I find it interesting that more women than men consider religion important to them, when religion is partially to blame for them being marginalized in society.<p>On the whole, I just look at those figures and feel a deep amount of shame for my country (US). We'll catch up, but I think part of the reason for these figures is that the US is relatively rural.
A lot of the questions are misleading -- placed with an American bias as to what they meant. Eg the first table measures whether people value:<p>(a) "freedom to pursue one’s goals without state interference."<p>vs<p>(b) "State guarantees nobody is in need".<p>The formulation shows an American understanding/bias on the issue. For a lot of Europeans (a) is not about real freedom, because it translates to big corporations and private interests shaping your life and be given free pass to exploit people.<p>That is, we don't see "state" as an enemy that restricts us, but as the (imperfect of course) embodiment of our collective will, as stated through democracy, that helps set the stage for our personal freedom.<p>So those same questions are also read as:<p>(a) Do you want to forgo a lot of democratic procedures, and have society be a jungle where you are supposedly "free" but in practice the "big fish" can crush you at will, or have you starve to work for them cheaper?<p>vs<p>(b) You want people to vote and use the state power to restrict exploitation and need in the interests of the majority, and thus be able to enjoy your individual freedom better.<p>So it's not really about valuing "freedom" vs "state", it's about how different peoples see how freedom works and what state does.
> About half of Americans (49%) and Germans (47%) agree with the statement, “Our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior to others;” 44% in Spain share this view. In Britain and France, only about a third or fewer (32% and 27%, respectively) think their culture is better than others.<p>The French only say that because they disagree with the "our culture is not perfect" bit.
One possible reason for the British response in the Religious vs National Identity question is that British identity can be a very fractious thing.<p>The UK is made up of constituent kingdoms, but not all of these are on the island of Great Britain. Thus you can be technically British (i.e. of the UK) without being British (i.e. of the island of Great Britain). This most notably manifests itself amongst the Northern Irish, some of whom see themselves as Irish (ethnicity, or wanting to be of a united Irish state) or British (of the United Kingdom, but of island of Ireland).<p>To confuse things further, there's a debate going on over whether or not Scotland should stay part of the United Kingdom or become a separate country. Scottish nationalism is a very strange creature. Thus some people may identify with being Scottish first, or solely as Scottish. This occurs to a lesser extent in Wales and in England (being Welsh and English, not Scottish, that would just be silly).<p>Additionally there are many people who are first or second generation British with foreign parents or grandparents, particularly from former colonial territories. I have friends who identify with being both British and Indian, despite being born and raised on the island of Great Britain.<p>It all makes for a big, typically British mess. Finally, my wife was born in Turkey, moved to England and became a British citizen, but she can never become English because there's no English citizenship status.
Interesting that the US believes they shape their own destiny or that they are the product of their own work, yet the 'cultural superiority' question seems to indicate that they don't necessarily value what they have produced.
I find it interesting that Americans have so little trust in their democratic government, yet have so much faith in authoritarian phenomenon of religion.
This 'study' reaks of bias and hand waved conclusions...the list would be so long, perhaps the extensive use of 'Americans' as a short hand for US citizens in an international opinion survey is the most blatant give away ?<p>It comes from the Pew Reasearch Center, an US think tank chaired by former Bill Clinton's secretary of States, funded by a very wealthy conservative entity, and scanning the other surveys I get the same feeling of being very transparent on the methodology while strongly aiming for a given output. Like this one the NSA for instance: <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2013/06/10/majority-views-nsa-phone-tracking-as-acceptable-anti-terror-tactic/2/" rel="nofollow">http://www.people-press.org/2013/06/10/majority-views-nsa-ph...</a><p>PS: even for a selected target, what does questions like 'Our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior to others' point to ? They surveyed that short of half of the Christinans think themself as Christian first and citizen of a country second. For these people, what does 'our culture' even point to ?
The age difference in the cultural superiority question is really eye opening. It went from 60% of 50+ Americans saying 'yes', to 37% for 18-29 -- second lowest after France.<p>Glad to know that my generation has a sprinkling of modesty.
"Western Europe" is an odd and outdated term as it is the EU that is acquiring political and economic powers and which some seek to federate. Leaving out the most religious EU countries like Malta, Cyprus, Romania, Poland and Italy you will get a very skewed picture if you are mentally equating Western Europe with the European Union (which is a term often conflated itself with the ambiguous "Europe"). Large portions of legislation in "Western Europe" are decided upon by Southern European politicians in the European Council and the European Parliament where representation is weighted by population in various ways (QMV and MEP caps).<p>Some "North Eastern America" with a selection of blue states would give you pretty different results to the USA mean as well. The question people would ask though is: what justification do you have for putting that geographical constraint on your study?
Arnold Kling has developed his "three-axis model."<p>The three axes are:
- Civilization/barbarism
- Oppressor/oppressed
- Freedom/coercion<p>The idea is that people will have different attitudes on issues and that these attitudes can be "plotted" on these three axes.<p>It is only a model, but I think it is a good one.