There is a big difference between personal values and societal values that too often gets overlooked by so many people. Personal values are those values we each hold dear and sacred. Beliefs, or values, differ from person to person. Society has an ever-changing set of values that depend on what is popular to be acceptable at the time.

Political correctness is a set of societal values, for lack of a better term, which puts pressure on individuals to conform to societal norms that really aren’t norms but a means of controlling the actions of people who don’t fit in with the rest of the crowd. Certain words and terms are considered politically correct by society and individuals are judged on their use, or non-use, of those words and terms.

Personal values are those ideals of morality and right held by individuals. These values have nothing to do with what society deems appropriate. However, they have everything to do with a person’s upbringing and thought processes in dealing with various situations. The person’s moral values are a part of the environment they were raised in, and the ideals held by their closest group of family and friends.

Some people in society make every attempt to level the playing field’ in schools so that no one loses and suffers disappointment. This is considered politically correct societal values in some places. However, parent’s personal values quite often scoff at this idea as nonsense since everyone suffers disappointments in life. Everyone knows that if nobody loses, then nobody wins, and therefore it is pointless to keep score.

Yet children look at professional sports, indeed even school sporting events and there is always a winner and a loser of the games. If it were truly a good thing to have no winners or losers why play the games at all? There would be no need for selling tickets, because no one would buy them. There would also be no need for pep rallies, pep band, and cheerleaders. Uniforms would be unnecessary as well, and all because of societal values that say nobody should lose.

People cannot, in good conscience, and should not abandon their own personal values in favor of the inconsistent societal values. Society, better known as the more vocal group of people and not necessarily a majority, changes it’s stated values almost a often as a mother changes her baby’s diapers. Personal values are more consistent and constant, and don’t generally change just because some movie star or politician says those values are unpopular.

Therefore the answer to the question of the difference between personal values and societal values is fairly simple. Personal values are deeply held ideals, on the individual levels, which don’t suffer from the pangs of being unpopular. Societal values are more often those ideals that change with the popular scene, which holds court in the public eyes.