The Five Main Sets of Value Paradigms :: Papers

The Five Main Sets of Value Paradigms According to the text there are 5 main sets of value paradigms: values from a perspective of traditional certainty, values from a perspective of post modern Relativism, values from an environmental perspective, the new-age perspective and values from an eclectic perspective. So lets examine that fundamentals of each paradigm to get a better view. The first and probably the most formal of all the paradigms is the perspective of traditional certainty. This set of values is more or less religious in nature, with the majority of its followers espousing monotheistic or one-God beliefs. Despite all the differences between the ideologies of monotheistic cultures, the one truth that holds constant is that of â€Å"divine order†. This cultural universal constant contends that everything has intrinsic value and therefore must be studied and protected. And out of the chaos that comes with our daily mundane existence, there will ultimately be a supreme order, which everything adheres to. The values of postmodern relativism on the other hand are completely different. This paradigm concentrates almost exclusively on the mundane and materialistic aspects of life. Postmodern relativism can be divided into two major parts: the pragmatic/weak form and the nihilistic/or strong form. In the pragmatic view, one’s main goal in life is to strive for all the luxuries that the world can offer and achieve personal happiness. A pragmatic believes that there is no ultimate reality, but chaos. But despite this seemingly bleak overview of the world, they still believe that we must strive to be decent and merciful to other people. To quote David Greegor â€Å"we must act as though we still believe in absolute values favoring a â€Å"good† in which we no longer believe†. According to the nihilistic or strong form of postmodern relativism there is no real meaning to anything. They espouse a sort of â€Å"anything goes attitude† wherein they believe whatever h appens happens and there is nothing more. According to this view, the world around us is just an illusion and the fundamental building blocks of all that is considered real, are in fact more real than the entities they make up. Ultimately a nihilistist’s fate will fall into the hands of entropy and once again turn toward chaos. Values from an environmental perspective are somewhat different from all the others mentioned here. The environmental perspective stresses that nature is a main source of many of the values we see everyday.