Dear Yuyutsu,

With her being more concerned with conversion than with treatment, her hobnobbing with dictators and her propagation of superstition I think most drug dealers are not as bad as Mother Teresa.

Hi Yuyutsu,

So many straw-mans ! What do you understand by "very broadly speaking, 'national values'." Of course, not everybody would have exactly the same values or to the same degree. Move on.

Of course there are differences between values and attitudes, although on could depend greatly on the other. There are differences between one' values and one's morals, and between the espousal of values and actual practice. There are differences between public values and policy. One can even define 'values', as does Peter, as, for example, preference for wine over beer. I suppose I'm thinking about issues that are a bit more general, more social rather than individual preference.

So yes, we can pick holes in any general statement. None of it changes the existence of a broad, general sense of national values, in any country.

Hi David,

One Australian 'value' is toleration of the freedom of opinion. You're welcome.

Cheers,

Joe

Dear David,

Though I haven't heard those particular allegations before, I have heard some other nasty allegations about her (which I never bothered to check). Nevertheless, whether true or otherwise, "Mother Teresa" has become an idiom which no longer refers to that specific person who lived in Calcutta.

Anyway, concerning the comparison to drug-dealers, these allegations can be quite serious, but we need to investigate them one by one as they all depend on context and are not necessarily negative. An example of positive hobnobbing with dictators is Moses (again, please take him just as an idiom) telling Pharaoh: "Let my people go!".

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Dear Joe,

«None of it changes the existence of a broad, general sense of national values, in any country.»

I think that you are referring to conditioning or adaptation. Values come from within, conditioning comes from without. With sufficient pressure: social, emotional, physical, most people would yield, break down and accept what's expected of them.

Would you say that reverence for the "Dear Leader" is a value which somehow all North-Korean were born with?