1. Building Walls or Building Bridges
Choosing How to Live in a Culture of Conflicting and Common Values

2. The Reality
On a national and local level, in the geographical spaces we can call a communities reside a vastly diverse population that can be segmented according to characteristics that are socially and personally meaningful:
Race
Ethnicity
Religion
Ideology

3. Each choice has benefits and costs
The differences represented by these characteristics are important and often evoke passionate, even fierce, pride and protectiveness.
What each community must decide is whether they would rather build wals stressing the differences or bridges stressing the commonalities.
Each choice has benefits and costs
Walls protect cherished traditions and identities
Bridges allow for harmonious interaction 3

4. For me the question is how would I rather live and what kind of world do I want for my children.

5. Percentage who think the listed conduct is morally wrong.
Overall
Married men and women having an affair
91%
Polygamy – more than one wife
Cloning humans
88%
Suicide
79%
Cloning animals
64%
Abortion
50%
Homosexual behavior
54%
Having a baby outside of marriage
45%
Doctor assisted suicide
41%
Stem cell research
37%
Sex between unmarried man and woman
36%
Medical testing on animals
32%
Buying and wearing animal fur
31%
Gambling
30%
Death penalty
28%
Divorce
26%
Percentage who think the listed conduct is morally wrong.
-- Gallup Poll, May 2004

6. Moral Value Gap What is morally acceptable Conservative Liberal Gap
v. Liberal
Homosexual behavior
51%
23% - 74%
Abortion
45%
23% - 68%
Sex between unmarried man and woman
34%
45% - 79%
Having a baby outside of marriage
33%
36% - 69%
Stem cell research
29%
45% - 74%
Doctor assisted suicide
27%
41% - 68%
Death penalty
74% - 47%
Suicide
26%
09% - 35%
Divorce
25%
57% - 82%
Gambling
15%
58% - 73%
Married people having an affair
03% - 18%
Polygamy – more than one wife
13%
03% - 16%
Medical testing on animals
14%
68% - 44%
Buying and wearing animal fur
11%
68% - 57%
Cloning animals
10%
27% - 37%
Cloning humans
04%
08% - 12%
Moral Value Gap
What is morally acceptable

7. Other Moral Values – Liberal Perspective
Obligation to provide health care
Obligation to provide education
Obligation to provide housing
Environmental protections
Affirmative action to correct discrimination
Sexual Harassment
Conflicts of interest
Discrimination based on race
Discrimination based on gender
Obligation to disabled
Spending beyond one’s means
Motorcycle helmets/seat belts
Regulation of tobacco
Regulation of hallucinogens
Regulation of steroids
Mandatory taxation
Flat tax v. Progressive tax
Preemptive war
Geneva convention
Nudity
Obscenity

8. Our shared human values provide a solid foundation for a society in which our better values unite us in a common vision of how to live good and decent lives.

9. It is true I am only one, but still I am one
It is true I am only one, but still I am one. And though I cannot do everything, I can do something, and I must not refuse to do what I can do. (paraphrase)

10. Getting Personal
The most important reason to be concerned about ethics is its impact on your own reputation and credibility and whether you bring honor or dishonor to your family.

11. There comes a time in the life of many high achievers when it becomes important to move beyond success to significance.

12. If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain
If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain. If I can ease one life the aching, or cool one pain, or help one fainting robin unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain. -- Emily Dickinson

13. Hell begins on the day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts which we have wasted, of all that we might have done which we did not do.
-  Gian-Carlo Menotti

14. If you want to know how to live your life, think about what you’d like people to say about you after you die – and live backwards.

15. Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power
Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it. – Rabbi Harold Kushner

16. WHAT WILL MATTER By Michael Josephson © 2003
Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten will pass to someone else.
Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear.
So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to do lists will expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won't matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.
It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.
So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is not what you bought but what you built, not what you got but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage, or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.
What will matter is not your competence but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when your gone.
What will matter is not your memories but the memories that live in those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.
Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident.
It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
Choose to live a life that matters.