Both of those rebuttals may be true, however the first statement was mentioned simply because it will be contrasted here by my claim that it is quite possible for a person to go through life with little or no values whatsoever.

    Imagine, if you will, a person who lives their entire life without having any values. Does that make them a bad person? Does that make them a worthless person? Is it even possible for a person to go through their entire existence without valuing anything?

    I believe it is and also isn't possible for such a thing to exist. Allow me to explain by using the example of Michael Rosenfeld. Michael Rosenfeld may exist or have existed in this world, and he may even exist in Canada or America right at this moment. He may even really be named Michael Rosenfeld. However, for the purposes of this dissertation, Michael Rosenfeld is a figment of my imagination. Michael Rosenfeld, however, will be mentioned many times in this dissertation, so dare not forget about him.

    Michael Rosenfeld was born in Montréal, Québec on April 16, 1902 and he died on April 16, 2002. I use Montréal simply because I was born there, and it's a city that I can relate to. It's also a city where I believe that I've heard about Michael Rosenfeld, or at least people like him.

   When Michael Rosenfeld was born, his parents gave him a decent amount of attention. They cared for him, fed him and did all they could to make sure that Michael was brought up properly. However, Michael Rosenfeld, right from the very beginning of his life, was filled with apathy for life. He was one of those babies who was just as happy being picked up and cuddled as he was crawling around and entertaining himself. He loved his parents, but he didn't value them. That doesn't mean that he didn't acknowledge that he was able to change his own diaper. It simply meant that he took things as they came. When he needed changing, he did what any baby would do and cried, and when his parents changed him, he felt better. However, he cried because any baby would cry when they were soiled; not because he wanted his parents' company. Again, that's not to say that he didn't love them. He simply didn't value them.

    As he got older, his parents noticed that he simply did whatever was simplest at the time, playing with whatever was at hand. If his parents bought him a toy truck, he played with it. If they bought him a doll, he'd play with that too. He neither complained about nor enjoyed the toys that he had. If no toys were at hand, he would simply play with anything close to him. Sometimes, he would sit for hours and watch the shapes that shadows cast on the blinds in the kitchen. When he started school, he did whatever work was required of him, not putting in extra effort nor reducing the effort he put in. His marks were always average. He made friends in school, simply because they were there and they gave him the chance to pass the time. He neither valued nor resented his friends. Oh, he had fun with them, of course, and they would often play in the school-yard together and play childish games with each other, but when didn't feel like seeing them on a given day, he didn't give excuses about it. He simply said, "I can't come over today, because I don't feel like it." When he got invited to their birthday parties, he would go if he wanted to, and not go if he didn't feel like it. He didn't feel bad or good either way.

    When he got to become a teenager, he continued on the same road that took him there. He had friends that he neither cared for nor disliked. He got average marks in school. He maintained a functional relationship with his parents, neither depending on them nor resenting them as some teenagers tend to do. When some of his friends began to smoke or do drugs, he would try a little of everything, never really enjoying or disliking it, but simply doing it because everybody did it. That's not to say that he valued what his friends did or was prone to giving in to peer pressure. That's simply to say that he was being average. When he began to masturbate, as teenagers tend to do, he enjoyed the feelings of it, but didn't see it as anything more than another thing to do to pass the time. He could drag it out an hour or more, if he chose. When he got his driver's license, it wasn't because he particularly cared about getting it or not. It was simply because he was sixteen and it was what everybody normally did, so he did it too. When he got his first real job, it was at McDonalds. He didn't hate it or like it, but did it, again, because it was what most people his age did. It was also around this time that he lost his virginity. Once again, not because he wanted to or was pressured to, but because it seemed like something to do to pass the time, and it was what most people that age did. And, true to his apathetic nature, he neither liked it nor hated it. Soon after this, he did a bit of sexual experimenting with his male friends. He did so, because most teenagers his age had done it and it seemed like a good thing to do to pass the time. He didn't care whether he did it or not, and he didn't enjoy it or hate it. He simply accepted it.

    When he finished High School, he went on to college, like most of his friends. He got a degree in something that seemed like it would be good and did quite average. By the end of college, he had continued to experiment a bit in drugs and sexual exploits, neither liking it nor hating it and simply doing it because his friends were doing it.

    Soon after, he got married, like most people his age seemed to do, had two kids, like most couples seemed to do, and worked at a steady job, neither living in riches nor in poverty. He loved his wife, but if she died suddenly, he would get married again, without shedding a tear. He loved his kids, but if they got crushed by a steam-roller, he would just have two more.

    His life continued to be average, until he turned one-hundred and died of old age. He never wrote a will, and just like him, his wife and kids didn't much care about his death.

    So, what is your opinion on the life of Michael Rosenfeld? Based on what you've read about him, do you think that he lived a life of no values? He didn't care about his life, his friends, his family, or his career. He simply did things because they seemed like what most people were doing. He lived his life being average. So, the obvious answer to the question is that, yes, Michael Rosenfeld did have one value, after all. He valued being average. My reply would be "No, he didn't." Michael Rosenfeld didn't care that he was average. He didn't care about anything.

    Michael Rosenfeld lived his life like the moving walkway at the airport. He simply flowed through life, doing what the majority did, but never caring about anything. He didn't go out of his way to try and be average. He simply became average, by virtue of the fact that he did enough to move on to the next step of his life, and then the next. If you put him in a Nazi uniform in Germany during World War II, he would have killed Jews with the rest of them, not counting the fact that he was Jewish. Then, after the way, he would have have gone back to doing whatever most people were doing at the time.

    To put it simply, Michael Rosenfeld went with the flow, never looking back or forward. So, in conclusion, it is possible to live your life with no values and never finding a single thing important, and it's possible to do so right up until the day you die. So, in the next chapter, I will cover the opposite of Michael Rosenfeld by asking the question: Is it possible to live your life valuing every little thing, and, if so, what kind of life would that be?

    The closing questions that I'll leave you with are as follows:

    1) Do you know anybody like Michael?
    2) Could you live a life like Michael's?
    3) Is it possible that Michael did, in fact, have values that I didn't notice?
    4) Could it be possible that the meaning of existence is to live a life, never caring about anything?
    5) Is it wrong to live a life of no values?