serial theory which he first got tired generation social scientists and politicians today the heart is truly an icon of academic his books are being translated into sixteen languages universities around the globe are lining up to give him their degree. hello royal welcome to the show thank you very much for being with us today it's a pleasure to be here oh well at first of all this and according to your studies let's talk about russians yes russians should be way happier than they are why because you say i quote russia is a unique country because the happiness level here doesn't correspond to the economic situation so why aren't we as happy as we should be according to you or your theory doesn't work in russia no no the theory works really theory i would say that russia is a very interesting case i'm sorry to say because. you're interesting because for

quite a while the roads were very very unhappy we've done studies in many many countries and there are there are broad generalizations rich countries tend to be happier than poor countries and russia already in one hundred eighty one when you did a first survey was below where its economic level then by nine hundred ninety was way below where its economic level would be to below nigeria and india and pretty poor countries it was quite a bit lower than you can marry then by ninety ninety five lowered still went on to ninety nine very low in fact at that point most russians describe themselves as unhappy dissatisfied with their lives i think that the reasons are not terribly amazing russia had a collapse the soviet union collapsed the economy collapsed down to less than half its former lovelle order broke down the belief system broke down on everything that there are many things that people contribute to happy to stand by. all at once

practically everything went wrong for russia and what had been the great superpower with the us became part of the soviet union that had broken away and was no longer a superpower it was a time of economic social collapse and the happiness level would wait here i am glad to be able to say since nine hundred ninety nine it's begun coming up and by two thousand and five it was almost it was about halfway back to where it had been and by two thousand and eleven who needed a most recent study it would be to me in the communist times no no no no no. ok the world under the what i mean by sort of the norm the place where i would expect it to be in terms of its economic level i see i would expect russia to be happier than nigeria because it's much richer yet so it actually has fallen way below it you know which is really dreadful and i could see the side i mean it was not just our surveys that were showing us this there was alcohol was

a life expectancy furrow people really were very unhappy this was a traumatic time i actually felt really sort of sympathy for the russian people because very few people have had this deep deep most people describing as i was unhappy if you do surveys in any country in the world you generally get a fairly upbeat response of how are you flying or something in russia how are you i'm happy well you know there was one of the guests in the studio and he said a very interesting thing is that in russia grumpy is cool. it is that not just that it's gotten worse a cool in the last couple of surveys of the pressure russian happiness has come back it's not quite back to where it's economic level would predict it's still a bit below that but it's come off of what so there was over a twenty year period of what were a dud. ok not only here but lots of russian scientists philosophers thinkers they

also consider russia to be a very interesting case in the very unique a sense if you and you of course read they read the russians they see they usually say that russia has its own special ways in everything and occluding this happiness levels that and what works in the western societies or what works in the oriental societies equally doesn't always work in between the doesn't work here in russia do you agree with that no i don't know no i think russians are actually much like other human beings sort of. and what makes this such an interesting case because your conditions have been dreadful you'd not many countries have gone through this political and economic and ecological labs belief system but there was a time when many people really got a sense of meaning and purpose in life from the communists idiology no one almost no one believes that anymore well the state of the communist started by ruining the

old system by ruining the church yet my ruining traditional beliefs came up with a work well within the alternative system of beliefs and it was written to south south so it didn't work out terribly well you know you're sure the traditional beliefs are coming back here church attendance and religious belief is rising in russia it's coming back partly because the repression is no longer there partly because people need to believe in something and religion is one of the things that gives you a sense of which way is up and what is right and so this is coming back but i think it is also a very we do quantitative analysis part of the story is the economy has recovered so it's not is the russians are uniquely grumpy when they're when they're living in a standard of living way below what they used to have they are grumpy you know but that would be true of americans too i'm sure the during the great depression americans were not jubilant and well you see in russia that everybody

verb really wants to be happy but being happy is nearly tabooed in the russian society has been to bleed for ages well how can such a paradox exist people want to be happy in a society away it will away not supposed to be. well i think the reality was that in the one nine hundred ninety five or ninety ninety nine if you were happy. you probably weren't very aware of what's going on but i think you look at these really bad conditions and i would say anyone who's a oh everything smothered in one thousand nine hundred eleven i mean i was probably a little bowl or i don't know maybe they just went on live and everything else doesn't matter so there are a lot of reasons for being happy but i think you know maybe if you were happy you were part of the gang. in those days i think it was the norm the social are pretty much what has made it pretty miserable it's really historically rare event i think

that during the great depression this is probably true in many cases also but in recent times russia has probably actually bill roots ukraine bill bulgaria were down to but russia is by far the biggest country that was going through this and it was a very interesting case and it was tragic but it gives social scientists a better understanding of what contributes to happiness and i would say being prosperous and it's one of what you're used to partly the russians not only had were not very prosperous they were way below what they were used to and that's why listen if in america women in most countries you ask a person why he says fine and that's it i mean fine if in russia you are somebody how are you he probably said very bad very bad thing any and if any of you say who really are you then he will his start explaining how that he will tell you about

a bad hour or two hours to explain it well oh listen there's an opinion that russians like to complain because being or seeming unhappy may bring so social benefits you seem like you're a fine person and i think that probably because russia has had many harsh times under the tsars understand and russia has had many harsh times and i think. the social norm adapted to a realistic well informed sensitive person probably isn't very happy i mean on a lot of her during the waiting three hundred hours in line to see her son in prison was probably not very happy and i understand why and so that this would become a norm but i don't think it's genetic in the russian people i think their experience has a custom them to a fairly low set of expectations and it's the sort of the good news is our recent surveys show that they're not up to where you would expect them to be but they're

higher than they used to be. according to your research the western society has changed a lot and the materialist values are changed it to be like the post materialist values of the sixty's yes well that russia is a changing too to post materialist values well the factors that led to it pushed materialism were prosperity to the point where you took survival for granted this was in the rich countries of western europe and the united states and a few other australia canada. this was real i think there were a combination of things that were the economic miracles of the post-war era and the welfare state. which meant that hardly anyone starved any longer in these countries and it took a while it took about a generation frugal to get used to this but then people had grown up taking survival for granted and this was a very different world we were growing up seeing survival is uncertain and you have to be guarded and very careful and their values change russia has not had the same

experience so it is not as poss materialist as germany or britain or sweden but i do see a generational change toward that beginning to emerge in russia so it's tearing it started or needs to its head in early years and it is again what your experience then sweden but it's starting to move in that direction says a right old and will hide a renowned american sociologist and political scientist spotlight will be back shortly talk to a break so stay with where you are and we'll be back in the. you

know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. choose your language. calling me kevin o. influential clinton today still some of the. treatments that is the consensus here can. choose to opinions that immigrate to. choose the stories that entire life. choose access to often.

olympic gold olympic. athlete. the speed. limit. which. league. plummets good luck. play lists. and. a little mug shot of

a little. fifth. he and some to see explain destruction without to see. what could have been just ruins lives saved by a great sacrifice. and. understood by human jets it's. a remarkable reminder of courage and selflessness. the proof beauty is in the people. playing golf the russian the site.

welcome back to spotlight i'm not been just to remind you that my guest on the show today is ronald engel hart renowned american sociologist and political scientist well russia is certainly a post-modernist country and ronald just told us that russia is also becoming post materialist as many countries of the west is that good starting to become literate yeah but is it good or bad will we lose our identity the the mystical slavic we come as a post materialist as the others the only russians are different from the old russians. if you want to call it old russians always hate the young russian. never envy them the old americans envy of the isle americans in russia is the other way around. we never like a new new generation i wonder where the progress comes from. it seems to me that young russians are different and in ways that i think are encouraging and kind of

present what you like i think they're more tolerant or looking more. more favorable to gender equality and freedom of speech and things like that which. if you like it it's good if you don't like it it's. in russia now we now witness the emergence of the so-called creative class well a class of liberal citizens highly interested in politics making their own money while acting as being sort of a positioning themselves and signs of being sort of independent from have from the government and so what does it mean the level of being wellbeing in the russian society is high enough and those are the post materialist people or the post materialist values you know they overlap a good deal it's the knowledge the societies of emerging and you need creativity in our society just mass production of the same old stuff my routine is no longer what

you really can be automated what you need is people who can invent computer programmers and genetic engineering and. drug manufacturing and education and all kinds of things and the russia is moving into becoming a knowledge of society i think that this is in many ways a positive change. i think the work is more interesting and i actually find the people in the knowledge of society turn to me we're satisfied with their lives the people who do repetitive want to miss work. he remembers when. when this capitalism in russia started twenty years ago these new russians appear the guys in in red jackets and are they the young capitalist the old russians hated the new russians they thought that there were all bandits but they actually created a new economy now the old russians are looking at that. have this creative class they do like them a lot too because they say they think they're useless they think they're parasites

this conflict between the old and the new the old values and the new values is it is a similar all around the world or is. i think it's inevitable yeah inevitable anyone grows up with some sort of values and where if your society changes gradually you hardly notice it was a pretend it's all the same but and of course for thousands of years it was true but today things are changing fast enough that there's a side really were born into is no longer the society that you live in now and i'm sure you're aware of it it's only a pretty different country in many ways and it's it's alarming if you grew up with social norms where everyone was religious and predictable and behaved in a certain way it gets alarming the older you get when things change and they change initiated it's all going down the drain and you sort of feel because whatever you grew up with seems normal and right and so it is constructs for rapid social change

actually is stressful i would say that in many ways these changes are positive that generally one of the change is greater tolerance of diversity in different people and i think that's a very positive trend especially the world is getting globalized and being able to get along with different kinds of people is a plus. well the growth of our muslim communities in non muslim countries has been a company by the growth of the gap between muslim men muslim cultures spotlight feeling the dimia there has more. and muslim missionary movement in london has plans for building at town thousand capacity magnet mosque in the capital the gigantic mosque four times the size of some false cathedral will not only have minarets but also an islamic library sports facilities and apartments while the city authorities are considering to submit a proposal to locals including the muslims themselves are opposing the construction

fearing it will become a hard but obvious lawmaker extremist muslims themselves are opposing this mosque more in the grounds that they don't want to worship a god but on the grounds. women aren't allowed the local population of muslim population has no on the site and how the mosque itself is governed this kind of islam related controversy is not new in europe the two thousand and nine constitutional amendment banned the construction of new minarets in switzerland the idea for a ban was proposed by a nationalist so we speak olds party and were supported by the majority of the country's population at a referendum. post soviet moscow has seen huge inflow of muslim migrants coming to russia's capital from the former republics of the u.s.s.r. celebrations of corben by ram one of the major islamic holy day sees hundreds of thousands muslims praying on the streets of moscow since there is limited space in the prayer halls of the russian capital at the same time there's growth and

xenophobic feeling in the country and movember moscow so are they going ash now is to rally their witnesses claiming twenty thousand police abated. when that figure down to six thousand. over the last two decades the been lots of clashes including cultural clashes leaving europe in the west in general can you agree that multiculturalism has failed is that working. parts of multiculturalism didn't work well i think the notion of respecting different cultures actually has worked very well i think one example that it worked pretty well was the us used to be eternally recent society in two thousand and eight we elected an african-american president it's a pretty big change and i think it's a positive change because if you if you lived in the same old village with the same

people you know all your life it didn't matter really how multicultural you were if you were in the united states today you were. really different people from all over the world including russia and it's i think very healthy to get used to this idea and to accept it is perfectly normal our children are going to school with many different kinds of kids are being taken for granted that this is how it is but one thing is respect for others cultures one thing. is is is tolerance and the other thing is convergence when when people for example in russia we see it now when the russians see more and more people. from from the caucasus coming we are more where more and more people turning to islam in this country and they see that conversions they don't like it they are ready to they do respect it but being like me or not inside these know what i mean you know this is the this is the

problem do you people want to agree heap there i don't really think here they want to do something or anything conversions will will ruin their identity i think that . traditions that i grew up with like celebrating christmas and how we need and things like that that i really value and actually when i was being in russia this this fall i kind of missed how we are and i will miss thanksgiving or any of the good old days i love them it's kind of normal if. we have to put up with it and i don't think this is so stressful that it makes me hate the world in fact i actually like russia well maybe missing christmas and being away is is one thing and the other thing is well for example in england they tried to make people forget the world christmas tree in the whole of the holiday tree you know this christmas is it may be damaging for the muslims. when people when people don't see anymore christmas cards and see the seasonal seasonal kind of thing i mean that

may make them hate the people of different cultures and you see they don't i think that's a thing you know you know i'm human beings you have to be realistic human beings don't change overnight attached to whatever they knew in their childhood and i guess perfectly normal and i have had the same experience in. in my department we used to have christmas parties and now we have holiday parties in december it happens to be in late december but it's a holiday party and in the school my kids went to they no longer have christmas programs they used to have christmas croyle it's doing little jesus asleep in the slot and. and now they saying about frosty the snowman and then it was then sort of i kind of missed it and but. i saw a moment when they were singing a song that started out with a hanukkah song and then and in my neighbor's house the lights are shining too and i see here these children's was singing together in harmony and i have this

beautiful too well if we talk about the most sensitive at points at talking about convergence about cultural clashes is it religion the most sensitive thing or it's pretty basic one of the things what else except religion well i would say actually the most stable thing we've measure in the world every survey is religion and this is an empirical statement we get enormous stability over time given countries that say that say that religion is important because people twenty thirty years later are going to be still saying religion is important relative to other countries but apart from this there is something that nobody knows about everyone knows the level of religion then there is another dimension which is very stable almost as stable as religion and this is what we call survival self-expression values and this is a new kind of differentiation and it has to do with growing up taking survival for

granted person it is insecure and this is a very stable difference to we find it's almost as stable as religion but isn't isn't true legend the most important part of the survival and he was you know minus a mean i would say culture in general and religion is generally not everywhere but in most cultures the dominant part of the culture is a survival strategy you know this is. in a given environment these they develop in herding societies and the growing societies and so that this was a strategy that worked very well in a growing societies and it is deep rooted because it was linked with survival in these societies in the way of life has changed a lot now we're living in industrial societies and more and more knowledge aside and different norms work in these societies and a greater emphasis on creativity and innovation for example is really important in a knowledge society so some of these numbers have to change and they are changing

thank you thank you very much for being with us and just to remind you that my guest on the show today was ronald and hide her now and american sociologist and political knesset for now from all of us here if you want to have your satisfied life perhaps someone who is he paid cash to the next time you drop me a line a towel do a lot of ads on t.v. dot on you and let's get spotlight interactive we'll be back with more first that a common thought was going on in and outside russia until then stay in and take a. day.

liz.

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