At the dawn of the 21st century and faced with the pressures of a globalized environment, Mexican society - one of the most conservative and traditionalists on the planet - faces a great challenge: adapting to changes in social ethics or preserving values (and anti-values) characteristic of his distinguished nationalist lineage.
Today it is increasingly difficult for young people to find good examples of ethical behavior and conduct.
The acts of corruption at the different levels of government, the lack of opportunities and inequity in the selection processes to seek employment, the pressure of the media that incessantly search for “mud idols” (athletes, artists, politicians) that we see crumbling "at the first glance of change", transforming illusions into discomfort, have created a passive, incredulous, fearless and expectant society, as well as looking unmotivated to improve and unable to fight to achieve their goals, dreams and projects, those that every they look farther and less feasible.
This degenerates into a state of social “shock”, in which the individual becomes indifferent to events in which he should participate and be the protagonist.
The problem is that such indifference turns into apathy and apathy into unproductiveness, which inherently does not allow us any major achievement. This vicious circle is transferred to school, work, and what is worse, to the family nucleus, with the consequent deterioration of the young person's environment.
Faced with this hazy panorama, how is our valuable human capital, to compete in this stadium?
Social ethics, developed as a concept only at the end of the last century, arises as a consequence of man's desperate and fierce struggle with his worst enemy: himself.
The great capacity (and ease) that the human being manifests to destroy his environment, coupled with the inability of the authorities (political, ecclesiastical, social) to stop or lessen this process of self-destruction, has exhibited, now more than ever, the urgent need for ethical social behavior in which man seeks global well-being (utopia for some), based on precepts as basic as they are ancient: justice, freedom, truth and equity.
There are stereotypes, however, the few are overshadowed by the urban and cosmopolitan reality that brings with it a whirlwind of vainities typical of the underdevelopment in which we live, in continuous and imminent confrontation with the values of our society.
Worse still is the scant attention that our young people and the professors themselves pay to what is really important: the training of human beings with high ethical performance and instead brag about the achievements of some "geniuses" -that is what we call those who develop logical mathematical intelligence - with high IQ but who become unable to interact and run a company generating social welfare. Instead they end up without work or "trapped" at the service of the people who own the capital.
But inside the half-empty glass there is hope: At last, the educational system takes its proper role and allows the incorporation of subjects with ethical and humanistic content in higher education programs; which delegates a great responsibility to the teacher, but at the same time endows it with a basic tool to achieve its objective: professionals committed to society and its environment.
Although it is true that this first step is not everything, it is also true that it generates positive expectations for us to use in the future an educational model that privileges doing for knowing, being for having and understanding for the to know.
Bibliography:
Barman, Zygmunt (2003): Globalization: Mexico, FCE.
Pérez Tamayo, Ruy (1991): Science, Ethics and Society: Mexico, El Colegio Nacional.
Arias Galicia, Fernando. (2000): Human Resources Administration for high performance: Mexico, Trillas.
