Jared Diamond Re-examining core values

 | 3 min

The third and final lecture by Jared Diamond (on Friday night) was not based on any of his previous books, and was about the need and ability of societies to reappraise their core values.

He gives several examples of America starting or needing to reappraise some of its core values, as a specific example of a general problem. Willingness to reappraise core value is a common theme in the sucess or failure of societies. For instance, the Greenland Norse were not willing or able to reappraise their identity as Christian Europeans; and this refusal to learn from and live like the Inuit eventually led to them all dying.

He began by talking also about re-examination of core values on a personal level in the context of personal responses to crises. A personal crises happens in response to some situation when we discover that our usual ways of coping with something aren't working for us anymore. Successful resolution of the crisis involves figuring out some new and better way of coping - "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger".

Personal crisis therapy involves helping people to 'build a fence' around the parts of their lives that aren't working, and to realise that their basic identity is intact, and that it isn't their entire life falling apart. You can't change all parts of yourself at once. People who are able to build this fence are much more likely to successfully withstand a personal crisis. It also helps to have "ego strength" (internally derived sense of self), to have a flexible personality and tolerance for ambiguity and failure, and to have role models of people who have coped with the same problem.

An individual in crisis has to evaluate what things are working for them and what things aren't. They then have to selectively retain the things that do work, and be willing to replace the things that aren't working. This can be a quick process in response to an acute crisis, or can be a slow reappraisal, such as when happens when people reappraise their careers.

While the Greenland Norse failed at this reappraisal, Japan succeeded. The Japanese abandoned their policies of isolationism, changed their government structure, sent envoys to learn about different technologies & civil structures. Japan then adopted many of these technologies and many aspects of the European ways of live, yet they have selectively retained many aspects of their cultural identity. They have kept their writing system, beliefs, culture, and food. After WWII they further abandoned their military aspirations and autocratic government. However, Japan currently has problems with not welcoming immigrants but having an aging population and low birthrate. Solving this will require further changes to Japanse values.

Immediately after WWII, Europe was a set of isolated and competing national blocks. This is now starting to be cast aside in favour of European nationalism. This is still not solved problem however, but is a core value change in progress.

The US currently has three main issues that it needs to reappraise because it's core values are under seige:

  1. Consumption rates. Often confused with wealth & standard of living, but are not the same. US Consumption are no longer sustainable with such a high population. US per capita consumption is 32 times higher than the third world, and the third world are trying to catch up to first world. World doesn't have enough resources to support the first world at this consuption rate, and it certainly doesn't have enough resources to support the rest of the world when it starts to catch up.
  2. Relationships with overseas. American attitude has traditionally been isolation punctuated by short-term military involvement. Interventions in WW1 & 2 were breaks in the isolationism. Isolationism worked while the oceans were effective barriers, but the world is now smaller and the oceans no longer successfully separate America from the issues of the rest of the world.
  3. Balancing individual rights against society rights. America has traditionally been much more individualist than most other countries. For instance, US people can cut down any trees on their land whenever they like, no permission required. This is not the case in most European countries and NZ & Australia. Individual rights are destroying natural beauty and so individual rights need to be moderated by the needs of society. In local cases, this is starting to change. Anti-smoking laws are an example of placing the needs of society higher than the wants of the indivdual, but still have a long way to go on this.

He quotes Dick Cheney (who he normally doesn't like to quote) as saying "the American way of life is non-negotiable".

Negotiate with whom? Of course the US government is not going to negotiate their way of life with other countries, but Americans will have to renegotiate with themselves over these issues.