A widespread “tale of terror” amongst those seeking social change is that people in modern Western societies are caught in a neo-liberal paradigm and have come to care most about materialism, individual success and status. Our research attempted to challenge this tale. Study 1 involved New Zealand participants (N = 1085) from largely, but not exclusively, left-leaning groups. We used an open-ended process to identify their “infinite” values (that which they consider of value for its own sake); and found these concerned connection to people and other life forms, expression, nature, personal strengths, vitality, and spirituality. Systems and regulations, success and status, money, ownership and domination were named as of “finite” value (of value because of what they signify or enable). These findings suggest that our participants readily distinguished between what is inherently valuable and what is of instrumental value or signifies social status. Study 2 (N = 121) investigated participants’ responses to a word cloud that displayed the infinite values identified in Study 1. These were predominantly a sense of belonging to a human community, reassurance, and feeling uplifted and hopeful. We suggest that the word cloud offered a “tale of joy” showing that, contrary to standard neo-liberal rhetoric, people do care deeply about the common good. We also suggest that such a tale is critical to social movements that depend on a sense of collective hope.
A widespread “tale of terror” amongst those seeking positive social change is that people in Western societies do not care about the common good. Instead they are focused on getting ahead in a world obsessed with money, materialism, individual success and status. We suggest that this tale undermines the sense that social change is possible. If people care only about themselves, then what hope is there for creating a world that puts human and ecological flourishing at its centre?
Our research attempted to challenge this tale of terror. We hypothesised that people do care deeply for that which promotes the wellbeing of humanity and the ecosystems in which we are embedded. We also hypothesised that when people realise that others care deeply about human and ecological wellbeing, they will experience a “tale of joy”, that gives them hope for the future and makes attempts at social change seem worthwhile.
We asked 1,085 New Zealand adults to name their “infinite” values (that which they feel makes the world truly alive and is of value for its own sake). We found these concerned connection to people and other life forms, human expression, nature, personal strengths, vitality, and spirituality. Almost no one offered values related to money, materialism, individual status and success. We then showed 121 New Zealand adults a word cloud that displayed the values we had collected, and asked them to write down the thoughts and feelings they had on seeing it. These were predominantly a sense of belonging to a human community, reassurance, and feeling uplifted and hopeful.
We suggest that the infinite values word cloud offered a “tale of joy” showing that people do care deeply about the common good. We also suggest that this tale of joy generated a sense of collective hope in those who saw it. We offer this exercise to anyone interested in igniting and maintaining the collective hope that it is critical to social movements.