Other Deteriorating Values

Other long-held values have also suffered a notable decline. The World Values Survey, headed by Professor Inglehart, reports a “declining respect for authority” in industrialized lands.

Another traditional value has been a strong work ethic. However, there is evidence that this too is suffering a decline. In the United States, the National Federation of Independent Business surveyed over half a million employers. “Thirty-one percent of those polled said that filling job openings was hard, and 21 percent said the quality of labor was generally poor.” One employer says: “It’s getting harder to find workers who come to work for more than one day, on time, and sober.”

Economic forces may drive this downward trend. As profits dwindle, employers lay off workers or cut certain benefits. Says the journal Ethics & Behavior: “Workers experiencing this lack of loyalty and commitment begin to exhibit corresponding negative behavior toward their employers. The commitment to work hard is absent because tomorrow the worker might not be employed.”

Still another area in which values have declined noticeably is manners and civility. A survey in Australia concluded: “Over 87.7% of employees reported [that] bad manners in the office are affecting staff morale.” In a U.S. survey of business professionals, “eighty percent of respondents reported an increase in rudeness in business.” According to the CNN news agency, “poor customer service has become so rampant that nearly half of those surveyed said they have walked out of a store in the past year because of it. Half said they often see people talking on cellular telephones in a loud or annoying manner. And six drivers in 10 said they regularly see other people driving aggressively or recklessly.”

How Valuable Is Human Life?

In some cases, people say that they have embraced certain “values,” but their words do not necessarily translate into action. For example, the Institute for Global Ethics polled representatives from 40 countries. Forty percent chose “reverence for life” as being among the top five “most important” values.a

When asked, “What matters least in life?” the majority of those polled by the Gallup organization chose “being faithful to my religion” as one of the two least important things. Not surprisingly, then, church attendance continues to decline. Professor Inglehart suggests that the prosperity of Western lands has “produced an unprecedented sense of security” and that “this has diminished the need for the reassurance that religion traditionally provided.”

Declining confidence in organized religion is paralleled by a loss of confidence in the Bible. In one international survey, respondents were asked whom or what they relied upon when it came to knowing what is morally right. The vast majority cited personal experience. “God’s word was a very distant second,” says the survey report.