Tradition vs. Modernity : The Continuing Dichotomy of Values in European Society

Abstract

The modernisation theories developed in the 50s and 60s suggested that societies were converging toward modern values, gradually abandoning their traditional values. This convergence idea is reexamined in the following article within the context of European countries and on the basis of processed Values surveys. A set of attitude scales was constructed and then analysed through multivariate techniques. Two main results emerge from this analysis. First, it appears that, regardless of date and country, the Europeans' values are still structured around a traditionalism axis. This result obviously contradicts the theories of convergence towards modernity, theories that are strongly criticised. It is also an opportunity to reflect on the counterpart of traditionalism-need it be called "modernity"?-and on the relations between economic and moral attitudes. Second, religiosity is strongly linked to this structuring of values but it mainly opposes European members of whatever religious denomination to non-members, rather than-as is often imagined-Catholics to Protestants. All in all, the tension between tradition and modernity remains at the core of the value system of European societies.

A Moral Bureaucracy: Enforcement of EU Fundamental Values in Central and Eastern Europe

“…Averages are calculated by taking the total number of infringement cases in the department of 'Justice, Fundamental Rights, and Citizenship' open against the particular group of countries during the specified time period and dividing it by the number of countries in the group. This is a key example of what Galland and Lemel found previously-that conflating Europeanization with 'modernization' or 'liberalization' is a misguiding practice (Galland & Lemel, 2008). While we would expect from media headlines such as "EU Takes Action https://scholarship.claremont.edu/urceu/vol2019/iss1/7…”

Children First? Changing Attitudes Toward the Primacy of Children in Five European Countries

“…Political orientation is measured with selfpositioning on the right-left 10-point scale (where 1 means far right and 10 far left). In Western European countries, it correlates with traditional values, people with more modern/autonomous values having a tendency to place themselves more to the left end of the scale (Galland & Lemel, 2008). For the variable country (which tests the convergence assumed by the first hypothesis), the reference category is France, as its evolution is the most stable one (a constant upward trend, with a very high starting point).…”

“…This is measured in our study by agreement with the statement, Parents' duty is to do the best for their children, even at the expense of their own well-being (vs. Parents have a life and should not be asked to sacrifice their own well-being for the sake of their children or agreement with neither statement), constructed as a dummy variable. It should be underlined that this type of variable has been previously used as part of scales to measure attachment to the traditional family 2 (Galland & Lemel, 2008;Inglehart & Baker, 2000). This item was assumed to measure the opposition between family values typical of the 1950s and increasingly individualized and hedonistic values emerging after the 1970s.…”

“…However, not all social scientists find support for this claim. For example, Galland and Lemel (2008) have studied the attachment to traditional values, including those related to the family. They conclude that there is a constant tension between two types of values-tradition-oriented versus individualization-and not an actual convergence toward the modern pole of a singular dimension.…”

Social dynamics in rural Punjab: changes in gender roles, spatial mobility and decision making

“…The proponents of this perspective define tradition as indigenous and conservative whereas modern is referred to western structures. Changes are supposed to replace political, family, economic and value structures with the western structures (Galland et al, 2008;Smesler, 1992). Equalizing modernization with westernization makes this perspective questionable.…”