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Moral progress: expanding the human mind | Dr. Christian Welzel | TEDxLeuphanaUniversityLüneburg

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    Hello everybody.
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    I'm here tonight to share with you
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    two of the most fundamental
    insights of my research,
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    of which I truly believe
    many more people should know about.
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    First, humanity as a whole
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    has over the last couple
    of decades experienced
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    a massive and actually unprecedented
    transformation of moral values.
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    Second, and even more importantly,
    this transformation is a good thing,
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    because it brings to the surface
    the better moral qualities of our species.
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    Well, hearing that, you might think,
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    "This person must live
    in a different reality."
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    Haven't I heard about Brexit, Trump,
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    rising populism, right-wing extremism,
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    global terrorism,
    religious fundamentalism,
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    and all the other indications
    of our moral decline?
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    Indeed, influential critics
    tried to convince us since the ages
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    that our undeniable technological progress
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    is counteracted by a moral digression,
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    which opens a growing discrepancy
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    between our technological capacities
    and our moral qualities.
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    The problem of the critics, however,
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    is they never proved their point
    by systematic evidence through hard facts.
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    What they usually do
    is cherry-picking examples
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    that fit their claims,
    but leaving out others that don't.
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    Let's try a different approach.
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    Let's have a look
    at a collection of systematic data
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    of what people from all corners
    around the world
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    think is morally right or wrong.
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    That data collection
    exists for several decades,
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    so what we can do, as well,
    is look at change over time,
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    if there is any, and then if,
    in what direction is it going.
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    The data collection I'm referring to
    is knows as the World Values Survey.
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    If you're interested in the details
    and how this study is conducted,
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    you can go at their website,
    which is on display here.
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    In blue colors, we see
    the countries in the world
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    that have been surveyed at least once
    by the World Values Survey.
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    This is more than 100 countries.
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    But more importantly,
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    we cover in each global region
    the biggest national population.
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    We have China, and Japan, in East Asia.
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    We have India, Indonesia, in South Asia.
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    We have Nigeria and South Africa,
    in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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    We have Egypt, Iran, Turkey
    in the Middle East.
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    We have the US
    in North America, of course.
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    We have Brazil and Argentina covered
    in South America, and so on and so forth.
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    So we can claim that our data represent
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    more than 90% of the world population,
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    which is significant.
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    We find in this data
    a whole host of moral differences
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    between people and between entire nations.
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    But, we sifted through this data
    for many years, and it turns out
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    that most of these differences
    boil down to just two,
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    just two key domains
    of cultural variation.
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    One of them you see
    on the horizontal axis,
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    where it spans a continuum
    from sacred to secular values.
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    Populations on the left end emphasize
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    the sacred sources
    of authority, especially religion,
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    but also the nation,
    the state, the family.
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    Populations on the right
    have a secular distance
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    to these sources of authority,
    especially, again, religion.
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    The second dimension
    is on the vertical axis,
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    and it spans a polarity
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    between patriarchal
    and emancipative values.
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    At the lower end, at the patriarchal end,
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    populations emphasize
    male superiority over women
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    in the areas of education,
    in the areas of access to jobs,
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    and in the areas of political power.
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    They also emphasize strict authority
    of parents over their children
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    and such things as strict discipline,
    law and order, and related things.
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    Populations at the upper end,
    at the emancipative end,
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    emphasize women's equality to men.
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    Child autonomy, self-determination,
    and democratic voice
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    is part of what they emphasize.
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    You see, there is
    a lot of countries covered here,
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    but another interesting point
    is that these many nations cluster
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    into a much smaller number
    of what we call "culture zones,"
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    which map on these
    cultural differences, as well,
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    as you have seen before.
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    We colored blue
    the Western cultural zones,
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    and it's apparent that they differ
    from the non-Western culture zones,
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    especially on the dimension
    of patriarchal versus emancipative values,
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    where the Western culture
    is actually defined, in a sense,
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    by an emphasis on emancipation much more
    than other cultural zones in the world,
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    and even the Protestant West
    sticks even more out here,
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    and the biggest cultural distance
    that we find
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    is between the Protestant West
    and the Islamic world,
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    with many people in the Islamic world
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    emphasizing sacred values
    and patriarchal values,
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    and most of the people
    in the Protestant West
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    emphasizing secular values,
    and especially emancipative values.
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    Scholars usually consider
    such cultural distances, or differences,
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    as a constant, as enduring traits
    of national mentalities.
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    This overlooks, however, how much dynamics
    there was over recent decades
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    in these moral values.
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    Surprisingly, all cultural zones
    of the world have uniformly moved
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    in the same direction.
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    Even the Islamic world,
    even in Sub-Saharan Africa,
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    we see a movement towards more secular,
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    and especially towards
    more emancipative values.
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    On the other hand, it is also clear
    that the Western cultures
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    made a much farther space
    in that direction,
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    so their move is even more pronounced,
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    which means that the emancipatory outlook
    of Western culture is nowadays
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    even more pronounced
    than it already has been decades ago.
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    So, the fact that all cultural zones
    are moving in the same direction
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    does not lead to convergence.
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    Cultural differences
    have actually become bigger,
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    which is an issue of conflict.
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    Looking at the forces
    that might be driving this change
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    towards emancipative values,
    we get a hint here.
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    We see knowledge economies,
    which are those countries
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    that obtain their wealth
    from high-end products and services.
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    We have industrial economies,
    which are those countries
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    that obtain their wealth
    from cheap workbench production.
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    So, those ones into
    which we outsource our labor a lot.
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    And we have agrarian/oil economies,
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    obtaining their wealth
    from natural products and raw materials.
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    A criterion distinguishing these economies
    is what I call the enlightenment forces,
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    which is: education,
    knowledge, and science.
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    These enlightenment forces
    are the most pronounced,
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    most powerful, in the knowledge economies,
    more so than in the industrial economies,
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    which, in turn, have them more powerful
    than agrarian and oil economies.
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    And here we can see that it is worthwhile
    to send our children into school
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    and to universities and to college,
    and let them enjoy education.
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    It is a transformative force.
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    In all three types of economies,
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    we see that people
    who have obtained more education
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    emphasize emancipative values
    more strongly.
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    Again, this is more pronounced
    in knowledge economies,
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    where the enlightenment forces
    are most powerful.
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    If you ask yourself the question:
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    is that move towards
    stronger emancipative values,
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    is this something good, is this positive?
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    From the viewpoint
    of democracy, it certainly is.
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    Because here we can see
    that over the decades, from 1950 to 2010,
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    culture zones have made a shift
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    from more autocratic
    to more democratic circumstances,
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    to about the extent
    to which their populations
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    have shifted from patriarchal
    to emancipative values.
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    You can actually see
    that oftentimes, a move to the right -
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    that means, towards
    more emancipative values -
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    precedes a move upward,
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    which suggests
    that the value change is causal
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    for the subsequent change in institutions,
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    and not the other way around.
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    An even more fundamental reason
    why we can consider
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    the rise of emancipative values
    as a force of enlightenment,
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    is these values tendency
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    to produce what I call
    "moral universalism."
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    That is, the widening
    of our circles of solidarity
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    to an extent to an outer rim
    planet in humanity,
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    where the concerns about these things
    defy group divisions,
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    because everyone is included.
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    Patriarchal values, by contrast,
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    favor the opposite moral tendency
    towards moral parochialism.
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    What is that?
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    That means the narrowing down
    of the solidarity circle.
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    "My nation first", "America first" -
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    these are the slogans that depict
    that moral tendency.
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    Here we can see the shift from
    patriarchal to emancipative values
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    is indeed related to a shift
    from moral parochialism
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    to moral universalism,
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    through the expansion
    of our circles of solidarity,
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    of our empathy for others.
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    This is measured here, for example,
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    by environmental concern
    about global change
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    and by fighting poverty in the world.
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    So, the concern for the planet
    and for humanity is covered here.
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    But there are also problems.
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    The rise of emancipative values
    has also created cultural conflict
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    over moral universalism
    versus parochialism.
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    This applies to a particular segment
    of Western electorates.
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    There is a segment of the population
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    that has been left behind
    by the emancipatory mainstream,
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    that does not get a lot of education,
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    and accordingly is working
    in low-skilled manual jobs
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    that are threatened
    to be outsourced to other countries.
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    The working class, to simplify it.
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    This working class
    in the economic conflict
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    between social security
    and market competition,
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    it's located on the left.
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    Also, ideologically on the left,
    they are in favor of social security,
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    and this is where usually leftist parties,
    social democratic parties,
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    the Democratic Party in the US
    contacts, picks these voters up.
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    However, on the moral conflict
    between universalism and parochialism,
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    they're on the parochial end.
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    This is a moral conflict;
    this is not an economic conflict.
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    These people want to narrow
    the circle of solidarity.
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    Again, "My nation first,"
    "Make America great again."
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    And let no immigrants
    in anymore, build a wall.
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    This is parochialism, and these people
    are located there for reasons.
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    This is where now
    the rising forces of populism,
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    Vlaams Blok and Front national in France,
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    the Liberal Party in Austria, where they,
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    including Trump in the United States,
    pick these people up as their voters.
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    The other area
    of emerging cultural conflict
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    over issues of emancipation
    is immigration.
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    Especially immigration
    from non-Western populations
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    into Western countries.
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    I exemplify this here
    at the case of Germany,
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    which is a very typical
    post-industrial Western society.
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    The left bar shows
    that the native, host population
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    born in Germany, German citizens,
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    they score very high
    on emancipative values.
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    Sixty-two percent of this population
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    emphasizes this type of values strongly.
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    First-generation immigrants,
    which is the lower bar on the right side,
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    are very, very different.
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    They emphasize these values
    not even to 20% of this group,
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    and these are immigrants
    from non-Western cultures.
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    Of course, it creates
    a cultural gap over these issues,
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    and these are important lifestyle issues.
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    Gender equality,
    tolerance of homosexuality,
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    all these issues are related to that.
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    Given the centrality
    that emancipative values have
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    for a healthy democracy,
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    this is not trivial.
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    This is a challenge, and we need
    to face it in order to tackle it.
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    The good news, however,
    is we can master the challenge,
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    because it's also obvious from the data
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    - and these are the three bars
    in the middle -
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    that second-generation immigrants
    already are very close
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    in their emphasis on emancipative values
    where the host population is.
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    So obviously, socialization
    in this country does work.
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    Which relates us to the point:
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    can we strengthen
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    the effectiveness and the pace
    of that socialization process?
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    Can we do that?
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    And this relates me to my final point,
    which is actually a call for action.
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    I believe what we need to do
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    is to thoroughly rethink
    our civic education programs
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    and to target them particularly
    to the immigrant population.
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    Most importantly, what we also need
    to do while doing this,
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    is to place the psychology
    of emancipative values center stage
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    in the curriculum of these programs.
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    (Applause)
Title:
Moral progress: expanding the human mind | Dr. Christian Welzel | TEDxLeuphanaUniversityLüneburg
Description:

Counter-intuitive as it may seem in the face of rising populism, Dr. Christian Welzel will show fascinating data from the World Values Surveys, illustrating that most of humanity has turned more emancipatory in its moral values over recent decades and that this cultural transformation has brought our better moral qualities to the surface.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

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Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TEDxTalks
Duration:
16:45

English subtitles

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