Thank you.Topic: A person's worth nowadays seems to be judged according to social status and material possessions. Old-fashioned values, such as honour, kindness and trust, no longer seem important.
To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
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The debate on whether the old-fashioned values such as honesty and kindness have given ways to social status and material possessions has generated a lot of controversy. As society gets wealthier, it is inevitable for us to compare amongst ourselves in terms of how much we own. I believe that values that were seen as important are at risk of being replaced with materialism to the negative consequence to our culture, economy and society.
Culturally, the urge to gain fame and power has brought a bad influence to our youth. The spread of internet has catalysed a lot of young people, whom many of them possess no talent, to upload video to show-off their “talent”. Interestingly, some of them will gain fifteen minutes of fame in the print media. Subsequently, the public is even keener on gaining more fame so a cycle is created to have young people to believe that anything can done to be famous, regardless of talent and hard-work.
The ascending trend to value social status has also brought destructive impact on the economy. Traditional values such s honesty have been given up as professional people such as those in the financial industry have engaged in a lot of fraudulent conduct yet many of them have no remorse for causing financial crises and ruin the livelihood of so many ordinary people. It is so different to the past which professional people conduct their businesses with honesty and dignity.
Lastly, the general public is now more inclined to make more material gains than teaching our next generation about the importance of honesty & kindness. We seem to be more interested in getting the latest version of digital devices instead of caring about important issue such as poverty. What is even more worrying is that parents see not much problem with the trend as they are far more interested in enrolling the kids into the best schools. However, they do so to enhance their social status within their own social circles, instead of acting for the benefits of their children.
In conclusion, long-held values such as honesty, kindness and trust are considered not as important as before. It has brought negative consequences on our society overall and many people are negatively affected as a result.