Evolutionary Modernization and Cultural Change
Ekaterina Turanova's review of a public lecture given by professor Ronald Inglehart
Professor Ronald Inglehart, Scientific Supervisor of the LCSR, delivered a public lecture at the Saint Petersburg branch of HSE on October, 10th. The topic of the lecture was “Evolutionary Modernization and Cultural Change”. Ekaterina Turanova, a research assistant at the Lab, prepared a short summary of the lecture for our website.
Modernization in different countries takes various forms, but there are some constant features of this process. Professor Inglehart pointed out three basic characteristics of cultural change.
Firstly, modernization is probabilistic, but not a deterministic process . Inglehart emphasized that it was impossible to precisely predict the direction of modernization in the given society, so one can only foresee relatively probable outcomes.
Secondly, modernization is not a linear process. The transition from traditional to secular-rational values was the primary direction of cultural change during the industrial age, bringing growing secularization, bureaucratization, standardization, hierarchy and centralization. But with the rise of post-industrial society, cultural change has begun moving in a different direction, moving toward greater individual autonomy. Today the most significant part of a process of cultural change in developed countries is the transition from survival to self-expression values.
Thirdly, modernization is a path-dependent process: the cultural, religious and historical heritage of a country significantly influences its further development.
The transition to a post-industrial society led to a drastic transformation of basic human values. Survival values, which had dominated in most societies, was gradually replaced by self--expression values, such as personal independence, freedom of choice and realization of personal potential. Those changes were provoked by the unprecedented growth of the world economy during the second half of the 20th century and the rise of the welfare state, which brought an individual level of economic and physical security unprecedented in previous history. Today, the citizens of developed prosperous states tend to take survival for granted, and starvation is almost unknown. Under such favourable conditions satisfaction of basic needs is perceived by individuals as self-evident condition so their values have been changing towards postmaterialist concerns. A number of studies based on World Values Survey data (covering almost 90% of world population) demonstrate that a society’s prevailing values strongly correlates with its level of economic development.
Postindustrial societies also provide access to information and education that promotes the spread of emancipative values what in turn creates a cultural basis for democratization, maintains tolerance, supports gender equality, and eliminates discrimination of sexual minority.
The absence of war and lower rates of murder and other forms of violence also increase levels of security, making society open to further changes. Conversely, low level of existential security encourages rigid adherence to traditional cultural norms, strong in-group solidarity and even xenophobia.
Inglehart referred to Karl Marx’s theory of modernization, particularly to his famous notion of economic determination (economic basis) of social change. Inglehart noticed that Marx was right in some respects. Nevertheless, he argued that Marxist argument was greatly oversimplified and his linear view of history made almost of all of his predictions wrong . Nevertheless, economic development is extremely important; it creates new conditions for social evolution, but does not strictly determine social change, as Marx supposed.
by Ekaterina Turanova
P.S. You can also read about Professor Inglehart’s lecture at the Saint Petersburg branch of HSE website (in Russian).
- Watch video on-line