How Society Evolves - Introducing The World Values Survey

"The growing globalization of the world makes it increasingly important to
understand diversity. People with varying beliefs and values can live together
and work together productively, but for this to happen it is crucial to
understand and appreciate their distinctive worldviews." - Romano Prodi

• Introduction to the World Values Survey : The World Values Survey (WVS) is a comprehensive research project examining global values and beliefs and their evolution over time. It covers over 100 countries and 90% of the world's population, surveying attitudes on various topics including democracy, religion, economic security, and happiness.

• Structure of the World Values Survey Data : The WVS organizes countries into categories based on two axes: survival vs. self-expression values and traditional vs. secular-rational values. This helps to understand the cultural and economic differences among nations.
• Classifying Countries by Value Systems : Countries are segmented into low-income, mid-tier, and high-income groups based on GDP and values, with less developed countries often being more traditional and survival-oriented, aligning with earlier stages of Spiral Dynamics, and wealthier countries being more secular-rational and self-expressive.
• Linking Economic Success with Cultural Values : The survey reveals a significant connection between a country's economic status and its cultural values, including the level of democracy and cultural tolerance, indicating that these factors are interdependent.
• Overview of Correlations in the WVS : The WVS highlights that as countries evolve economically, they also progress culturally, moving from traditional and survival values to secular-rational and self-expressive values which encompass higher levels of tolerance, democratic governance, and environmental awareness.
• Considerations in Interpreting Data : Caution is emphasized regarding the interpretation of the classification of countries to avoid confounding it with racial or cultural superiority, as all countries have the potential for growth and change.
• Survival as a Primordial Driver : Survival is the central force behind values and worldviews as both individuals and societies develop strategies to meet their survival challenges, encompassing not just physical but also cultural survival, identity, and ideological continuity.
• Survival Needs Dictating Values : Basic needs must be met before people can prioritize self-expression values like creativity and consciousness, reflecting Maslow's hierarchy, which conveys the necessity of addressing fundamental necessities to build the foundation for higher pursuits.
• Geographical Impact on Survival Challenges : Survival challenges and the values derived from them are heavily influenced by geographic factors such as climate and resource availability, which shape the socio-cultural adaptations specific to each region and era.
• Cultural Evolution : Culture is an adaptable survival strategy that can change rapidly under certain conditions, representing collective responses to survival in various geographical and historical contexts, with technology significantly influencing these shifts.

• Generational Resistance to Change : Societal values evolve slowly, primarily due to generational inertia, as each new generation is imprinted with prevailing cultural norms, often resistant to adaptation despite shifts in technology or environment.
• Societal Progression : Society advances incrementally like an inchworm, with each generation leaping past the previous one in values and perspectives as the older generation's worldviews dissolve with passing, allowing for newer paradigms.
• Historian Ian Morris's View on Value Systems : Historian Ian Morris suggests that societies develop value systems appropriate for their stage of development—whether foraging, farming, or industrial—through an evolutionary process.

• Crystallization of Personality and Values by Adulthood : One's basic personality structure and values largely solidify by adulthood, changing little thereafter, highlighting the difficulty of altering established cultural norms and social values.

• Enforcement of Cultural Norms by Older Generations : Cultural norms and values are predominantly enforced by the eldest generations, who are often resistant to change, suggesting societal transformation may accelerate as these generations pass away.
• Survival Security's Impact on Worldview : A person's sense of survival security during childhood significantly impacts their worldview, with insecure environments fostering a more materialistic and paranoid outlook compared to a secure upbringing.

• Democratic Values and Economic Prosperity : Effective democracies with an emphasis on self-expression values tend to exist in more economically prosperous societies, while countries emphasizing survival values often have ineffective or corrupt democracies.

• Authority Submission in Insecure Societies : In societies facing insecurity such as threats of invasion or economic collapse, there is a tendency for people to submit to authoritarian rule for the sake of survival and protection.

• Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) : Transparency International's CPI for 2018 ranks countries on a scale from 0 (entirely corrupt) to 100 (completely clean), with Western and Northern European, North American, Australian, and New Zealand countries ranking as least corrupt. Highly corrupt nations are often found in parts of Asia, Africa, South America, Russia, and Eastern Europe.

• Correlation between Corruption and Democracy : The CPI data shows a clear correlation with the World Values Survey findings, indicating countries with higher corruption levels have less democracy and vice versa, with full democracies correlating with low corruption levels.
• Economic Development's Influence on Social Beliefs and Values : As economic conditions improve, shifting from dire poverty to modest economic security, there's systemic change in societal beliefs and values. Low-income societies, without exception, cling to traditional survival values and are solidly against gender equality and gay tolerance, largely due to the survival importance of the traditional family unit.

• Traditional Gender Roles in Low-Income Societies : Low-income societies necessitate clear gender roles—women as caregivers and men as providers—to survive. This changes as societies progress technologically, allowing for more gender equality and tolerance, including open attitudes towards homosexuality due to overpopulation and economic independence.

• Religion as a Unifying Survival Mechanism : Early traumatic experiences make individuals more religious, as religion creates a shared moral code for survival. Islam's historical role in unifying warring tribes in the Middle East, creating moral codes and advancing peace, illustrates religion's evolutionary function despite modern criticism of its effect on societal development.

• Homosexuality Legislation and Societal Attitudes Statistics : Self-expression-oriented societies, such as Sweden and Canada, show legal acceptance and low objection rates to homosexuality. In contrast, survival-oriented ones, like Iran and Bangladesh, harshly penalize it, reflecting the drastic variance of worldviews based on a society's level of development.

• Societal Views on God and Homosexuality : In traditional societies, up to 95% say God is vital in their lives, whereas in secular-rational societies, that figure drops to 3%. Similarly, up to 96% in survival-oriented societies see homosexuality as unjustifiable versus just 6% in self-expression-oriented societies.

• Child-Rearing Values Shift : Societal progression leads to a shift in parenting values, moving from emphasizing hard work to encouraging imagination and tolerance, reflecting the current survival necessities and societal development of a country and its impact on raising the next generation.

• Life Satisfaction and Happiness Correlation with Values : People prioritizing survival values experience less life satisfaction and happiness compared to those valuing self-expression, which can be linked to the level of immediate survival pressures and opportunities for personal fulfillment beyond material needs.
• Trend towards self-expression values : Societies move from survival values to self-expression values because it correlates with increased happiness. Basic survival activities provide mild satisfaction, but true fulfillment is found in being artistic, creative, and spiritually authentic.

• Self-actualization after basic needs : Once survival needs are satisfied, self-actualization becomes the focus. People start exploring creativity, purpose, impact, education, consciousness, and spirituality, significantly contributing to life satisfaction.
• Correlation between GDP and happiness : A chart analysis shows wealthier countries tend to have higher happiness levels. There's a clear positive relationship between a country's GDP per capita and the life satisfaction of its citizens.

• Diminishing returns on happiness : For wealthier countries, increasing GDP yields diminishing returns in life satisfaction. True fulfillment is more related to contributing to society, personal growth, and self-actualization than to further economic growth.
• Material struggle in less developed countries : In countries with weaker economies, material struggle hinders the pursuit of self-actualization. Cultural and economic challenges in these regions make it difficult to invest in personal growth.
• Global trends of societal progress : Despite perceptions of regression, global societal progress includes rises in life expectancy, incomes, and education levels, and declines in poverty, illiteracy, and violence, contributing to an overall increase in happiness.

• Changes in societal values over decades : Depending on political, social, and economic circumstances, some countries have progressed towards self-expression values, while others have regressed to traditional values, with nationalism emerging during economic decline.
• Cultural change and nationalism : Economic decline and survival threats can lead to increased nationalism and a rise in authoritarian leaders. Nationalistic trends are a response to perceived survival threats rather than evidence of societal regression.
• Regressive cultural trends as precursors to progress : Temporary regressive trends in societies often precede more progressive movements in the future. Understanding historical context and societal development offers hope for continued advancement.
• Impact of economic collapse on cultural progress : Cultural progress may reverse during economic failure, highlighting the importance of stable socioeconomic structures for the maintenance of societal evolution toward self-expression values.
• Understanding Political Development and Fundamentalism : As societies shift from survival values to self-expressive values, dictators may naturally lose power. Fundamentalism can be seen as a reaction against secularization's perceived threats, and understanding this is critical for addressing such movements.
• Role of Younger Generations in Societal Change : Younger generations, especially those in metropolitan areas, lead major cultural changes towards self-expression and secular-rational values, paving the way for shifts in democracy and liberalism.
• Evolution of Societies Leading to Secularism : Industrialization and economic development correlate with societies becoming more secular. As countries develop, they move towards self-expression values, and democracy becomes more widely desired.
• Linkage between Education and Societal Values : Education is connected with the transition to secular-rational and self-expression values. Improving educational access is essential for fostering liberal beliefs and overall happiness in a society.
• Consequences of Economic Development on Values : Economic development promotes societal change, leading to increased education, technology, and a move towards self-expression values, although this can cause fear and backlash.
• Shared experience and predictive power of nationality : Nationality serves as a stronger predictor of shared values and experiences than income, education, region, or sex. This is attributed to each country's national education system, which indoctrinates children with specific languages, values, and religious or secular orientations.

• The fallacy of uniform experiences across demographics : Assumptions that groups such as women or religious followers across different countries share similar experiences are challenged by cultural and developmental differences facilitated by national education systems.
• Values as better societal dividers : Dividing people based on values—whether survival or self-expression, traditional or secular-rational—is more accurate than using demographics like gender or income.
• Individualism shaped by societal development : Individualism is fostered by a society's technological advancements and bureaucracy, challenging libertarian views on individual responsibility.

• Primitive societies and collectivism : Primitive tribes exemplify extreme collectivism with little to no room for individualism, contrary to libertarian ideals which suggest minimal governance and maximum personal autonomy.
• Eras of societal evolution affecting individualism : As societies evolved from primitive to advanced structures with technologies, laws, and governance, individual autonomy increased. However, human history lacks periods of true lone individualism, debunking romanticized libertarian notions.
• Oscillation between individualism and collectivism : Societies fluctuate between individualistic and collectivist tendencies based on environmental and developmental needs, with no single ideology as inherently superior.
• Elections and democracy in the Muslim world : Simply holding elections will not establish democracy in the Muslim world without considering the population's value systems and level of societal development.

• Western culture's perception by Islamic fundamentalists : Secular trends in western culture are seen as threats by Islamic fundamentalists, who view them as an erosion of societal stability and religious influence.

• Cultural change driven by younger generations : Major cultural shifts continue as younger, more liberal generations influenced by diverse metropolitan areas, replace older, more conservative ones.

• Predictable evolution of human values : Trends show clear patterns in how societies are projected to evolve, with increases in basic survival corresponding to shifts from traditional to secular-rational values and from agrarian to industrial stages.
• Industrialization's impact on societal development : Industrialization marks a critical juncture in nations' development, corresponding to a shift toward secular-rational values and higher chances of becoming more democratic and developed in the long term.
• Individual agency and knowledge societies : The shift from industrial societies to knowledge-based economies produces the largest increase in individual agency, making individualism viable and pushing societies closer to self-expression values.
• Democracy driven by self-expression values : The emergence of democracy is more naturally tied to the advancement towards self-expression values rather than the imposition of democratic structures by external forces.
• Universality of democratic desires : The aspiration for democracy is universal and not exclusively a Western construct; it emerges when societies develop beyond survival needs to embrace self-expression values.
• Diverse paths to Western values : While termed 'Western,' these democratic and secular values will naturally become common to all societies as they progress to meet their citizens' survival needs and education levels increase, leading to the universal adoption of these values.
• Liberal vs. Conservative Perspectives : The younger generations trend towards more liberal viewpoints; they face fewer survival threats, resulting in more liberal values compared to older, less educated generations who have faced more survival threats.
• Rise in Global Happiness : Between 1981 and 2007, happiness increased in 45 out of the 52 surveyed countries, aligning with rises in material wealth, education, and healthcare.
• Happiness in Relation to Economy and Democracy : In low-income societies, economic improvement greatly increases happiness, while in high-income societies, increases in happiness are more tied to democracy and self-expression.
• Societal Evolution Stages : Human societies evolve through stages of hunting and gathering, horticulture, agrarian, industrial, and post-industrial phases, driven by education, economic success, and the need for knowledge workers.
• Transition from Totalitarian Regimes to Democracies : As societies organize and educate more people, demands for democracy rise due to broader education and technological advancements, which lead to more sophisticated thinking and a desire for rights and freedoms.
• Secularization and Decline of Organized Religion : High education levels lead to secular rational thinking and questioning of traditions, resulting in the decline of organized religions and traditional prejudices like xenophobia and sexism.
• Response to Secularism with Fundamentalist Movements : Fundamentalist movements emerge as reactionary forces among less educated and economically advanced segments against the prevailing secularism, but these movements are often temporary.
• Generational Change and Advancement of Societies : Each new generation is progressively more liberal than the previous one, driven by societal successes and shifting survival threats, requiring understanding and patience between generations.
• Importance of Understanding Generational Differences : Recognition that society changes over time, and that older generations' fears stem from outdated survival threats, can help bridge the gap in understanding and acceptance between different age groups.
• Society as a Memory Bank for Generations : Society captures lessons from past generations in its institutions and technology, continually evolving as each generation contributes to the collective knowledge.
• Resistance to Progress by Older Generations : Baby boomers' reluctance to address modern challenges like climate change stems from holding power and wealth, hindering progress necessary for future generations.
• Evolving Views on Socialism in American Politics : Generational differences in perception of socialism affect political support, with younger generations more open to progressive politics than older generations who lived through the Cold War.
• Population Growth and Environmental Consciousness : Since the baby boomers' era, the global population has doubled, leading to scaled mass problems such as pollution, CO2 emissions, and environmental degradation. Newer generations are much more environmentally conscious from necessity, as they are raised with an awareness of the significance of issues such as lead in water and the impact of pollutants on health.
• Society as an Evolving Entity : Society is likened to an escalator, always advancing and churning through changes. The recognition is made that returning to the past, such as the 1950s era as suggested by slogans like "Make America Great Again", is an implausible fantasy because of drastic changes including population growth, technology, and environmental issues.
• Liberal Progression Versus Conservative Preservation : Leo Gura proposes that society's arc bends towards liberalism and democracy, with liberals representing secular-rational and self-expressive values, and conservatives upholding traditional survival values. He argues that every generation becomes more liberal relative to previous generations and emphasizes that conservatives aim to preserve the status quo, regardless of what that entails.
• Role of Death in Societal Progress : The natural process of generational death is seen as critical to societal progress, as it allows older ideologies to be replaced with fresher perspectives, thereby avoiding a 'constipation' of ideas and enabling evolution.
• Misconception about the Future of Spirituality : It is highlighted that spirituality is not disappearing but transforming. Liberal secular-rational values will eventually lead to a more authentic and individualistic spirituality, involving experiences like meditation and psychedelics.
• Polarization between Liberals and Conservatives : The discourse notes that while liberals often view conservatives as less evolved, and conservatives see liberals as unrealistic, both camps need to foster compassion and understanding. Racism, homophobia, and other forms of prejudice are seen not merely as moral failings but as survival responses conditioned by one's upbringing.
• Understanding Cultural Evolution : Many people are blind to the rapid progression of cultural evolution because acknowledging it would threaten their established worldview. Cultural evolution will continue regardless of resistance, propelled by younger and future generations.
• Denial of Religion's Evolution : Acknowledges the reluctance to accept that religions evolve, citing that Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism today differ greatly from their forms thousands of years ago. This denial secures a bubble for the faithful but obstructs the recognition of religions' historical and continuous adaptations.
• Concluding Thoughts on World Values Survey : Leo emphasizes that the World Values Survey collaborates well with models like Spiral Dynamics, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and the corruption perception index. He warns against using the survey data for nationalistic or racist claims, emphasizing the importance of multiple models in understanding cultural evolution, and recognizing the potential for greater global consciousness, equality, democracy, justice, and love.
• Limitations of the World Values Survey : The WVS does not depict the highest stages of development as identified in models like Spiral Dynamics which include stages yellow and turquoise. It only captures broad trends prevalent in a significant portion of the population, leaving rare values like those of stage turquoise underrepresented.
• Potential of Future Data Reflection : In future decades, values such as those corresponding to Spiral Dynamics stage turquoise may become more common, potentially representing around 5% of the population, which could then be reflected in the World Values Survey.
• Models and Future Anticipation : The function of models like the World Values Survey differs from those that anticipate future trends or speculate about the direction of mankind's evolution. Recognizing the limitations and non-absoluteness of any single model is important.
• Secular-Rational Values Not the Pinnacle : The WVS might give the impression that secular-rational values represent the pinnacle of human development. However, there are concepts and experiences beyond secular rationality, such as post-rationality, vision-logic, and non-duality, which are less widespread and more neglected.
• Ensuring Models Don't Limit Personal Growth : While the WVS indicates general trends, individuals living in societies categorized as underdeveloped can still achieve high levels of consciousness or self-actualization. Obstacles may be present, but personal growth is not solely determined by collective societal trends.
• Empowerment Through Data : Leo encourages using data for empowerment in areas where it is helpful, dismissing it where it appears disempowering. The aim is to focus on personal development, leadership, and making a positive impact in the world.
• Role of Actualized.org : Leo introduces Actualized.org as a resource for individuals seeking personal development and higher consciousness. The site offers content including blogs, forums, and life purpose courses designed to guide people in realizing their highest potential.
• Importance of Conscious Politics : Politics is significant in creating conditions that facilitate personal growth and awakening. As society progresses, democracy requires conscious citizens, thereby making political consciousness essential for societal advancement.
• Choice of Alignment in Societal Progress : Societies are constantly evolving, growing towards consciousness, equality, democracy, justice, love, and less fear. Individuals must choose whether to align with love and consciousness or fear and selfishness, as fear and falsehood will eventually be overcome by love and truth.
• Actualized.org Resources : Leo mentions various resources available on actualized.org that can assist individuals in their self-actualization journey, ranging from forums and courses to literature that tackles deep topics beyond mundane self-help. He also highlights the support available through platforms like Patreon.
• Appreciation for Personal Purpose and Work : Leo expresses gratitude for the opportunity to pursue his passion for deep topics and share wisdom globally. He notes the importance of aligning one’s work with their life purpose for personal fulfillment and societal contribution.
• Life Purpose Course : For individuals aspiring to align their careers or businesses around their passions, Leo recommends the Life Purpose Course on actualized.org. The course offers practical exercises to help identify one's deepest values and vision for a fulfilling and impactful life.
• Significance of Politics for Awakening : Leo underscores the crucial role of politics in enabling personal awakening by providing the necessary infrastructure. Conscious politics involves creating societal conditions that promote conscious citizenry and facilitate awakening practices.
• Need for Conscious Politics : With the rise of nationalist movements, it's crucial to engage in conscious politics and avoid taking democracy for granted. Leo emphasizes the interconnection between society and the individual, advocating for political involvement as part of personal development.