Clive Bibby: Life is all about setting priorities

I have just watched US Republican Senator John Kennedy being interviewed by his counterpart in the academic world Professor Victor Davis Hanson.

It has been one of the week's most enjoyable personal experiences and has reinforced my own thinking about how the modern world is reacting to a long overdue exposure of some of the world's false doctrines.

And perhaps not surprisingly, the pearls of wisdom emerging from this wide ranging discussion were really just the regurgitating of old beliefs and priorities that have formed the basis for egalitarian societies from the beginning of time.

In the end, we learn the things that determine success for the individual and the community we choose to live in are pretty much all the result of the family values we have inherited or pass on to the next generation.

Again, the continued success from one generation to the next will be determined by how many of these family values are adopted by the recipient family member.

Herein lies the point where the sucessful regeneration process is vulnerable to breakdown.

Any astute observer of modern society will identify with Kennedy and Davis Hanson as they point out both the individual and collective failures of past civilizations and attribute blame for the result.

So, what are the parameters for success?

For me who, like both men, grew up in households where a quality education was rated amongst the highest priority, it didn't matter whether the individual went on to a career in Academia, Politics, Science, Medicine or working in the Manual industries, because a stint at University is supposed to teach you how to think for yourself and hopefully base decisions in future life on what you know to be true.

Usually a problem arises when parents emphasise the value of higher education at the expense of all other important aspects of learning such as commonsense or responsibility for and attitude towards our fellow human beings. In other words, we reach maturity without a balanced grounding.

Notice l have deliberately excluded "faith" from my high priority list mainly because it is possible to have a fulfilling life without a belief in a higher being but my personal experience tells me that an agnostic existence leaves the door open for greater contentment while not knowing the answers to all life's questions. An atheist has to know it all.

Be that as it may, the overriding conclusion l reached after listening to these two learned men was that they both acknowledged the simple truths as the lifeblood of a successful multi cultural society wherever and whenever they have occurred in History.

We must respect each other's right of equal access to the "country in which we were born"s natural resources and their right to hold different opinions about how these resources are utilized - it's called democracy. Without these safeguards in our learning process we are open to a poisoning of our imature minds by radical extremists who operate without restraint on this fertile playground.

And how many times have we seen our rights abused by those who care little for the well being of the millions who are unable to exercise that right.

Our future on this planet will depend to a large degree on how many of us mere mortals say enough is enough and return to a time when the priorities we set ourselves are a reflection of who we want to be rather than that of past generations who dropped the ball at a time when they needed to step up and take responsibility for their own actions - it's called good parenting.

Clive Bibby is a commentator, consultant, farmer and community leader, who lives in Tolaga Bay.