| | The culture codex necessary for a successful liberal society
Before moving on to a description of ideas about the “perfect” model of a liberal society, it is necessary to talk about the cultural and moral values on which it can be based. The presence of generally accepted concepts of good and evil among the majority of members of society, voluntary adherence to moral norms and rules of cultural behavior in relations with each other are of great importance for the well-being of any society. In addition, for each person's self-esteem, mood, peace of mind, and even mental health, it is important for them to consider themselves a good person and a respected member of the society.
The history of different societies also quite clearly demonstrates that cultural factors significantly influence the success of their economic and scientific-technical development. Upbringing and educating people in the traditions of their native cultures always begins at a very early age, but in societies with different cultures, educational methods can vary greatly. Societies of different cultures also react differently to individuals' failure to comply with generally accepted rules of conduct and moral standards. We, as supporters of liberal views, of course, advocate those cultural values that should be inherent in members of a free society, values to which they would be committed without coercion and bureaucratic control and which should certainly be instilled in children, but by humane methods, the example of individuals they respect and the influence of the cultural environment itself.
We don't provide here an exhaustive overview of moral and ethical standards, starting with the most basic ones, which are perceived as rather banal truths. Let us just say what, in our opinion, should not be missed when discussing the problems of the transition to a truly free, liberal society and what qualities should be characteristic of its builders and members, and, consequently, become part of the advanced codex of culture. It should also be noted that, despite the fact that some accepted moral principles were originally preached as part of religions, a modern and future-oriented cultural codex must be more universal and not tied to any religion. Perhaps it would be useful to make a description of the cultural code of a society, which would contribute to the preservation of its foundations and harmonious development, a declarative part of the constitution. Here we present ideas about the content of such a codex in free form, using formulations that do not pretend to be draft articles of an official document. In this and some other articles, paragraphs will be numbered to make it easier to navigate while learning the concept because when further describing a concept, it will sometimes be necessary to refer to certain points from current or previous articles. In such cases, links to the mentioned paragraphs will be provided so that you can open them in a new tab and, having refreshed your memory of their content, return to the current place in the text being learned.
1. The basis of the culture and morality of a truly liberal society must be the rejection of any form of aggression expressed in attacks on the life, health, freedom and any other legitimate interests of any person. The only justification for the use of any form of violence is its undoubted necessity for the protection of one's own or someone else's legitimate interests.
2. Any form of corrupt behaviour or participation in corrupt activities should be considered morally unacceptable. Your reputation as an honest person and your sense of yourself as such a person are not worth the material goods that can be acquired dishonestly. Those who, for reasons of personal gain, deliberately evade the conscientious performance of official duties or other obligations voluntarily assumed by them, are unworthy of respect and trust.
3. Formally legal methods of achieving personal, business or political goals that, however, at least partly mislead people by influencing their emotions, exploiting their naivety and underdeveloped critical thinking, their weaknesses and prejudices, etc. should be considered morally unacceptable. It is also morally wrong to promote commercial or political interests by bribing (for example, promising someone a commission) acquaintances, relatives, or any other persons who enjoy people's trust.
4. In personal relationships with people close enough to you, as well as in business relationships and in politics, it is right to be frank in expressing your opinion on important issues. In particular, it is necessary to politely but definitely state a negative attitude or disagreement, the undesirability, impossibility or low probability of accepting a proposal, fulfilling a request, etc. It is immoral to imitate sincere feelings for selfish reasons. Those who don't consider it shameful to receive help from people towards whom they have a negative or even hostile attitude are also unworthy of any respect. A free person who respects his own and others' intelligence should not be afraid to call a spade a spade. Deviations from these rules may be justified only in special extreme situations, such as those posing a threat to a seriously ill person or to a person taken hostage. When applied to politics, these principles mean that hypocrisy, double standards, lies and secret agreements from politicians, diplomats and public figures are morally unacceptable. An honest politician should adhere to these principles himself, and also demonstratively refuse to cooperate with those politicians who violate them.
5. If circumstances force you to communicate with those who are culturally incompatible with you, you should maintain a polite communication style but not allow anyone to impose alien and unacceptable rules of behavior and relationships. A person has every moral right not to communicate with culturally incompatible and unfriendly people unless absolutely necessary. From a moral point of view, it is quite acceptable and even right to refuse to work and cooperate with such people. In migration policy, this means that the local community has the moral right to refuse residence to those applicants who appear or are likely to be culturally incompatible with the community members. This approach is also rational, as it maintains the high quality of the cultural environment and the required level of safety.
6. A person's determination, firmness and prudence in defending their legitimate interests and dignity, helping others who need such protection, as well as the desire and ability to cooperate with others interested in ensuring protection from unjustified encroachments and threats is an important and valuable quality. A conciliatory attitude towards someone's activity that harms other people (including corrupt activity), in particular, maintaining normal relations with those who do this, is their indirect support and also requires moral condemnation. In the international sphere, this means, in particular, that maintaining business and diplomatic relations ''as usual'' with those from other countries who commit crimes against their own compatriots or other people, or who assist in such crimes cannot be justified. In particular, high-level contacts with the leadership of such countries constitute diplomatic support for their crimes and should be considered immoral. The principles formulated here make not only moral sense but also rational sense, since the absence of determined and effective resistance as well as impunity and leniency encourage aggressive behavior by malicious individuals and groups, which undermines the safety of more and more people and ultimately increases the damage from aggression and the costs of protecting against it. Unfortunately, the danger for free societies of being subjected to some kind of aggression from various hostile forces will remain for a very long time, so constant readiness to give an effective and consolidated response will be relevant to the protection of their way of life.
7. A full-fledged member of a liberal society can be someone who is able to overcome prejudices, who forms and corrects their picture of the world developing their rational and conceptual thinking necessary for this. A person needs to try to correctly evaluate themselves and their qualities, understand the limitations of their knowledge, not be afraid to admit their mistakes and shortcomings, and strive to correct them. A person should be grateful to those who point out mistakes and shortcomings, and not classify them as their ill-wishers for this reason. It is necessary to judge yourself more harshly than other people, whom you must try to understand by putting yourself in their place. Signs of moral weakness are also envy and a tendency to spread gossip. Adequate people, when faced with problems and failures, first of all try to understand what their own wrong actions were the cause of it, and don't try to blame anyone else for it, but not themselves. If you have received something good, but you feel like it is not enough, and it would be fair to receive more or better, you should be grateful for what you have received, and not get upset, and especially not blame someone or your fate for giving you too little. We should be tactful and delicate in our relationships with people, but at the same time remain capable of self-criticism and self-irony. The ability to admit and correct your mistakes, to understand others and to appreciate what they have done is important not only in personal, but also in business relationships, as well as in politics.
8. Different types of activity may differ in the degree of social usefulness. More useful and deserving of moral support is the activity aimed at satisfying the rational needs of decent members of society, increasing public wealth and improving the quality of life of people, increasing the overall efficiency of the social system, eliminating imbalances, and solving other pressing problems. An additional reason for respect and gratitude is the conduct of useful activities by a person whose high well-being frees him from the need to do anything for the sake of earning money. Earning income in ways that are legal but less useful to society, such as selling a product or service whose usefulness is questionable (e.g. intended to be a waste of time and to kill the boredom of those who cannot find useful employment), or which may lead to the development of addiction, or in ways that involve not the creation but the redistribution of wealth (such as gambling), etc., is less worthy of respect.
9. An important cultural criterion is the relevance of methods being chosen to solve problems, which is closely related to the level of development of intelligence and conceptual thinking in people and sometimes also requires intellectual courage and the ability to abandon familiar stereotypes. In particular, valuable qualities that help to effectively solve any problems include the ability to see the roots of the problem without confusing them with symptoms, the ability to see the problem in a broader context, as part of the overall picture, to foresee the side and long-term consequences of the decisions made, as well as ingenuity in finding ways not only to solve problems, but also to eliminate the causes of their occurrence. The inability of those who are trying to solve problems to choose the right methods leads to the waste of resources without achieving the desired and quite achievable results. There may also be situations in which dogmatic and formal approach, fear of making necessary costs and sacrifices, or simply inaction, an attempt to ignore problems and avoid or excessively delay solving them lead to significantly greater costs or sacrifices in the future. Well, and attempts to achieve right and noble goals by inadequate methods are strategically harmful, since they discredit right ideas and give opponents of those ideas grounds for fair criticism, which strengthens their position. The use of right criteria of effectiveness is important not only for planning people's own activities, but also for the right assessment of the activities of others and selection of appropriate performers to solve important issues, allowing one to distinguish truly effective activities from imitation thereof, which may be caused by unprofessionalism or selfish considerations.
10. It is right and very important to understand the importance of collaborating with others to achieve common goals, to strive for such collaboration, and to be able to organize it effectively or at least support it. This makes rational sense and is closely related to the level of development of rational thinking in people, but it also has moral value. It should also be noted that the voluntary cooperation of people in a free society has little in common with the forced collectivism in authoritarian societies. An important manifestation of a person’s ability for socially necessary cooperation is their interested and competent participation in the processes of self-government at the local and national levels, including the formation of foreign policy. It is acceptable to cooperate to achieve certain common goals with those people or groups with whom there is no complete unity of views, but there are also no fundamental contradictions on the most important issues. It is also important to show solidarity with culturally close people and communities in market relations. When choosing suppliers of services or goods, especially those that are not unique, one should take into account the strategic importance of developing economic cooperation primarily with those who are closer to you culturally. There is no point in giving up this approach for the sake of saving a little if you are a consumer, and if you are preferred as a supplier by culturally close consumers, then from rational and moral points of view it is right to strive to make cooperation with you as profitable and comfortable as possible.
11. Cultured people don't allow themselves to be intrusive. It shouldn't be considered a sign of good manners to preach too actively any concept or teaching, including religious ones. Overly aggressive advertising and the use of any spam forms of it are not in line with business culture.
12. A person's level of culture can be judged by their punctuality, ability to behave politely and tactfully, as well as the degree of development of skills that make understanding what they express and communicating with them easier and more enjoyable. In particular, this is their ability to clearly express what they would like to convey to their interlocutors, literate and neat written speech, including in terms of punctuation, as well as the absence of too strong an accent when speaking in a foreign language. A cultured person attaches importance to things of this kind.
13. The model of consumption corresponding to the culture of a liberal society is rational consumption, which means making decisions about spending money not spontaneously, not under the influence of emotions, especially artificially induced ones, but in accordance with plans, priorities, taking into account the comparison of various options for purchasing goods and services that are really necessary. Such a consumption model excludes the purchase of goods and services of low quality or with an obvious discrepancy between price and quality, imposed by various methods contrary to the real interests of the consumer, as well as dangerous to physical and mental health, developing addictions, or questionable in moral terms. The craving for luxury or the desire to maintain one's prestige through conspicuous consumption and the purchase of status attributes, especially on credit, with the refusal of something more necessary, should be regarded as a sign of intellectual and cultural underdevelopment. People's adherence to rational consumption patterns is also important for the economic and environmental well-being of the entire society because it allows us to improve the quality of life not through growth in gross economic indicators, but through more efficient use of all types of resources.
14. The culture of a member of a liberal society is characterized by the desire to independently ensure financial independence and an unwillingness to fall into the position of a dependent. In particular, this means that their personal financial strategy should exclude dependence on large and long-term consumer loans, but, on the contrary, from the very beginning of their career, provide for the creation of at least minimal financial reserves, insurance of risks not covered by their own reserves, as well as the formation of their own portfolio of long-term investments. A person should pay sufficient attention to the development of their insurance and investment literacy. The desire to provide for their consumption and financial independence through their own efforts by those young people from wealthy families or who have received significant inheritance, for whom earning money is not a necessity, also deserves respect, and it would be right and wise for their parents and older relatives to cultivate in them a desire for such independence.
15. A very valuable and respectable quality of a person is his willingness to provide selfless help and support to his loved ones and other people who need it, as well as personal volunteer or financial participation in charitable and other socially useful projects. This kind of activity can make a very significant contribution, including to the development of such important areas as science, education, health care, security, using everything voluntarily provided without any bureaucratic interference. It also has a beneficial effect on the general moral climate and on the cultivation in the younger generation of the qualities a member of a liberal society should have.
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