The Value of Human Values. Where Does it Belong?

Still on the MBTI personality analyzer test, there are two kinds of people when it comes to dealing with people/situations – Thinking and Feeling. The thinking people go by certain principles/values which they don’t change irrespective of the ‘special’ people-oriented needs of the situation. The Feeling people on the other hand may possibly compromise on principles/values at times to make way for human needs. The Feeling people would typically put relationships and the benefit of human beings involved above everything else while the Thinking people don’t consider whether the people concerned would feel sad/bad/angry etc if at all it boils down to choosing between a principle and a person. If you hear that someone was fired to save the company some badly needed money, it would have almost surely come from a Thinking person rather than a Feeling person.

Warning: This portion of the post may not make any sense to you whatsoever unless you happen to be tuned into the same frequency as I – which is In234sane MHz. I am not to be held responsible for possible brain transplant recommendations from your family doctor after reading this post. Over to my analysis…

It was in this context that I was trying to place ‘Human Values’ somewhere on the line between the two types. Now, the distinctiveness of this term is that it is paradoxical in the current context of our Thinking-Feeling discussion. This is how. While the word Human is something the Feeling people can relate to, Values is associated with the Thinking people! Our first reaction would actually be to place it (Human Values) as a value on the list of a Thinking person. But the interesting thing about it is that it will be a default value even in the list of a Feeling person! I don’t think it is appropriate to say that a Feelings person doesn’t operate on values. She does. But the value that overrides all other values on her list is the Human Values value! Thus, Human Values as a value seems to be a perfect meeting point for both the kinds of people – Thinking and Feeling – to me. What? But for all this analysis, I’d say Human Values is a fast disappearing Value in this money-crazy world. Enough of the wild rambling you say?  Okay. Advice taken.