Has America lost its traditional values?

I first posted this almost a year ago, after watching the author on CSPAN.
I've been thinking about his theory a lot lately, and I think it may help us understand the immigration issue that is currently running rampant through GD.
(I'm torn, myself, between both arguements)

Pay particular attention to the "map" that compares America's values to other countries. I've been watching this debate develop and how it's dividing Dems and Repugs alike. I flash on this map, and how it shows we are so very different from every other country, yet we have pieces of each deeply imbeded in our values.


review - is this crisis of values real?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3744557&mesg_id=3744593

Has America lost its traditional values? Many politicians and religious leaders believe so, as do the majority of Americans, based on public opinion polls taken over the past several years. But is this crisis of values real?
This book explores the moral terrain of America today, analyzing the widely held perception that the nation is in moral decline. It looks at the question from a variety of angles, examining traditional values, secular values, religious values, family values, economic values, and others. Using unique data from the World Values Surveys, the largest systematic attempt ever made to document attitudes, values, and beliefs around the world, this book systematically evaluates the perceived crisis of values by comparing America's values with those of over 60 other nations.
The results are surprising. The evidence shows overwhelmingly that America has not lost its traditional values, that the nation compares favorably with most other societies, and that the culture war is largely a myth.
The gap between reality and perception does not represent mass ignorance of the facts or an overblown moral panic, Baker contends. Rather, the widespread perception of a crisis of values is a real and legitimate interpretation of life in a society that is in the middle of a fundamental transformation and that contains growing cultural contradictions. Instead of posing a problem, the author argues, this crisis rhetoric serves the valuable social function of reminding us of what it means to be American. As such, it preserves the ideological foundation of the nation.
http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/library/main_2.html

My Notes –

I found it very interesting…

Research shows we are not losing our values, we test the same now as we did 20-30 years ago.

Our values are a strange combination of Traditional and Self-expressive. This makes us the oddballs of the world. We are slowly becoming odder, moving more to self-expressive.





Link to World Values Survey site - http://www.worldvaluessurvey.com/

Why are we so different? – in other countries, people are born into their countries values, in America, we are people who gathered together because of our shared values.

The conflict created within our society – this internal clash between strong traditional and strong self-expressive values creates a conflict within us and results in Cognitive Dissidence. As we move more towards Self-expression, the more extreme a crisis we envision. This is why the extreme right is becoming more extreme, they are reacting to the paradox, it makes them uncomfortable.

Traditional Values does not equal Conservative Values

Rabid Right latched on to his book, but only for the traditionalist parts – he says, “hold up. You need to read this book with one eye open. The left eye”

Embrace the Paradox

Q & A

Politics is estranged from the electorate – dangerous and it worries him.
“Our citizens are already there, & we are waiting for our leaders to join us”

Why did Kerry lose and Bush win? Kerry promoted the Self-expression angle, Bush promoted the Traditional. Traditional trumped Self-expression (in this attitude of fear and uncertainty) . Media was a large part of this, emphasizing the black/white view of things.

Abortion – when you ask the question : Is abortion murder – 50% say yes, 50% say no. divided along dem/rebub lines, pretty much.
But when you divide the question into sub questions – i.e.…Is Abortion acceptable when the pregnancy is a result of rape, is it acceptable when mother’s life is in danger, is it acceptable when child will be born severely deformed, or when it will create great hardship for family, Is Abortion a matter of personal choice? 80% of Americans answer yes. It’s how you frame the question, and media and politics knows this, uses it.

Seeing a trend towards Post Materialist values, we are becoming more concerned with quality of life than materialistic goals.

Voter numbers are so low because (darn – missed that part) but as we move towards more Self-expression, more people will vote. He sees the numbers rising greatly in next several elections.

Israel is pretty far from us on values map.

What do we do? (as activates, citizens) Find the common ground in our conversations, bridge the divide in our personal contacts with others – we think alike more than we know.

From Greater Democracy website…
http://www.greaterdemocracy.org/archives/000330.html

Wayne Baker, author of the new book America's Crisis of Values, is quoted in a Detroit Free Press article as saying: "I believe that this culture war is a myth in this country... We think we're divided -- and we're really not."It's a question I've been pondering: If the United States is united, if Americans share the same core values of freedom, equality, justice, community, etc., why do we sense that we are deeply divided? Is it possible that the divisions we sense are not the ones we think? Is it possible that we are divided not by our values nor by our religious beliefs nor by our politics? Is it possible that the divisions we see (i.e., pro-choice vs. anti-abortion, fundamentalist vs. mainstream, science vs. religion, conservative vs. progressive, red state vs. blue state) are less divisions than they are symptoms of change?

More at link.


Discuss.

IT's not lost, it's just being exported

That is such a broad huge question, but as an old guy, I can say that America is a very different place than it was when I grew up.

Some changes are for the better and others worse.

I can only talk about the group I grew up with of course, but we lived a much more calm and carefree life than kids do today.

In the summer we took off on our bikes in the morning to play ball and stayed out until dinner time. Every kid in our group (gang? It was after all suburban New York City) lived with their biological mom and dad. We had lunch at whoever's house we were closest to at the time. No one knew where we were all day and it didn't seem to bother anyone very much. Today that seems insane. Every kid has a cellphone today.

At age 16, we played ball. None of us knew a thing about sex at that age. I never saw an illegal drug until I went to college. I talk to teachers today and I'm amazed and appalled. Maybe it's the internet?

We didn't have playstations or computers or air-conditioning so we played outside and swam a lot. The schools didn't have air conditioning either so they kept the windows open.

Looking at the kids growing up in my neighborhood today, it does seem like we've ost something. Kids are constantl on their cellphones or text messages. Their parents know where they are all the time but they still get in a lot more trouble than we did when no one knew where we were. Kids spend their time on video games. They hardly ever just go outside and play. If they do play outside it's their scheduled soccer leagues, baseball leagues, tai kwan do, etc. Kids have busy schedules today. We didn't back then.

I'm sure there are many better things today too. The food for one thing. Go to a restaurant today and they'll have four or five wonderful salad dishes. They didn't have that when I was growing up. ried chicken, meatloaf and steaks back then. Seatbelts and safer toys and I'm sure a million other improvements, but I look at the world today and I'm glad I was a kid 40 years ago. Even without air conditioning.

...women being unable to have meaningful careers, shotgun weddings, polio...

I asked what we "lost" to someone who was a kid in the '40s. Her reply: nothing we aren't better off without. I guess it's a matter of prespective; for women and non-whites, times are better now.

of our decades of mass media advertising. YOU can have this, YOU should have that, everyone else already got theirs why not YOU.

I'm 41 years old, my entire life has been the cycle of a TV in nearly every home - from the original b&w with 3 stations and shows directly sponsored by a company to today's Mega-corp that owns the TV, radio, print AND products they keep selling on the media channels. Look at typical CNN line up - 3 minutes of soft news, 10 mins on barely veiled product endorsement of some type.

So, for my entire life, I've been hit from all sides that I deserve the good life, I should have everything the Jones down the street does. And its been a successful campaign - look at how many Americans are over their head in debt paying for a bunch of stuff they don't need. Buying a house they can't even afford to furnish, or a massive 4WD tank that they wouldn't even park on the grass, much less need to engage the 4WD to go through some muddy off road track.

And once corporate America had stoked those fires high enough that the frustration built in the many who just can't spend anymore (mid 80's)- they needed an outlet so the masses wouldn't riot in the streets thinking they'd been cheated out of theirs so they pump up the Rush Limbaugh's and start blaming different groups.

• If you don't have yours is not that you have unrealistic expectations. It's the fact that they let some other skin-colored person have your job or college slot through one of those liberal affirmative action programs. Once we get those liberals out of the way, you'll finally get yours
  
• If you don't have yours is not that you have unrealistic expectations. It's those damn liberal women who didn't want to stay home like good wives that kept you from advancing on the job once they entered the work force. Once we get those liberals out of the way, you'll finally get yours
  
• If you don't have yours is not that you have unrealistic expectations. It's those secular humanists who rejected Christ so He took his blessing off the good ole' USA before you got your reward. Once we get those liberals out of the way, you'll finally get yours
  
• If you don't have yours is not that you have unrealistic expectations. It's those pesky homos demanding special rights, threatening your marriage just when you're on the cusp of getting your big reward. Once we get those liberals out of the way, you'll finally get yours
  
• If you don't have yours is not that you have unrealistic expectations. It's those welfare queens sucking big government tit so they can sit home and crank out more illegitimate babies when they aren't joy-riding around town in their Cadillacs. Once we get those liberals out of the way, you'll finally get yours

So, they can still keep you wanting more and more to keep selling you stuff. And, with corporate backing, they can provide the politicians with an electibility factor AND keep the masses distracted enough not to examine the reasons they really don't have (or sometimes even want) all the stuff they are trying to sell.

During the middle class boom (50-60's), when the majority was happy with the stuff they had, how much they had done better than the previous generation and the future looked bright - that was also the strongest time of support for progressive causes - for Americans in general being concerned about those who didn't have. Women, blacks and other minority groups were making progress and were happy to see it. That's the idyllic world that today's conservatives are trying to sell to the public.

But the dissatisfaction levels are too high. We're still pumped constantly to want more and more and more stuff. Minorities in all groups are very unhappy with the lack of progress a couple of decades after seeing so much promise back then. In many cases, each group can see specific actions happening to roll back some of what's already been accomplished.

And the greed factor has set in, the thinking is changed to "how can I be concerned about what the other guy has when I'm still not happy about what I have. I want mine - and I'll break the rules to get it, I'll sell my soul to the company to get it, I'll take a third mortgage if I have to - but by God, there is no way that I'm going to show everyone what a failure I am by having anyone see that I don't have all the stuff the Jones's down the street do."

the sixties was a violent{i don't necessarily mean that as a literal meaning} reaction to the strangling traditional values of previous centuries.

modernity and world war two had taken it's toll and deeply affected a generation -- as well as the threat of dying in an unjust war far from home.

but there is something about the inevitability of the ''sixties'' that is/was frightening to so many.

the continuing wars for the post world war two generations offerd no respite -- and people felt that for their survival things needed to change.

but the backlash to that change brought us to the reagan era.

marshal mcluhan's perfect storm of looking{and jumping through} the rear-view mirror.

we looked for ''traditional'' values to save us -- and of course it failed -- with bushco{and yes even clinton} being the figure head of that failure.

it may be that we are going to more fully embrace a less materialistic mind set -- but it will be set against a more materialist india and china.

i wonder what that will bring -- but i don't think it promises to be harmonious -- as of right now anyway.

modernity, scientific discovery, technology -- these have become grinding forces on the psyche of the west -- and most pointedly in america.

there's a lot to think about in what you wrote -- but it's kernals are very important stop and consider.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=200673&mesg_id=200673

could be interesting.

Personally I think the sickness over the country may not be stopped until we've crashed and rebuilt - what we have created now can't sustain itself much longer

And you're right about the backlash & Reagan. The simplest definition of conservative is one who fears change, progressive one who looks forward to it.

Owning slaves? Lynching suspected criminals? Hiring Chinese immigrants to build railroads, and then shooting them to keep them in line? Sweat shops? Beating wives who dare have opinions, much less voice them? Allowing only landed white men to vote? "Colored" balconies in movie theatres, and water fountains everywhere else? Getting drunk and beatin' up a queer? Cheating on tax returns? Selling people transmission rebuilds they didn't need? Dumping poison into the ground water? Telling people which cigarettes make them feel better? Booze ads that tell people to drink responsibly? Lottery ads that tell people to gamble responsibly? Preaching hatespeech from the pulpit? Calling John Wayne movies "wholesome" because he killed redskins, but never had sex?

Are those a few of the traditional values we've lost?

Not In My Bible
http://notinmybible.blogspot.com

There's always some mystical past in which everything was great and people were "better."

Go back and read Aristophanes' Frogs. The old men in that complain at length about how all the young men are lazy, rude, and soft---and that's in the 5th Century BCE!

I've noted this more than once. The rabid right was clamoring at Oscar time about how Hollywood didn't "reflect the values of mainstream America", but of course they were wrong in believing they are mainstream America. They whine that we need to get back to "Traditional Values", but what they are talking about is Dark Age values, not traditional American values. They want a nation where people can be exiled, imprisoned or even put to death for failing to worship the approved god, having sex with the wrong person, teaching scientific facts that contradict the Bible, questioning or protesting the government and so on. It is downright scary. :scared:

just what are these supposed "traditional values" and who decided that they are as such? If you're talking, "Mom, apple pie and Chevrolet" please, keep your "traditional values" to yourself.

"Traditional values" is one of those catch phrases that Republicans took control of many years ago. Mind you, they don't actually LIVE those "values", as is evidenced by all of the GOP scandals lately, but they control them. Or at least they THINK they do!

As far as I'm concerned, "traditional values" is nothing more than a campaign slogan. What's traditional for one group of people isn't traditional for another. It ranks up there with other campaign slogans such as; "Compassionate Conservatism", "Liberal Media" and "soft on terrorism". In other words, complete bullshit, designed to steer non-thinking Americans toward a pie-in-the-sky dream of Americana as it never really existed in the first place. "Traditional values", my ass!

Or just "English-rooted former colony"?

Rather, I think one of the greatest con jobs in history is coming undone. If the world survives, it will be better off for it.

one I will have to spend some hours reading. You find Am. thinking people in the middle of China you know. Some of the people that came here at 20 are more Am. than some have been here since 1620. Ex. Bush family.They really have a belief in money and power only and Am. has always been more than that.

Say One Thing And Do Another has always been the primary impetus behind all of the phony "American Values" rhetoric. The propaganda is required to disguise the ugly truth.