The Idolos Of Man And The Contemporary Woman

THE IDOLOS OF MAN AND THE CONTEMPORARY WOMAN

In the 21st century, culture has experienced drastic changes in a short period of time. In less than two decades, we have seen how everyday practices of both men and women have adapted to changes in society caused by factors such as technology, urbanization and secularism. Others were the times when values, sponsored largely by religion, were a fundamental basis of life in society. These values ​​have been replaced by a series of "idols", which have moved man from a life more attached to good customs. The three most important idols are money, vices, and fame.  The Christian religion has, from its institution, considered idolatry a sin; proposes that the only true God is yours, and that any other entity looking for humans to replace the reverence that we owe it, presents a problem. We can extrapolate this notion of "idol" to any entity, person, object or intangible thing, to which we give greater importance than that would be considered healthy. At the end of the road, depending on the "idols" of each one, we end up modifying and adapting our behavior, ascribing importance to certain things and, therefore, changing our priorities and values ​​and values.

First, the modern idolatra man, practically, above all, money. We build our lives largely, and except for specific exceptions, around what can keep us financially satiated. We prioritize all those decisions that involve profit, often ignoring the real consequences that this may imply for people around us and the world in general.

Undoubtedly, there are many entrepreneurs and company owners who have replaced their moral compass with a bank account, ignoring the damage caused to the environment and those workers who hire for ninth wages, in order to maintain high margins and continue to become more and more rich. It is extremely comfortable, and even coward. We see it daily in the professional field, and we must take care to fall victims to the idolatry of money and wealth.

Also related to this, the modern man and woman idolatize things in general: clothing, electronic devices, jewelry, shoes, etc. Whatever provides the appearance of status becomes a need, distorting our perspective of the world and our interpersonal relationships. We sacrifice true priorities, such as our houses, families, education, in order to give the appearance of wealth, without realizing that so many things matter much more, and that those people who should really matter to us do not look at the same time in these things.

Power is another idol of modern man. From the point of view of professional ethics, it presents a particular danger, since the action in our careers with a view to obtaining power, leads to sacrificing the interests of others in search of control and monopolization of the resources related to the field of work in which everyone performs; For a lawyer, he presents the opportunity for influences, a corrupted force like few other.

Today, the modernity and proliferation of technology have given strength to another idol: fame. We have become obsessed with notoriety, often not deserved, creating anxiety in ourselves for being known, for the reason it was. We see it in phenomena as the viral videos in which teenagers do things that put their own lives in danger, all in the name of obtaining the greatest amount of "likes" or "reposts" on social networks, to feel relevant for a few minutes. We see the so -called "Vloggers" of YouTube doing atrocious things on behalf of attracting a significant audience, such as Logan Paul, who entered a Japanese forest recognized by the amount of suicides that occur in it and recorded the body of a victim of this depression; He was sanctioned by the platform, temporarily, but for his fan base this made no difference: they follow it with the same passion as before, which could be evidenced in the way they went to his defense against critics of this video. It is distorted, then, in persecution of fame, which is ethical and what does not, always taking priority that will give us more notoriety. 

From the hand with this fact, it is that the modern man and woman idolize other people, often without merit, in the form of celebrities in the world of entertainment and sports. In the entertainment world, social networks have allowed today many people become famous on the basis of little more than their physical appearance: this is the case of “influencers”, people who upload photographs to social networks and cooperate with Brands to sell your products by creating an image of pink life; There are also the stars of the “reality shows”, people who supposedly live their normal lives followed by cameras that capture every second. The best example we have of the latter is the Kardashian family, which has been growing its empire for more than 10 years based on its television series. They are famous people, who idolize, and not for their talent, such as some actresses and actors (although we must admit that fanaticism around these people has gone out extremely hand in hand), or writers, or other artists or people with people with impressive achievements.

Perhaps at a level less than the characters in the world of entertainment we see fanaticism for athletes, which although they are certainly people with abilities beyond normal, we increase at infallible levels of considering them: the examples of sport players accused professional players are countless , for example, of sexual violence, many times with an immense amount of evidence, and yet that they have attacked a woman, or who have driven drunk and injured a person; It is the dirty secret of this culture that we understand that our sport idols should be considered under different metrics, compared to another standard, being people with outward talents. We fold, and ignore our ethical principles as a culture, when it comes to these types of people, to a large extent because we seek to protect our own image of our idols.

We no longer maintain the same idols as centuries and millennia behind; It is not more of bronze and wood statuettes, representing sacred deities to which we reveal. But this does not imply that modern man does not revere. Apart from these that I have cited above, everyone will have their own idols. We must always remain attentive and aware of this reality, to avoid molding our ethical precepts to what apparently convenient for the benefit of these idols, whether our career, economic prosperity, the search for power, or people that we have identified as more important.