Tolerance Through the Generations

Let's look more closely at Ingelhart's conclusions on the link between life security (he calls this Existential Security) and Rigid/Freedom norms.

In my previous article on Ingelhart's insights into value change, we talked in detail about intergenerational population replacement.

In certain countries, post-WW2 generations – beginning with the Boomers – have all grown up under very different conditions to prior generations. This has lead to clear values differences between young and old. As the older generations die off, their values die with them, and the values of the younger generations take over.

This is visible in the Traditional–Secular, Survival–Self-expression, and Materialist–Postmaterialist values shifts.

And it's also visible in the move from the six Rigid norms to the Freedom norms we've been talking about.

From the time Western societies achieved high life security (high GDP, high life expectancy, and low infant mortality) around 40-50 years passed until the legalization of same sex marriage in these countries. This is the speed of intergenerational population replacement – those 'decade-long time lags' that Ingelhart so often mentions in his work.

But population replacement doesn't tell the whole story. The movement towards tolerant norms – the Freedom norms – has gained so much momentum that it's now outstripping good old population replacement.

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The Acceleration of Tolerance

The tolerance tidal wave goes beyond just younger generations having more tolerant attitudes due to their privileges in their pre-adult years and these attitudes slowly replacing those of older generations.

In this type of change, the values of given cohorts remain relatively fixed over time. Each new cohort tends to have values that are somewhat more inclusive than the previous generation. This is Ingelhart's standard explanation for the big-scale value changes that have taken place since World War II.

But as I mentioned earlier, Ingelhart did observe intracohort change when he measured Freedom values over time. In fact, support for Freedom values increased in all cohorts in all 14 of the high-income societies that were involved in the entire longitudinal survey.

What this means is that the Rigid–Freedom move is moving faster than population replacement – this is really good news. The younger generations are bringing older generations with them in their creation of a more tolerant society.

Ingelhart puts this down to conformist pressure – once a majority support Freedom norms, they force others to play ball. Everyday people could easily lose their job, face expulsion from their communities, and alienate friends and family if they firmly believe in the six Rigid values and express their views.

I also like to think that younger generations, with their inherently inclusive inner software, show older ones the way. They show older generations what modern life is like and how to navigate it. All young generations know is modern life – and in it, phenomena like sexism and homophobia are not only unnecessary, but repugnant.