Concern about divisions in modern society has prompted discussion on the need for shared community values as a means of promoting social integration. More than thirty years of legislation, government initiatives, commissions and reports testify to the attention given to questions of social equity and justice [1]. Nevertheless, these efforts have not succeeded by themselves in creating a cohesive and tolerant society. Neglect of societal values beyond a ‘minimal and universal moral code’[2], the tendency to regard morality and ethical values as private concerns at the margins of public life, the withering of institutions that traditionally fostered a sense of community and morality, combined with a failure to adequately recognise the fact and implications of the oneness of the human race, have all sapped the effectiveness of such measures. These issues need to receive greater attention if a truly cohesive society is to become a reality.

LAW OR VALUES?

A major step towards reconciling divisive traits in the present social order is the increased recognition that the development of society-wide, commonly shared values is an essential component of a cohesive society. Practical measures that can translate such recognition into reality need further consideration.

Clearly the promotion of tolerance and better understanding within our society calls for a revision of old attitudes, reflected in practical steps. While appropriate legal measures and regulations to safeguard the rights and opportunities of all are pre-requisites to establishing and defining what we mean today by a cohesive society, these measures by themselves cannot be enough. As we observed in an earlier paper [3]: 'Past a certain point, the proliferation of rules to regulate wider and wider sets of social relationships becomes not the hallmark of rational efficiency but a sign of social dysfunction.’ [4]  Legislative measures in Western countries, have for many years complied with Rawl’s [5] assumption that ‘the principal task of government is to secure and distribute fairly the liberties and economic resources individuals need to lead freely chosen lives‘. For example the introduction to the British Cabinet Office Equality Project Consultation document, ‘Equality and Diversity: Making it happen, 2002’appears to confirm this view. [6]

Recognition of the need for shared values - with an implication of an underlying common morality - has until now received little attention compared to a legislative agenda for diversity, cultural identity and race, gender and employment equality, and associated human rights issues [7]. But while it is true, as Martin Luther King said: ‘Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless’, the corollary is that lasting and effective change is only possible when human character itself is changed. Government recognition of the valuable contributions that faith communities make to the well-being of the wider community is thus a welcome approach to reconciling the elements of an increasingly diverse society.

A CONSENSUS OF FAITHS

A convocation of faith groups to reach consensus on the values that should be accepted by and define our society would be a fruitful and instructive step. Religion has, after all, been their principal and traditional source. However, such a consensus would offer no guarantee the proposed values would engage the disaffected or be accepted and shared by the population as a whole – although, by reflecting that no faith has a monopoly on virtue or ethical values it might be a step towards making religion seem more relevant to the many that have abandoned or rejected it. Moreover such an agreement, unless truly reflecting a recognition of the common source of each faith in the inspiration of a loving Creator, could well face what the civic sociology of Herbert Blumer [8] describes as ‘the fundamental problem of modernity: how freedom and equity can be assured when institutional and personal relations are threatened by disparate “groups and factions” - in short, by difference.’ In fact it has been claimed that the attention paid to ‘difference’, no doubt for the best of intentions and in the name of respect and tolerance, has led to the atrophy of a sense of shared values - in short to indifference [9].

At times, a major hindrance to the development of shared values between faith communities is the fear that it might require the forgetting of traditional cultures and habits. While habits and customs should not be regarded as fixed for all time, and indeed the acceptability of some is no longer supportable when weighed against international agreements, breadth of tradition and culture can still be honoured and respected within an overarching recognition of the essential oneness of religion and of the human race. This recognition is an indispensable feature of any set of societal values: all, whatever their faith or culture, are children of one Loving Father, Who cares for all equally. God is a loving Creator, not a dogmatic One.

THE GLOBAL DIMENSION

In a globalising world initiatives to improve the security and quality of human life are increasingly influenced by international agreements and obligations. In an increasingly multi-faith, multi-cultural society these agreements provide a non-partisan, and by-and-large universally accepted, benchmark against which proposals for shared values may be appraised.

Pre-eminent among such agreements is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948 and elaborated in two International Covenants, on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. [10] Some seventy-five other international conventions expand on those rights, providing broad parameters by which societal values may be refined. Of particular significance within these Covenants is the recognition that ‘the widest possible protection and assistance should be accorded to the family, which is the natural and fundamental group unit of society, particularly for its establishment and while it is responsible for the care and education of dependent children’ [11], and recognition of ‘the right of everyone to education .... directed to the full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity .... education shall enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society, promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations and all racial, ethnic or religious groups’ [12].

While these documents give little indication how their ideals might become reality after legislative endorsement by signatory nations, their importance should not be neglected in measures and programmes that aim to reconcile division and create social harmony.

A RETURN TO SPIRITUAL MOTIVATION

A previous paper [13] referred to the power of ideals and shared beliefs and the need to draw on the spiritual roots of motivation they provide to hold society together. The Bahá'íي International Community expressed this concept to the Habitat II conference in 1996: ‘Our challenge, therefore, is to redesign and develop our communities around those universal principles - including love, honesty, moderation, humility, hospitality, justice and unity - which promote social cohesion, and without which no community, no matter how economically prosperous, intellectually endowed or technologically advanced, can long endure.’ [14] These traditional virtues, to which might be added truthfulness, reliability, trustworthiness, a commitment to moral discipline, devotion to duty and service to others, are endorsed by all religious and ethical authorities and until recently were accepted aspects of being truly human. Yet today they seem all too often conspicuously missing from private and public life.

This absence offers a challenge to those who think that humankind has an innate ability to judge right and wrong and who discount Kant‘s argument [15] that as a practical matter any ethical system must ultimately depend on the decisive authority of some power greater than man. There is a need once more fully to recognise both the ethical, altruistic or spiritual dimension to human nature and the implications this predicates for social policy and individual behaviour. Such ethical values have implications for the structure of the society in which they can flourish. As has been observed, many of the social structures that held society together are now sadly weakened. Indeed, the very concept of ‘sharing’ – a far from superfluous word in the concept of shared values – is in many cases nurtured, if it is nurtured at all, in shallow or barren soil.

WIDER ATTENTION TO THE FAMILY

The fragmentation of family life and the growth of lone parent and single households are all too often the symptoms of a lonely and unhappy society. They deprive individuals of the most fruitful milieu to develop as rounded human beings. In a secure home and healthy family life the individual can cultivate his or her sense of self-worth and sense of belonging and sharing; can develop self control, tolerance and a sense of morality; and not least in importance, cultivate feelings of affection and willingness to sacrifice for others. Thus, we believe, the protection of the family and the promotion of its well-being must receive the widest possible attention in any and all initiatives to improve the stability and harmony of our society.

The family is the primary institution of society and the principal incubator of the values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours which strengthen the fibre of a healthy society. The pre-eminent role of the family is unambiguously stated in the already-cited UN Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

During the last eight thousand years or so, of which we have some knowledge from recorded history, almost all human societies [16] were held together by the glue - the duties and responsibilities – of the male-female bond and their offspring. There have been some variations in this nucleic bond, but the core of male-female-offspring was always there. Even where one parent was missing, the ideal remained for each child to have both a ‘mum and a dad‘. This concept of family has been the nucleus, the social “genetic code”, of our social structure. Accordingly policies, whether in the name of human rights or of fighting prejudice, which weaken even the conventional definition of family need to be reassessed. We should not, for the sake of some concept of fairness, permit ourselves to tamper with this ‘genetic code’ just so that those who object to it or find it inconvenient will feel better about themselves. If we do, we risk unravelling the whole of our social fabric - with consequences that are not difficult to see.

A FORTRESS FOR WELL-BEING

Many of the virtues we acquire are due to participation in family life: raising and caring for children, working so that they may have a bright future, sacrificing for them. Being married means having to learn about and respect the virtues of the opposite sex. In this context Bahá’u’lláh [17] has described marriage and the raising of children as a ‘fortress for well-being’. The wider the family relationships, the greater can be the scope for learning life skills in a nurturing environment. In an orderly and well-organised home a clear sense of respect for the feelings of others, an abiding concern for their happiness and welfare, a concern for the honour both of the individual and the family and a sense of shame should that honour be sullied, can be cultivated and later applied to wider society, where such attitudes would be of great value.

It may be argued that many present-day families are dysfunctional and at times violent, exercising a corrosive rather than beneficent influence on their members. This may undoubtedly be so: the consequences of such dysfunction are all too evident in society at large. But, we may ask, if we neglect the family as the basic building block of society, what other social structure replaces it as an incubator of attitudes and behaviours – and what in practice might these attitudes be? We believe that focus and concentration on family life is a pre-requisite both for the fostering of a sense of morality and those attitudes and values essential to civilised life and for the development of policies concerned with promoting social cohesion. Such concentration may well require the re-evaluation of some views of family life, role models and practices, as well as the approach of certain legislative and welfare measures.

Inseparably entwined with this issue is the question of the equality of women and men. Given almost universal recognition in international covenants and national legislation, it is a principle proclaimed from its earliest days by the Bahá'íي faith [18]. Yet despite the focus of legislation and governmental initiatives, the reconciliation of a woman’s life as a wage-earner with her life as a mother and member of a family has not been properly thought through. If the family is indeed the principle incubator of values and the nucleus of all social structure then the mother’s role must receive priority attention in the promotion and protection of family well-being.

The obvious biological differences between the sexes need not be a cause for inequality or disunity. Rather they are an aspect of complementarity. If the role of women as mothers is properly valued it will not be seen as an impediment to the realisation of equality, but recognised for the foremost part it plays in the cohesion, distinction and prosperity of society. This in no way should be taken to imply the child-bearing role precludes or diminishes aptitude for leadership, or undermines intellectual, scientific or creative capacity. Indeed, it may well be an enhancement. The intrinsic complementarity of the two sexes is a natural assertion of the need for women and men to co-operate and work together to bring to fruition their potentialities for advancing civilisation, no less than for perpetuating within the life of the family the human race.

SUMMARY

The Bahá'íي Faith, the most recent of the world’s global religions, has been working since its inception over 150 years ago to build communities which strive to put into daily practice fundamental spiritual aspirations such as love, honesty, moderation, humility, hospitality, justice, morality, trustworthiness and - above all - unity, thereby influencing change from the ground up. A major focus of this approach has been on improving and cultivating the quality of family life. Underpinning these efforts has been the belief in the unity of humankind and the essential oneness of religion. The Bahá'íي community is convinced that without this focus and the infusion of these values no society, however economically prosperous or intellectually empowered or technologically advanced, can endure.

As ‘Abdu’l-Baháل, son of the founder of the Bahá’íي Faith declared more than 90 years ago: ‘A family is a nation in miniature. Simply enlarge the circle of the household, and you have the nation. Enlarge the circle of nations, and you have all humanity. The conditions surrounding the family surround the nation. The happenings in the family are the happenings in the life of the nation.’ [19]