“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.” – The words of Dwight D. Eisenhower that he said in his inaugural address on January the twentieth, 1953. When people in society think that the benefits are worth rejecting the principles, they get themselves in a situation in which they end up having none of these. With the rise of the value of privileges, people neglect the principles that are necessary to make members of the society do the right things such as being hardworking, tender, honest, responsible and humane in general.
Supportive Examples
Throughout the history, a lot of different events have proved the words of Eisenhower to be right. For example, the fall of the Roman Empire is a result of losing the human principles and blindly following the benefits of privileges.
In Russia, after the revolution of 1917 and the following tragic events such as civil war and elimination of peasantry, against a background of general poverty, hunger, and devastation across the country, the introduction of the benefits and privileges has blinded people. Among these privileges in Russia, there were different preferential rations, the granting of large dwelling, the possibility to study in most expensive and prestigious higher education institutions. That system has been changing people’s minds, slowly but surely making them rejecting the principles for the privileges.
Discussion
Every member of today’s society has to understand that one has to work hard to achieve success and to support the system that helps them to do it. There should be a mutual assistance between the system and its members. Instead of that people often desire to reach the benefits doing nothing. One has to realize that without the help of people, there will not be the system which provides them with benefits. It can be compared with the work of human’s lungs. You give your lungs the air, and the lungs, for its part, supply your blood with it. Being a coherent whole, the society and the system still must support each other.
The principles are deeply connected with privileges and benefits. It is the right way to make the privileges work for your moral principles. This does not mean that one has to build the principles in accordance with the benefits one wants to reach. This means that the benefits of privileges should be reached with the help of the principles one already owns. Instead of violating their principles, people should make them become the main power that drives them forward. The privileges should be the result of hardworking and following the human’s principles, not something that values more. There are no privileges without principles.
Conclusion
With the rise of the value of privileges, people neglect the principles that are necessary to make members of the society do the right things such as being hardworking, tender, honest, responsible and humane in general. There is a lot of evidence that valuing the privileges over principals is not a right thing to do. Among the others, the events in Russia after the World War I. It is crucial to understand that there are no privileges apart from hard working for it. Instead of valuing privileges over principles, people should make them work as one mechanism. If one loses the benefits and privileges giving up his principles, he or she will realize that the key mistake was in underrating the importance of the principles.