Values Readings and Summary

Internet Values Readings and Summary "The Myth of Culture Wars" "The Rise of Integral Culture" Summary Link to Values Quiz Discussion Assignment

Does the tremendous cultural variety in our society make common values impossible?

You may have heard the term culture wars used to describe what is happening in American society.

Read the article the Myth of Culture Wars and answer the study guide questions for this reading.   This is our first article that comes from a sociological source so please read it carefully. 

Optional Reading:

Additional reading which is not required but which some of you might find interesting is a longer article which describes in more detail the findings the Paul Ray's ideas about the emergence of cultural creatives.

The Rise of Integral Culture by Paul Ray

Who is Paul Ray? Here is a link to a biographical sketch and some information on his research methods.

Do you think these values represent common American values (see study guide questions)?

 

American Values: A Summary

Well, what are your conclusions after considering these different attempts to identify common American values?

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said something to the effect that, "when it comes to values the best we can do is mumble."

Perhaps this is the reason contemporary sociologists often seem to avoid this topic. It also may be due to the fact that it involves "meaning" which is difficult to measure or describe and may require qualitative research rather than quantitative research which is more popular in sociology right now.

1. In summing up, lets first look at the survey results.
   
   Here are the top values as ranked by the Oregon, GSS, Rokeach Value Survey (RVS), and Roper US surveys.

Using colors to highlight similar findings, I have identified that I think could be considered similar values in spite of the different wording.

So I think that it is possible to argue that these different surveys find that Americans value family, work, religion, independence, and a comfortable life.

I wish someone would do a large scale survey using the Rokeach Value Survey again since we have a nice baseline from 1971 and 1981 which would let us look a changes over time.  After spending many hours looking,  I have been unable to find any current studies using this measure of values.

In terms of value changes over time, the Rokeach data showed values staying fairly stable in their rankings.

The exception to this trend was in the ranking of the value "equality" (4th to 12th) over that 10 year period.

This is especially interesting because, as we will discover next week, Rokeach argues that the ranking of the value "equality" is correlated with political ideology. So this change may show a movement towards a more conservative mood in American society which was reflected in a change to a more conservative political environment.

2. It seems clear that there are some really difficult problems in trying to measure values.

Using open ended questions means that we must use our judgment in putting the answers into our categories, in which case we may introduce error by misunderstanding the respondents answers.

Using multiple choice or rankings, means we may not include values the population thinks are important or the respondents may understand ideas like "equality" or "freedom" in different ways.

Also unless we break the results down into subcategories, like the Rokeach (1971) table did, showing gender and race differences, it is possible that we are averaging out extreme differences within groups.

For example if the Yankelovich thesis that there are "lovers" and "workers" in the population and the "workers" rank equality very low and "lovers" rank it high the end result is an average ranking for the total group which hides the real values of each group.

 

3. I like the Strodtbeck and Kluckhohn's attempt to look at "value orientations."

I will use this approach to help explain different political ideologies next week. It also seems to me that it can help us point out changes that are going on in our society with regard to values.

For example, it seems to me that there is a clear trend over the last thirty years of a shift in value orientation among many in our society from mastery over nature to living in harmony with nature.

 

4. There are several different value sets
   
   I also find the attempts of Jankelovich, Keen, and Ray to describe the emergence of a new value system interesting.
   
   On the one hand I worry that they may be advocates of the new configuration of values  that they claim to identify and wonder a bit about how they identified these values groups.
   
   On the other hand the fact that the three of them come up with what seem to me to be similar themes seems to me to be some evidence that they really may be on to something.   However, I have the feeling that they may be values held by highly educated upper upper middle individuals.
   
   
   
5. Finally, it may be that the difficulty we find in studying values means that studying values is not a fruitful approach to understanding modern societies.
   

While on the one hand it all seems very logical to study values on a societal level, it may be that the underlying assumptions related to values may be flawed.

For example this theory basically assumes that people are rational beings who think everything through from general principles to specifics and then base their actions on this logic.

Maybe we should consider the possibility that people are not very  rational and may not even be aware of what they really value.  Perhaps behavior is explained more effectively in terms of rewards and punishments, hedonism, peer pressure, or socialization.  

It is interesting that the Roper Starch assumptions are that to predict consumer behavior three factors need to be taken into account: nationality, life stage, and personal values.

In Soc. 204 we read Emile Durkheim's view of that one difference between societies that some were based on mechanical solidarity and others on organic solidarity (pages 106-107, 400). It may be that as a society based on organic solidarity   the interdependence which leads us to rely on other people will lead us to a society held together by contracts and the legal system with less and less reliance on values.

Some of the court cases in the news right now seem to support this. We have the court system deciding whether grandparents have the right of visitation of their grandchildren. This court case would seem to be inconceivable in most societies around the world, which still have intact extended family systems. "How could grandparents not visit their grandchildren?", they would ask.

 

Link to Values Quiz

Here is a link to values quiz which needs to be passed at the 80% level. 

 Which you may take more than once to improve your score.

 

Discussion Assignment

Please focus your comments either of the articles the Myth of Culture Wars.

1. Do you think the authors are right?
   
   
2. Why or why not?  Evidence, please.
   
   
3. Is there anything about the assumptions behind the research, the methodology used or sample size that bothers you?

Or the article on The Rise of Integral Culture by Paul Ray.

1. Do you think that you fit in one of his three categories of Americans? Which one?
   
2. Based on your own experience can you think of people that you know that fit in each one.   Do you think this is this because they don't exist or because your acquaintances are limited to your own social class?
   
3. Do you think that Ray's own values are creeping in and that he considers himself to be a cultural creative and that they are in a sense "better values" or it represents a more evolved value system?

Or respond to the questions at the bottom of the page on new values 

Or try  to come up with what you believe would be good questions or a method to measure values.

Take one of the dimensions of the Value Orientation chart or any other value and try to write some survey questions that would measure that value orientation or value.

Describe the reasoning behind each of your questions.

Or explain why with family being ranked so high in value, that we as a nation such a high breakup rate for families.  Again try to think of evidence that would support you theory.

Remember this is not an assignment for ranting and raving about American values but to consider them in a detached objective way. In other words to talk like a sociologists. Or like the supposedly objective visitor from outer space who is studying American culture, but has no stake in our society or its values.