Building standards for Vietnamese people to activate country’s ‘soft power’

Hanoi (VNA) – A workshop held on November 29 looked into the systems of national values, family values, and standards of the Vietnamese people in the new era, touching upon pressing issues and working out appropriate measures for activating the “soft power” of the country.

Developing system of human values to make social changes

At the workshop, many experts voiced their concern about signs of moral degradation in society as many definitions and standards for human behaviours in the modern society are unclear.

Prof. Dr. Dinh Xuan Dung, former Vice Chairman of the Central Council for Literature and Art Theory and Criticism, said when it comes to culture, people often think about such activities as performances and festivals. However, that viewpoint is insufficient as culture also covers humans, and the core of developing culture is developing humans.

It is important to identify the importance of the issue and the ultimate goal of cultural development, which is to build, nurture, maintain, and develop systems of human values so that changes in society can be made, Dung noted.

Sharing the view, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Luong Dinh Hai, former Director of the Institute of Human Studies, held that there are problems that have made the building and development of the Vietnamese people fail to meet national development requirements, caused unwanted impacts on humans and society, and hampered the country’s industrialisation, modernisation, and fast and sustainable development.

The system of human values is the core factor that includes many values shared by other value systems, he affirmed.

Hai said resources for those systems of values come inside the country, and they will be eroded, lose their strength, or become exhausted if they are not brought into play. In contrast, if properly tapped into, they will develop more and more strongly.

Resolution on human development needed

Underlining the importance of a system of human values in the current life, experts perceived that the Party should issue a specific resolution on human building and development so as to set up standards for the Vietnamese people amid the international integration context.

Although the Party identified people as the goal, impetus, and centre of development and that industrialisation, modernisation, and political, economic, cultural, and social development must be by the people and for the people, according to Hai.

Hai suggested the issuance of a specific resolution on human building and development that covers all the aspects of humans in relation to sustainable national development by 2030 with a vision to 2045. In that resolution, the systems of Vietnamese values, including the one of the Vietnamese people’s values, are the fundamental and indispensable content.

For her part, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Dang Thi Lan, from the University of Social Sciences and Humanities under the Vietnam National University - Hanoi, voiced her support for the seven criteria for the system of human values proposed by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. Those criteria consist of patriotism, sense of responsibility, discipline, creativity, honesty, solidarity, and humanity.

She said patriotism, solidarity, and humanity are traditional values which have constituted the strength of Vietnam throughout history and been tested in reality. The four others – sense of responsibility, discipline, creativity, honesty – are modern values which Vietnamese people are still weak at.

Talking to the media, Dr. Ho Ba Tham, Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Association of Human Resources and Talent Development Science, noted it is necessary to quickly build detailed, clear, understandable, and feasible standards for the Vietnamese people.

Cadres and Party members must set examples in complying with the standards in their living and working places, he said, adding that annual assessment and review are also needed to gain experience and make amendments./.