on social values, moral confusion, and being a decent human offline

to ask someone about their social values in 2025 is no longer a theoretical exercise. it’s not a quiet question you pose over dinner, or something you discover through introspection on a slow walk home. it’s a public pressure test. a litmus for how socially literate, morally aligned, and digitally fluent you appear to be. we live in a time where beliefs are expected to be both felt and formatted — expressed not only through personal actions, but through content, alignment, visibility, and sometimes, virality. your values are not just your principles; they are your identity, your bio, your brand. and if you’re not constantly declaring them, people begin to wonder if you have any at all.

this pressure to articulate values isn’t inherently bad. in fact, it can be one of the ways people wake up to their biases, shed inherited prejudices, or find solidarity with others. but the trouble begins when values become aesthetic. when they’re detached from the mess of real-life relationships and exist solely in the curated space of language and alignment. a person’s sense of decency used to be judged by how they acted in difficult situations. now, it’s increasingly evaluated by how well they navigate discourse. how quickly they issue statements. how closely their opinions mirror the trending consensus. we’ve replaced moral depth with moral formatting — and even the most well-meaning people can get caught in that loop.

what’s complicated about social values — particularly for people who were raised in collectivist cultures — is that morality wasn’t always about autonomy. it was about loyalty. about obedience. about silence. to have values of your own, separate from the community’s norms, was often considered deviant or disrespectful. so for many of us, learning to hold personal values in adulthood feels both liberating and destabilizing. how do you hold a belief when your nervous system is trained to flinch at disappointment? how do you say no when your entire upbringing taught you to say yes for the sake of harmony?

it gets even messier when you consider the global layering of identity. for those of us who’ve lived between countries, between expectations, between social codes, values aren’t handed to you in a single, cohesive manual. they contradict. in one place, humility is sacred. in another, self-promotion is survival. in one circle, speaking out is seen as brave. in another, it’s seen as threatening the harmony. and so our internal compass is shaped not by truth, but by tension — by the push and pull of cultural scripts that don’t always translate.

the modern internet asks you to be emotionally transparent but politically correct. you’re rewarded for nuance but punished for hesitation. you’re expected to know your stance, your script, your soundbite — even as the ground shifts beneath your feet. and what’s lost in this performance of clarity is the awkward, essential space where values are actually formed: in uncertainty. in mistakes. in changing your mind. in failing to show up and learning why that mattered.

i think often about the idea of “quiet ethics” — values that live not in statements, but in practice. it’s easy to say you believe in empathy. it’s harder to express it toward someone who frustrates you. it’s easy to claim inclusivity. it’s harder to listen when your privilege is being challenged. values that don’t cost you anything aren’t values. they’re preferences. and the only way to know what you stand for is to pay attention to what you do when it’s inconvenient. how you act when no one is clapping. how you behave when someone else is taking up space you wish belonged to you.

i remember years ago, being in a group of creatives who all prided themselves on being politically aware. everyone had the right words. but when a junior colleague raised a concern about racism in a client pitch, the room shifted. the energy changed. everyone was suddenly quiet, cautious, neutral. afterwards, someone told me: “it’s not the right time.” and i remember thinking: if not now, then when? it was a moment that taught me that knowing the language of social values is not the same as embodying them. especially when money, power, or status are at stake.

our values aren’t revealed in what we retweet. they’re revealed in the compromises we make. the trade-offs we rationalize. the things we choose to stay silent about because the social cost feels too high. and to be clear, silence is not always betrayal — sometimes it’s survival. especially for those without systemic power. but the key question remains: is my silence intentional? or is it convenient?

there’s also this quiet grief that comes with realizing that your values will sometimes isolate you. they will make you the uncomfortable one at dinner. they will make you harder to market to. they will make you risk certain friendships. and still, you hold them. not because they’re fashionable. not because they get applause. but because they allow you to live with yourself at night. and that, too, is a kind of freedom.

developing social values requires you to do something deeply untrendy: slow down. ask questions you don’t have immediate answers to. listen to people who make you uncomfortable for reasons you can’t quite name. examine your reactions before declaring your positions. and — most radically — accept that your values might not make you likeable. but they might make you whole.

so much of being decent offline is quiet. it doesn’t announce itself. it doesn’t self-reference. it doesn’t trend. it looks like not laughing at the joke. like correcting someone gently. like changing your mind in public. like paying attention to who’s not in the room — and asking why. and the people who live this way? they often don’t talk about it. because they’re too busy practicing it.

maybe this is the work: not to define your values perfectly, but to live them clumsily. to let them evolve as you grow. to risk getting it wrong and stay in the conversation anyway. to not turn your ethics into a brand. to be decent in a way that’s hard to measure but easy to feel in your presence. to be someone who doesn’t just post the right things, but who behaves in a way that makes others feel safe, seen, and reminded that there are still people who mean what they say — even when no one is watching.