National values in a handy chart

The 'traditional - rational' axis I have more problems with. For instance, Japan is both highly rational and highly traditional, a high-tech feudal society.

I like how the article talks about the most liberal countries being 'post-protestant'. In that term it's sort of implied that even if you've escaped religion, the type of religion you escaped determines the type of post-religious life you have. If you escape a radical, rebellious religion, you have an even more radical, rebellious secular post-religious culture to look forward to.

Imagine it, too, as an airline map. Imagine you went into a travel agent and said 'I want a holiday somewhere secular-self-expressive, please!'

'Ah, we have a special offers on flights to Stockholm and Kyoto this week!'

By the way, anyone following the link to the Maslow hierarchy of needs, please be aware that my hasty link is to a site at the University of Tennessee, and the author has added 'oneness with God' as one of the attributes of the top level of self-actualisation. Something that, as far as I'm aware, is not on Maslow's own list.

'industrialisation turns traditional societies into secular-rational ones, while post-industrial development brings about a shift towards values of self-expression'

actually suggests that as nations advance through industrialisation, heading left-to-right along the bottom axis, they should, as they hit their post-industrial stride, turn up and rise up the other axis. Subsistence and tradition are overcome together, replaced by expression and rationality. To see this process in action, we'd have to make the chart 3D, with a line showing one nation's progress, rather diagonal, from a Zimbabwe-like position to a Sweden-like position.

Like, when you fly from Britain to Norway, do you actually walk through Oslo airport thinking to yourself 'Wow, it feels a bit more secular-rational here than I'm used to!'

I think you do feel these things. London - Amsterdam is a short trip in space, but a long way in values: 'Blimey, legal spliffs, legal hookers, euthanasia... and the age of consent is 12!'

Could we add a 6th rung to the Maslow ladder of needs -- once you've done the self-actualisation thing, Level 6 is escape? Knock the tower down and start again?

I know from my own experience that I like hanging out with people lower down the Maslow ladder because I get to embody, for them, values (liberal values) I'm otherwise skeptical of. In other words, I escape the Freudian 'narcissism of small differences' trap. To put it another way, imagine a left wing Labour politician who hates most people in his own party and hangs out with Conservatives, because they make him more comfortable with his own left wing beliefs.

Is that it, or are 'traditional-survivalists' just nicer people?

We tend to like people who are struggling better than people who have arrived. I'm tempted to add 'the same way we like puppies better than people'.

What I find depressing is the idea that with inevitable Western-style industrialisation and development we’ll all end up occupying the same value-space in the top-right of the chart with no room for diversity or even debate.

Skopje wins over Stockholm because it forces me to confront ideas and values I find difficult. In don’t get that in Stockholm, Brussels, Berlin, Glasgow. I do get it in Atlanta. But if we all end up squeezed in that top right-hand corner, yawn.

that was legitimately funny (esp. re this chart)

POLE GETS WRONG PLANE TO INDIA, NOTICES SOME PARALLELS IN DEVELOPMENTAL STATUS (BUT NOTHING ELSE) BETWEEN THE COUNTRIES.

plus, i'm sure that curry kielbasa would taste very nice -- i'll have to try it sometime.

also interesting how armenia and azerbaijan also have the "not very different" status on this chart, since the two have been at blows for the past decade. those small differences can be very important, indeed.

By the way, this (and the last post) is Momus posting as Suzy (visiting with Kate and her right now. Their house in Clerkenwell is more rational-secular than mine in Bethnal Green).