Big Sort: Post-Materialism

(Link to Part 3)

Earlier in this Big Sort series, we noted Bill Bishop’s observation that the first half of the twentieth century had been about economic specialization and the second half about social specialization. What drove this social specialization? Bishop calls it post-materialism. He writes:

The new politics was molded by post-materialist realities. Tradition, economic class and occupation, religious denomination, civic structures, and party politics – the ways of life that had molded the country over the previous century – were losing significance. The new society was more about personal taste and worldview than public policy. It was as much or more concerned with self-expression and belief as with social class and economics. (104)

While many people identified with either of the two major political parties in the 1950s, there was such a bipartisan ethos that it made little difference. (Both parties recruited Eisenhower to run for president.) Barely half of the electorate knew what “liberal” or “conservative” meant in the political arena. The era from 1948 to 1965 was the least partisan era of the modern Congress, according to Bishop.

Beginning in 1965, people began disassociating from both major political parties, a trend that accelerated into the 1970s. This abandonment of politics was part of a larger disillusionment with social institutions, including volunteer organizations and the Church. There was a bipartisan anti-government feeling fomenting on the back of civil rights issues, the Vietnam War, and political corruption. The old glue that had held the civic order together was crumbling.

Simultaneous to these events, Americans were becoming more affluent. As matters relating to basic material needs began to recede in importance, other concerns became more prominent. Using a Maslow Hierarchy of Needs framework, more attention shifted toward esteem and self-actualization at the top of the pyramid.

A new ethos of political identification began emerging based more on self-expression and identity than on public policy. In the next post, we will see how Bishop characterizes this emergence, but now I want to make two observations.

First, Bishop’s analysis that 1948 to 1965 was a time of minimal partisanship in terms of actual policy sits well with other analyses of the era. However, reflecting on how such an ethos was created is essential. As Bishop points out, not everyone, including contemporaries of that era, saw this state of affairs as healthy. Remember that this was the era of Joseph McCarthy, the suppression of minority ethnic voices, and rigid gender roles. To be honest, this was the dark side of Tom Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation” (born 1901-1924), who assumed the reins of power during this era. They could mobilize the masses toward big ideas (including big corporations, big government, big denominations, etc.) through rigid standardization of beliefs and behaviors enforced by peer pressure and group solidarity. The inclination to think and act as one is a dual-edged sword. If you buy Strauss and Howe’s model of a repeating cycle of four generational archetypes, then the generation born about 1981-2001 (sometimes called the “Millennials” or “Gen Y”) will exhibit similar tendencies.

Second, I know that the idea of post-materialism is not without controversy. Yet the more I study the changes of the past fifty years, the more persuaded I become of this thesis. It has enormous implications for the life of the Church. Most of recorded human history (including the biblical context) has transpired in societies where there was a tiny minority with great wealth and the masses living at, or barely above, subsistence. That context has shaped our values, traditions, and institutions in countless ways. How do we live amid widespread affluence?

Nations that have achieved widespread affluence seem to follow a similar path toward the collapse of social institutions, fertility rates well below replacement rate, physical and health problems stemming from sedentary lives, and other maladies. Yes, there are always likely to be “the poor” in some relative sense, but poverty in terms of people living at subsistence is likely to become an increasingly small problem. Assuming that this affluence becomes a completely globalized phenomenon over the next century or two, what will it mean to Christian discipleship? I think we are in the early stages of wrestling with these questions.

[Continued] [Index]

Comments

[Ted M. Gossard]

Thought you'd be interested in this post, Michael. I know Scot blogged on it in the past.