On The Contemporary Youths' Moral Belief

Parents today used to be the youth in the past, and the young today likewise will be parents in the future. In all ages and societies, the youth are the most vigorous and the most curious. Their thoughts, values and faith mirror the social changes.The youth aging 15 to 30, at school or at work, will be the main force in the socialist construction of Chinese characteristics as well as in the empowerment and revitalization of our nation. Conducting research over their morals and beliefs is of great importance to ensure their moral growth and the future of our nation.Most of the youth nowadays are the only-children generation. They have witnessed the drastic national transformation through reform and opening to the outside world and borne witness to the pains of social and ethical changes. Such experiences have left distinct cultural inscription in their mind. They joys because happiness comes to them to easily and they are in tears because happiness is too hard to re-obtain; they are callous, with little concern over others; they are sensitive and gnawed by traumatic experiences; they encounter various obstacles in study, love, career and life; they contemplate in pains and grow up in loneliness.Each era is marked by its own culture, zeitgeist and value systems. The values and beliefs of contemporary youth share the basic features of the mainstream morals and ethics, and are also distinguished with the unique features of that particular time. Their individual values and beliefs are complex and multiple.Due to the negative social values and the gap between ethical education and social reality, some of the youth are disillusioned morally. Their acquired morals come into conflicts with the vulgar morals they witness in society. As a result, they have doubts over and even give up their acquired morals; at the same time no new value system is developed to replace the old one. They suffer in the void of faith.Morality and goodness is the target of morals and beliefs, in which the social self transcends the ego, the spiritual self rises above the materialistic self, the idealistic self takes over the realistic one, and the infinite self wins over the finite one. Nothing can replace morals in educating and encouraging the youth, and nor can science compete with morals in the role of life building and life choice. It is imperative that efforts should be made to strengthen ethical education among the youth and reinforce socialist moral values with uniquely Chinese characteristics in our young people.Moral and ethical education intends not only to develop moral sense among the individuals but also to promote their self perfection. To fulfill the goal, we have two jobs at hand:one is to cultivate moral conscience, moral impulse or moral instinct, as the basis of moral values; another is to construct a scientific and popular moral system which is linked with the present and future life of the educated in order to encourage them to follow the norms.Keeping faith is a way of life; to have faith is not to take possession of material things but to live in faith. As to moral and ethical education for the youth, our emphasis should be given to moral-oriented educational mechanism so as to urge the youth's awareness of ethical needs in life, and stress should also be given to the construction of a sound moral rewarding system so as to create a social mechanism to ensure the give-and-take in social morals.