak in the third? Many overseas Chinese students who lack the courage to speak up in university class discussions are self-defeating, despite their best of intentions and brain power. In practice, people who are both kind and smart but lacking courage are as good as irrelevant. On the other hand, people with heart and courage but lacking wisdom will often do more harm than good. When results do not turn out as intended, they will be labeled "well-intentioned but making bad things happen." Now is it good enough to have leaders who are blessed with both wisdom and courage? Many folklore heroes have been branded "both wise and courageous." Yet such qualities can be a two-edged sword. People short on wits or courage are mainly handicapping themselves, but people short on conscience can create a lot of damage on other people. For example, some of the most dangerous characters in history are those with brains and courage but without much of a conscience for self-guiding internal control. Adolf Hitler is a good example. Many gang leaders are also brainy and bold. The bankers on Wall Street may be among the "best and brightest," but their "courage" to act on unbridled greed for short-term gain has created the current financial crisis, inflicting pain across the globe. Another example in Chinese history is Currently, there is a commission inquiry going on in
Conscience, wisdom, and courage are valuable qualities conducive to the long-term survival and prosperity of a people. Only people with good conscience will care about each other's welfare, which in turn reinforces collective welfare and thriving. People of wisdom will find solutions to difficult problems and better the chance for survival and prosperity. And people of courage are willing to take the risks to act on their conscience and wisdom to better ends. Acting on all three values means we are making good decisions based on good intention, and making good things happen. Practiced individually, collectively, and consistently, well-being is maximized in totality.
There must, however, be operational mechanisms to cultivate the development of such valuable qualities. So how do we teach conscience, wisdom, and courage? Because cultural values are socially transmitted, they are communicated in social settings. As the Chinese saying goes: "Those who work closely with red ink will be tainted red, and those working closely with black ink will be tainted black." Whether we develop positive or negative conscience, wisdom, and courage depends on who we model after and what we learn and experience in the process of growing up. Leaders lead by example, and they can encourage leadership development through institutionalized mechanisms. In the family, parents are natural leaders. Children watch their every move and try to imitate. And parental guidance and encouragement are pivotal to children's learning their first lessons of success, like walking or talking, in building up their courage and memory. If parents do not lead by good examples, you can count on it that the children will internalize bad examples that inspire poor values and habits. In schools, principals and teachers are like "surrogate parents" who act as role-models to further develop students' conscience, wisdom, and courage in preparation for their eventual integration into society. Likewise, organizational leaders cannot just sit in an office and strategize the future, but they must practice active, visible leadership by disciplining themselves to teaching vision and values and interacting with up-and-coming leaders at all levels of the organization, through planned channels and activities. In the same process the leaders are also "educated" by their underlings as to whether the goals are realistic and important, the strategies are aligning and motivating, the implementation of policies is effective and efficient, the progress is encouraging and on-target, and whether adjustments are necessary to bring things back on track. In a sense, organizational leaders, and likewise national leaders, also play the roles of "parents", nurturing the development of their "children" for the common good. People have high expectations of their organizational and national leaders, because people count on their good leadership to bring about prosperity and stability, and on their role-modeling to inspire normative values and behavior. Their leadership, reflecting their conscience, wisdom, and courage, shapes the future of the whole organization or the entire nation. Just look at how different governments of oil-rich countries spend their oil money. The Norwegian government puts it away in their Sovereign Wealth Fund to invest for the country's future. The British government practically spends it all. And who knows what happens to all the oil money earned by Mid-East countries? It is therefore the duty of responsible citizens to exercise good judgment to elect good leaders and keep bad politicians at bay, and to teach and inspire their children to act with conscience, wisdom, and courage to better their national future. Of course, given the best intentions, there must still be institutionalized check and balances to act as external controls, to "motivate" people exercise internal controls to work for the common good. It is therefore critically important that our actions be guided by conscience, which in turn inspires our wisdom and courage. If conscience goes astray, so will wisdom and courage. But if wisdom and courage are backed by good conscience, they will have moral power and the decisions and actions will be inspiring and even transformational. Complementing this internally-generated drive with an open, fair, and just external system of rewards, checks, and balances, the decisions and actions will converge on good results that shape our desirable future. For many, this may sound like a tall order. But Lao Zi, the great Chinese philosopher, hit the nail right on the head: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." And as the English said it well, "If there is a will, there is a way." So may we all learn from the wisdom of our cultural heritage, bank on our positive conscience, and amass confident courage to make good things happen for our future.
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