IN THE US, WE MEASURE linear distance by inches and feet. In Europe they use the metric system. But all over the globe, people use a different, invisible system to gauge human behavior: their value system. It’s their behavior yardstick.
Our value systems are not written down. Moreover, they’re fluid. We may value human life and therefore oppose the death penalty. But if an intruder threatens to kill us, we may kill in self-defense. And there are some people who oppose abortion because of the high value they place on human life, but they support the death sentence, because apparently they place a higher value on ending the lives of people who commit heinous crimes.
So values shift and can be inconsistent. But it’s still helpful to dredge them up out of the unconscious regions of our minds, dust them off, and see what they are. Asking yourself some questions can help.
Are you compassionate? Do you try to help other people who are in need in one way or another? Do you love animals and want to help those who have been abused?
Are you empathic? Do you try to put yourself in others’ situations to understand what they’re going through?
Do you care about justice?
Do you value equity? Giving people equal chances for success? Helping children who are handicapped by poverty, abuse, illness, or other circumstances beyond their control?
If these values resonate with you, you are other-directed.
On the other hand, is your own personal success one of your highest values? Are you driven to show that you can rise to the challenges and succeed where others might not make the grade?
In your mind, does success imply that you are materially rewarded for your efforts? That you acquire wealth, fame, recognition? Are those rewards something you seek?
If you perceive that someone has wronged you, is it important to you to exact revenge?
If these values resonate with you, you are self-directed.
Actually, you can be some of both, because being other-directed and being self-directed are the opposite ends of a spectrum. You can be in the middle somewhere.
American culture is often described as being individualistic. Carried to an extreme, an emphasis on the individual, rather than on the community as a whole, can fuel a narcissistic culture. Being emphatically self-directed means that all your attention is on YOU.
But thinking only of others has its pitfalls too. Carried to an extreme, being other-directed can lead to self-impairment, total self-neglect. Or it can cause a community to value the well-being of the whole to the detriment of its members’ individual rights and freedoms. Clearly a balance is required to establish an environment in which individuals with rights and freedoms are willing to give up a bit for the well-being of the entire community when needed. Example: Yes, as part of a healthy community I will cede to it a right of way through my private property to lay a pipeline carrying water from the lake to the central water supply facility. I give up part of my property so the community can have water. I am part of the community and I support it willingly.
Being clear about your own values yardstick can help you assess others’ behavior to make educated guesses about what their values are. If you see someone again and again acting in their own self-interest at the expense of others, you’re can be almost certain the person is almost entirely self-directed. That is not the sort of person you want to have leading any project on which the welfare of the community depends, because they will take any opportunity to divert goods or profit away from shared resources into their own.
Remember to ask, “Cui bono? That’s Italian for “Who gains.” Ask that about a person’s actions, a divorce agreement, proposed city regulations, bills before Congress, or any situation in which the effects and ramifications aren’t clear. It’s a very, very useful question to ask not once, but until you are sure you’ve looked at all the effects of the action to be taken. Of course the inverse is also important to spell out—who loses, and what do they lose?
