Globalization was supposed to align the values. They're diverging

https://bigthink.com/the-present/worlds-values-diverging/

by Brajeshwar • 2 years ago

42 128 2 years ago

neom2• 2 years ago

I've had this thought stuck in my head for the past 10 years that comes up a lot, I wonder if anyone has written on it or research it, but it's simple and goes something like: globalized industrial/economic integration came before strong tight cultural integration.

I think that is probably a true enough framing? I sometimes then try to think about what the world would be like if the reverse had happened, but it's quite a lot to think about, so I give up quickly.

gessha2• 2 years ago

How would achieve cultural integration without trade?

This reminds me of how much technological progress the British had to make so they can reach India.

I also wonder what life on the Americas would’ve looked like if the Europeans didn’t wipe out the natives with deceases, horses and guns.

soco2• 2 years ago

The question is: when did those Europeans cease to be Europeans and started to be Americans? Is there some overlap with the wiping out of the natives? Of course the distinction is insignificant when looked at from the natives' side, but there's a difference between European nations sending people to wipe out natives, and European people fleeing their countries to become Americans and en passant also wiping out natives. Or I didn't really understand your point.

neom2• 2 years ago

Yup, that's the first big question, also I didn't mean to put an absolute on them, it was more the emphasis switched. Then I think the answer becomes: slowly. That's also why it's hard to think about, it's such a different reality, where would we be today technologically, and where would we be socially? Maybe it's a pointless thought experiment, but personally I find it somewhat interesting.

lasermike026• 2 years ago

It was always a lie.

lenerdenator2• 2 years ago

It sort of did for the EU/UK, Japan, South Korea, and Anglo/Francophone North America.

It didn't with China, where they think they can do better than the global economic system that drastically improved their standard of living.

aprilthird20216• 2 years ago

The global economic system has nothing to do with tolerance of abortion, homosexuality, etc...

lenerdenator2• 2 years ago

It has everything to do with it. I'm in the Midwest. Know who buys into abortion bans, homophobia and the like around here? People who would have had a decent job 50 years ago before we shipped those off, but now get stuck in their small town 120 miles from the nearest city of note.

ajmurmann2• 2 years ago

In 1981, 39% of Australians said childhood obedience was important and 45% said divorce was justifiable. That same year, 32% and 10% of Pakistanis respectively agreed with those statements. In 2021, only 18% of Australians compared to 49% of Pakistanis said childhood obedience was important, while 74% of Australians and 15% of Pakistanis viewed divorce as justifiable.

I wish there was more raw data here. This is the only raw data provided and in it acceptance of divorce in Pakistan grew by 50%. It's still low at 15%, but the relative growth is significant! Given the article claims correlation with wealth growth, Pakistan probably isn't a great example, since their economy has been relatively flat.

Not saying the article is wrong, but I'd simply love to get more data to understand the magnitude.

hx82• 2 years ago

Furthermore, I wonder what the views of childhood obedience are those people actively raising a child in each country. I would say "childhood obedience is not important" because I don't spend time near children.

Dalewyn• 2 years ago

While "children must be seen, not heard" of ye olde days is probably too strict for parents of today, I do think there is value in childhood obedience. Namely, it nurtures and grows discipline; and a lot of that simply can't be taught properly without starting from a very young age because that's when moral compasses are molded.

You're always going to be under someone in life and life is never going to go perfectly your way. What separates those who succeed from those who fail is whether you know how to handle it, which childhood obedience will teach you.

graemep• 2 years ago

The paper is more informative than the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46581-5

I also wonder whether more wealth meaning more westernised will continue to hold given the west is no longer economically dominant.

ajmurmann2• 2 years ago

If you look at per capita who is dominant but the West? AFAIK it's by far the most prosperous if we ignore tiny countries that are either tax havens or oil countries which has been the case for decades.

em500• 2 years ago

Raw data comes from https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV7.jsp, the paper is here https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46581-5. Both are linked from the article.

orangesite• 2 years ago

Yes well… I can see where the confusion would arise if we believed keeping foreign policy unchanged and just calling it globalization would somehow align the values.

aestetix2• 2 years ago

The world's peoples were particularly less likely to agree on the ethics of homosexuality, euthanasia, divorce, prostitution, and abortion. Residents of wealthy countries grew more comfortable with all those topics, while residents of poorer countries were less so. Why did the trend towards tolerance and self-expression stall in poorer nations?

Extreme bias on the part of the author. Also, the statement is objectively untrue. It appears that the author has opinions on hot-button issues, calls his opinions "tolerant," and proceeds to wonder why poor countries disagree with him.

unglaublich2• 2 years ago

What other people do with their bodies is not a hot-button issue. You either accept it and are tolerant, or you don’t and you are intolerant.

So yes, being uncomfortable with others’ freedom of sexuality, etc. is by definition intolerant.

You can be a heterosexual Christian conservative married for life 3 children housewife while still being tolerant of those that are not.

throwaway220323• 2 years ago

This ignores the fact that societal norms affect your ability to live your life.

As an extreme example, imagine trying to find a stable husband and raise a family in a world in which every other woman treated sex as being valueless and beautiful women wandered the streets naked and giving it up to passers by.

It might be intolerant to prefer a society that isn't like that, but that doesn't automatically make it bad.

edit: Most of the responses here are missing the point because they're trying to take a side (in a deliberately fake, over the top scenario) rather than engaging with the concept. The behaviour of other people affects you and it's perfectly normal both to want to surround yourself with others who share your values, and to exert pressure to push wider society in that direction.

aestetix2• 2 years ago

Perhaps you could then ahem enlighten American lawmakers who passed FOSTA/SESTA in the US, which effectively criminalizes prostitution and has lead to many sex workers losing their livelihoods.

tivert2• 2 years ago

> Extreme bias on the part of the author. Also, the statement is objectively untrue. It appears that the author has opinions on hot-button issues, calls his opinions "tolerant," and proceeds to wonder why poor countries disagree with him.

I think the bias is equating "tolerant" with good and "intolerant" with bad, which I think you're doing too.

In my experience, that implicit bias is pretty common in the language of Americans, especially liberals, but even conservatives (who would understand being called "intolerant" is a reproach).

What other people do with their bodies is not a hot-button issue. You either accept it and are tolerant, or you don’t and you are intolerant.

I don't think it's that simple. Are you "tolerant"? Are you tolerant of people shitting on the sidewalk? I doubt it, but it's still falls under the rubric of "something other people do with their bodies." In actual practice "being tolerant" is actually defined as subscribing to a very particular set of social positions. It's one of those language tricks liberals seem particularly prone to use for manipulation.

majikaja• 2 years ago

First worlders became irresponsible and decadent

aprilthird20216• 2 years ago

The article assumes that wealth should correlate with an increase in, decidedly secular values (tolerance of homosexuality, divorce, abortion, freedom of expression, etc.)

In a vacuum this makes sense; poverty causes people to be very dependent on each other to share resources, and when any group of people depend on each other so much, they need a set of shared rules and norms to govern their interactions with each other. Rich people can live relatively more independent lives and so for them self-expression is obviously easy to endorse. Poorer people depend on each other and the better they fit in the more accessible to resources they have. They thus have no incentive to bring more non-conforming people into the fold to diminish their resource pool and erode their shared values which help them work together with the people they depend on.

But this strikes me as one of those things statistics and surveys cannot measure. I am from one of the "poorer" and "anti-Western" countries, and even as people have become wealthier there has been a staunch anti-Western sentiment. It feels to me, without much statistical proof to back it up, that two things occur:

1. There's lots of distrust for people who become wealthy and also are seen as selling out the shared morals and values of their people, in every country, Western or otherwise. You can see the anger hurled towards Hollywood celebrities by conservatives and conservative religious people in the US as an example. But a solid chunk of American rich people are conservative morally. They tend to keep their American values in tact and are relatively humble. Consider Bill Gates who wears a Casio watch, Zuckerberg who dresses in t shirts, Buffett who eats McDonald's every day, etc. These are very American traits every one. Alternatively, many of the elite in poorer countries are more American than they are from their own people. They retain very few cultural aspects of their own people. In essence, most of the elites of the third world are like Hollywood celebrities rather than down to Earth people who the masses can see themselves in. This isn't always true (Ambani is a notable exception), but it's often true.

2. As other countries have not yet totally bought into the Americanization of the world, they're aware of and wary of the pitfalls that come with it. The shift towards liberal values have come with great individual freedom and enormous strides in humane treatment of others, but they've also come with increasing isolation, the breakdown of families, shrinking and aging populations, and many other negatives. It wasn't clear to people before that conservative values might be the glue that keep large families and tight-knit societies together (it may not even be true, but the perception that it might be still grows). So I'd say the lag in those values spreading around the world has given people time to think about whether the tradeoff is worth it. Many still say yes, but larger and larger numbers of people are pushing back than before

hx82• 2 years ago

The article assumes that wealth should correlate with an increase in

No, the article observes wealthy countries and less wealthy countries have different values based on survey results.

david-gpu• 2 years ago

The shift towards liberal values have come with great individual freedom and enormous strides in humane treatment of others, but they've also come with increasing isolation, the breakdown of families, shrinking and aging populations, and many other negatives

While these things have converged in time, I don't see how the shift towards liberal values (i.e. kindness towards people different to oneself) has in any way caused the other societal issues you mention. Just as an example, doesn't homophobia contribute to "the breakdown of families"?

I do appreciate your very measured contribution to a thread that is otherwise leading to shallow inflammatory comments.

blackbear_• 2 years ago

Liberal values need not be the only cause, increased individual freedom is also a factor. For example, it takes a lot of work and sacrifice to establish and preserve a good and happy relationship and family. Without the external pressure from society, many people are choosing not to bother with this difficulty and rather focus on their own lives and enjoyment.

aprilthird20216• 2 years ago

Sure I can expound on the idea. Thanks for not conflating me personally with these ideas, I just like to talk about them with others to help form my own opinions.

I mostly mean that when a society is very tolerant of wildly differing views and values (both conservative religious and secular types), then people congregate to their favored values and leave their families. In a way we create clusters of our own thinking. It's kind of like the forum-ization of our lives.

In a world where obedience to a larger set of shared values (even by those who disagree with them) is emphasized and important, you actually end up spending more time with people you don't agree with at the core. Familial bonds are stronger in such a world because familial bonds aren't based at all on shared values, so having an imposed shared value on the family keeps the differences in values from breaking it apart.

Hopefully this makes sense and doesn't sound like rambling.

I would compare it to the hippie counterculture of the 60s and 70s. It was a far bigger tent of differing people and values than any subculture you can find today. Back when tolerance was less, anyone who was different stuck together and there wasn't room for big disagreements and splintering, etc. (there eventually was and this is what killed that culture). I feel a similar thing is happening in our world. Tolerance of everything means, why spend your time and effort on pesky family members you disagree with at the core?

Again these are all unquantifiable and so they run the risk of being unprovable and wrong. But when the numbers can't tell you the story you have to fill it in somehow.

everdrive• 2 years ago

Was globalization supposed to "align the values?" I'm not sure this is really true. The closest argument I've heard in this regard is that globalization will generally make people more capitalistic, and more liberal. (in the "small l" sense) I'm not sure that's any reason to think that this would make people adopt the same values.

I also have ZERO reason to think that to the degree that things are splintering, globalism has anything to do with it. I'd lay that blame on social media. It's social media and the internet which present a different reality for me than for my next-door neighbor, and social which feeds me the most interesting (ie, extreme) views on just about any topic I could hope to research.

unglaublich2• 2 years ago

It’s true in the commercial sense: we all wear Nikes, AirPods, drink CocaCola and buy Ford.

RugnirViking• 2 years ago

even as of western Europe, the response to that list of four brands would be yes, no, yes, no. Apple doesnt have as big a hold here, and ford is much smaller of a car brand. CocaCola is big here.

coffeebeqn• 2 years ago

Globalization is at its root manufacturing resources in the place its most efficient/cheapest. I don’t know that it’s “supposed” to do anything else - maybe some of the foolish end of history thinkers thought that but I don’t see how that premise would lead to anything other than what it says on the tin

vundercind2• 2 years ago

It was (I think it’s finally starting to wane now that reality is becoming impossible to ignore) regarded as nigh-fact by the neoliberal consensus that has driven Washington since the early ‘80s. Like they’d just dismiss anyone who questioned it as clearly an idiot.

Red_Leaves_Flyy• 2 years ago

Globalization is just a step on the path of capitalizing and commodifying humanity. The wholesale subjugation of most people to toil m so the fruits of their labor can be accumulated by people whose only claim to these spoils is from circumstance, charitably speaking, is an indictment of the very people responsible for this status quo.

jhbadger• 2 years ago

The argument was that capitalistic success was thought to be linked to having an open democratic society, perhaps because of the great economic success West Germany and Japan had in the postwar decades after becoming democracies. But China and Russia have shown that you can have relative economic success without openness or democracy.

jampekka2• 2 years ago

E.g. South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan also grew their economies rapidly, although they were more or less right-wing dictatorships.

jampekka2• 2 years ago

I'd say increasing economic inequality is the main driver. With inequality, the actual, not just presented, reality is different.

Income inequality correlates with polarization of values, and it's been on the rise for a long time. And wealth inequality is a lot worse.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8608558/

MyFedora• 2 years ago

No, globalization wasn't supposed to align social values, and the article itself clarifies this point. While some thought globalization might lead to a convergence of social values based on liberal ideals of personal rights and freedoms, this assumption was overly simplistic.

The idea that globalization would lead to a universal adoption of Western values seems almost laughable. It's as if they had never engaged with cultures like China, where Western ideals can feel as alien as their own do to us. Concepts like democracy, with its emphasis on individual choice, don't necessarily resonate in societies where centralized leadership is seen as more effective. Likewise, the Western emphasis on individualism contrasts with cultures that prioritize community and collective responsibility.

It's not that these values are inherently wrong; they're just different. There's no inherent reason for cultures to adopt Western values. If anything, the spread of Western ideals across the globe has often been the result of colonialism, where Western nations imposed their ideologies on other societies, claiming them to be superior.

apienx• 2 years ago

Over time, global values are becoming more aligned, particularly around ideals like free thought, free speech, and the open exchange of ideas and goods. Yet, this trend towards universal values is clashing with certain cultures that feel threatened. These cultures respond to perceived existential threats by rallying around authoritarian leaders, implementing stricter regulations.

Frustratingly, the study focuses too heavily on GDP per capita and largely overlooks the devastating effects of nationalism and religion. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46581-5

Slava_Propanei• 2 years ago

Weird that you think so highly of free thought, when your goal is to replace all cultures with one thought.

lazide4• 2 years ago

Cite on ‘global values being aligned’?

People interacting with the same systems we do tend to be more aligned, but as you’re calling out a large portion of the populations feel insecure and are lashing out - and going even harder in the other direction.

hparadiz2• 2 years ago

I was recently hanging out in VRChat and it hit me that the people I was talking to were speaking back to me using an almost American accent despite being native nordic Europeans. Culture is homogonizing at an incredible pace.

throwaway220323• 2 years ago

N=1, but as someone who used to think of himself as being quite progressive and would now see myself as being in the "insecure" population (just using your terminology) -

From my perspective it seems as if organised progressivism ends up "going too far", because once you've got the win, you either stop and lose your reason to exist, or invent another cause and go for that.

It's like a treadmill and most people I know hopped off at some point because it got a bit too.. crazy? unstable? I kind of want to be able to plan my life long term, not have the rules change every 5 years.

tengbretson• 2 years ago

Over time, global values are becoming more aligned, particularly around ideals like free thought, free speech, and the open exchange of ideas and goods. Yet, this trend towards universal values...

Kind of just sounds like a romanticized justification for modern western imperialism.

boxed8• 2 years ago

It's funny how some people scream "imperialism" against anything. Just because "the west" is the poster child for human rights, medicine, industrialization, etc, doesn't mean it's bad. This meme of "western == bad" has got people very confused.

linguae2• 2 years ago

This dis-alignment of global values is happening within the West where the fortunes of world-class "winner" cities like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, and the like have diverged from the fortunes of second- and third-tier cities and rural areas within the same countries. The past three or four decades of economic policy has benefitted the middle class and wealthy in many "winner" cities. If somebody bought a home roughly 20 years ago in a metro area with many high-paying job opportunities, that person is likely to have enjoyed massive gains in equity provided that person weathered the 2008 crash. Many people living in these areas also take advantage of a wide range of well-paying job opportunities. But what about the urban poor in these metro areas who can't get a high-paying job due to a lack of credentials? Closer to the point of the article, what about those living in areas far away from booming metro areas?

A significant cause of the rise of the populist right in the West (e.g., Donald Trump/MAGA in the United States, Brexit in Britain, various European right-wingers such as Marine Le Pen and Viktor Orban) is the economic woes faced by people who have been left behind. Think of the hollowing out of industrial and rural America, for example, and how this has reduced economic opportunities for the people living in these areas. Unfortunately, these economic concerns have been eclipsed by "culture war" matters, with a strong belief that the values of prosperous urban areas in the West are at odds with the values of less-urban parts of the West. If urban areas are becoming more internationalist, then rural areas are becoming more nationalist. Some of these populist right-wingers have an authoritarian bent; to quote the OP, the rise of the populist right definitely consists of examples of "cultures respond[ing] to perceived existential threats by rallying around authoritarian leaders, implementing stricter regulations."

avmich6• 2 years ago

West has really not much of a choice here. The US Declaration of Independence states:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

I understand it as the West believes it's the objective truth that the people want freedom among other things, and no references to the contrary are truthful. So when China says the West pushes their values down the throat, West shrugs and notes that 1) liberty is needed 2) there's no (enough) liberty in China - and that's enough to continue to push the values. Or, in other words - China, accept that the freedom is important, change the behavior accordingly - and West will stop insisting on deficiencies in this area.

So, ideas. They are hard to resist, other than by the other ideas. So far those other ideas are national traditions, which are doubtful on the surface, as it seems all nations reaching democracy mostly don't want to come back. Here the West receives the confirmation of its point of view, and the approach remains.

datadrivenangel• 2 years ago

An Australian mate of mine told a humorous anecdote about some people in Australia talking about their Right To Privacy.

Australia does not have the constitutional right to privacy like the US does...

mikeruiz2• 2 years ago

The US doesn’t either. Whatever federal privacy protections that exist in the US are the result of Supreme Court interpretation, the most famous of which (Roe v Wade) was just overturned (Dobbs).

xen2xen1• 2 years ago

I've heard a few stories of African folks, in Africa, ask for their Miranda rights. Which literally is an American court case, and only works here. "Aren't you going to read me my rights?" "No, that's doesn't exist here!"

Jiro• 2 years ago

Europe has become pretty bad on free speech recently, and I don't think it can be explained that way. If anything, it gets justified by the fight against nationalism.

atlantic2• 2 years ago

Globalization is a misnomer. There are no universal values. The west is trying to push its value system on others, through means fair or foul. It's the new colonialism. And other cultures "feel threatened" by these "perceived existential threats". How dare they resist our benevolence?

AnimalMuppet3• 2 years ago

Is there anyone, anywhere, who doesn't want to be able to say what they want, without fear?

What there are, though, are lots of people who don't want other people to be able to speak freely.

zzzeek• 2 years ago

this is a good article with a bad headline. The headline is going to cause a big long thread here about "globalization == bad". The actual article though doesn't really point to globalization as a failure, only that there's a lot of other compounding factors, in particular continuing wealth inequality, environmental collapse, and the opposition of authoritarian nations like Iran, Russia and China, that are continuing to drive global polarization.

hammon• 2 years ago

Unfortunately all the supposed great value of the West were bytrailed be govs (i.e. in EU). Assange is still in jail for exposing Crimes, America gov is still fighting random wars around the globe, EU is dictating stupid rules to members countries bypassing parlaments (let's talks about cookies warnings on EU websites, or digital acts to censor socialnets, or evev not able to go to work without the nazipass a few years ago), Israel is free to bomb civilians protected by US, LGBTQ propaganda riched an imbarassig level on Walt Disney and netflix and now is getting the opposite reactions by people. But feel free to tell yourself is a matter of money Diverging to this madness seems the least.

avmich6• 2 years ago

America gov is still fighting random wars around the globe

Give credit where it's due, last 3 presidents were consistently trying to reduce the number of foreign - non-USA - countries where American soldiers were operating. Amount of war operations is reduced significantly.

dgfitz• 2 years ago

*embarrassing, not “imbarassig” for future efforts.

My head has been buried in the sand for most of the whole Gaza thing, but it sure looks like a classic case of ‘person A punched person B in the face and did not expect that B would punch A, back.’

Sure there is a lot more to it than that, but what the fuck did people expect Israel to do?

cm2187• 2 years ago

A large part of that is the rise of islamism in the muslim world.

aprilthird20216• 2 years ago

Not really, you see anti-Westernism rising in India amongst the Hindu majority also while the country is getting wealthier

throwaway220323• 2 years ago

I feel as if people tend to forget that to some degree the way societies are organised, their morals etc, are basically an element of a wider competition.

Maybe a society with an 0.5 fertility rate but advanced manufacturing / military capability / whatever wins. Maybe a society with a fertility rate of 4 but that is otherwise quite backwards wins out. Maybe AGI kills us all and makes this irrelevant.

Hizonner• 2 years ago

I skimmed over it quickly, and noticed that in every example I spotted, the difference had grown, but the direction of change on both sides had been the same. Some countries were moving faster than others, but they were going in the same direction.

So I kind of wonder whether the whole framing was mostly chosen for sexiness.

adolph• 2 years ago

All data and [and code] are available on the open science framework at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/F9BZ7.

progrus• 2 years ago

There’s a Bible story about this

antisthenes• 2 years ago

What a weird article and nonsense premise.

Globalization was never about values. It was always about capital being global and having access to workforces of multiple countries. It was about squeezing efficiency out of cheap workforces previously unavailable, while shifting all the unsavory stuff out of eyesight of your consumers and constituents.

To think that this would "align" the poor country workforce with the developed country consumerist demographic is such absolute nonsense.

Globalization was supposed to align the values. They're diverging

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