Patriotism slips

The Pew political values survey conducted in December and January, says Carroll Doherty, reveals that 49% of Americans ‘completely agree’ that ‘I am very patriotic’. This is a big improvement on the 2003 figure of 56%. Astonishingly, the proportion of ‘very patriotic’ Republicans fell by an even greater margin from 71% to 61%.

However, 62% of all Americans confessed that they display the flag at home, in the office, or on their car. To their credit, only 41% of African Americans would admit to doing so, but that’s still a frighteningly high proportion. Apart from Blacks, a majority of every other sub population – men and women, young and old, Democrat and Republican, in every region – admitted to this bizarre fetish. The leaders were Republicans with 73% and those aged 65 and over with 71%.

More interesting results have emerged from the Pew Global attitudes survey of views in 47 countries during April and May. One surprising result in light of the patriotism results is that 6% of Americans surveyed said they had a ‘very unfavourable’ view of the US, with another 12% expressing a ‘somewhat unfavourable’ view. With only 80% of Americans reporting a very or somewhat favourable view of their own country, they just equaled the proportion in Ghana and fell behind the Ivory Coast with 88% and Kenya with 87%.

It will come as no surprise that 78% of Israelis had a favourable view of the US, but only 13% of Palestinians in the Territories and 9% of Turks. What was mildly shocking was that 56% of Venezuelans managed to sustain a favourable view of the US, although only 51% of Britons, 44% of Brazilians, 42% of Bolivians, and 16% of Argentines did so.

Thirty-eight percent of Americans acknowledged that US policy increased ‘the gap between rich and poor countries’. A majority in most countries surveyed recognized this, rising to a high of 73% in the Palestinian Territories and France. An astonishing 25% of Americans said ‘It's bad that American ideas and customs are spreading’. In Britain 61% agreed, as did majorities in most countries, large majorities in many, with as many as 90% opposing American ideas and culture in the Palestinian Territories.

Curiously, 63% of Britons and 73% of Canadians surveyed said they ‘like American music, movies and television’, as do majorities of 70% or more in nine other countries. They were least popular in Bangladesh (81%) and Pakistan (80%).

In another one of those bloody loaded questions, 23% of Americans said they ‘oppose the U.S.-led efforts to fight terrorism’. Now how patriotic is that? Patriotic enough to accept the presupposition embedded in the question that the US is leading ‘efforts to fight terrorism’.

When asked whether ‘the United States promotes democracy wherever it can, OR the United States promotes democracy mostly where it serves its interests’, 63% of Americans chose the latter, as did large majorities in most countries. Only in Nigeria did a small plurality of 48% think the US promotes democracy wherever it can. Of course again, to answer the question at all means agreement to share the assumption that the US ever promotes democracy at all. Any scrutiny of the US political scene would reveal that the US doesn’t promote democracy, even in the trivial, limited sense of bourgeois liberal parliamentary democracy, right at home. They don’t even have preferential voting, which they call ‘instant runoff’ voting, and the Electoral College can still override the will of the majority of voters for President, as it did in 2000. Quite apart from all the corruption and registration scandals. Any meaningful form of democracy where ordinary people actually control our own society, that’s not on the agenda at all.

Thirty-four percent of Americans had ‘no confidence at all’ in George Bush, and 19% had ‘not too much confidence’. Only in Israel and six African countries did a majority have confidence in the leader of the free world. Osama bin Laden didn’t inspire a great deal of confidence either, with a small majority of 57% saying they had some or a lot of confidence in him in the Palestinian Territories. Ahmedinejad did slightly better, with a 64% majority in Bangladesh and 51% in Indonesia.

According to this poll, 54% of Venezuelans are confident in Hugo Chávez, a significantly higher proportion than the 45% George W Bush enjoys among Americans, but only a minority elsewhere – including 18% in the US.

In most countries surveyed, big majorities of up to 93% (in the Palestinian Territories) thought ‘the U.S. should remove its troops as soon as possible’ from Iraq. A smaller majority of 56% in the US thought so. Only in Kenya (59%) and Israel (58%) did majorities actually support keeping US troops in Iraq, with small pluralities in Nigeria and Ghana.

Regarding Afghanistan, only 42% of Americans thought ‘the U.S. and NATO should remove their troops as soon as possible’, but majorities or pluralities thought so everywhere else but Kenya, Ghana, Britain, Nigeria, the Czech Republic (45% each way), and of course, Israel, with a 59% majority saying to keep the troops there.

Only 34% of Americans thought ‘U.S. policies in the Middle East’ were fair, less than in Israel itself with 37% and, oddly, Venezuela, with 42%. Only 14% in Britain thought so, while only 90% in the Palestinian Territories realised that the US favoured Israel!

When asked ‘Who is mostly responsible for the fact that the Palestinians do not have a state of their own – Israelis or the Palestinians themselves?’, only in Israel did a majority (64%) blame the Palestinians. Pluralities did so in a number of countries, though, including 48% in the US. A plurality of 25% in Britain blamed Israel. Oddly, only 47% of Palestinians blamed Israel and 10% blamed themselves.

When asked about their view of Hamas, 27% of Palestinians on the Territories were ‘Very favourable’ and 35% somewhat favourable. Jordanians, most of whom are also of Palestinian ethnicity, were also 62% favourable. In Bangladesh, however, 82% favoured Hamas. Only 54% in the Palestinian Territories had confidence in the quisling Abu Mazen, less than the 67% in Egypt, but much more than the 31% Ehud Olmert enjoys among Israelis

In what I found the most interesting question, 77% in the Palestinian Territories and a remarkable 31% in Israel said ‘the rights and needs of the Palestinian people cannot be taken care of as long as the state of Israel exists’. Majorities also said so in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Malaysia. In the US and Britain an unsurprising 12% arrived at the obvious conclusion. Only in Sweden, Canada, Germany, Bulgaria, and the Ukraine did as small a proportion realise that the Jewish state is built on the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.

It ain't necessarily so

Based on the average of three surveys of 1000 American adults each over the past three Mays, Gallup’s Frank Newport reports that less than one fifth of Americans think the Bible ‘is an ancient book of "fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by man."’ Nearly a third believe it is literally the word of god and a plurality of nearly half think it is somehow divinely inspired.

The good news is that the average of 31% who believe in the most literal interpretation over nine surveys since 1991 is somewhat lower than the average of 38% over the seven surveys between 1976 and 1984, twice reaching 40%.

There is a clear negative correlation between education and superstition. Among those who never started university, 83% believe the Bible has some kind of supernatural origin, while only 13% understand its human origins. Among those who started but didn’t complete university, 81% think it’s divinely inspired, and 19% don’t. Ominously, 73% of college graduates and 68% of those with postgraduate education adopt the superstitious explanation, while only 25% and 30% of these populations respectively accept human authorship.

Perhaps the scariest revelation of all is that 36% of those with ‘no religious identification’ still believe in some kind of non human origin and 10% that the Bible is literally the word of god.

In related polling from the Pew Research Center, in the latest values survey, conducted Dec. 12, 2006-Jan. 9, 2007, the proportion saying ‘Prayer is an important part of my daily life’ has declined since 1999 by a full ten percentage points, from 55% to 45%, still a frightening level, and still above the low in 1987 of 41%. The proportion claiming, ‘I never doubt the existence of god’ has also declined considerably since 1999, from 69% to 61%, and even more dramatically since 1994, when it peaked at 72%!

Furthermore, on Pew’s generational basis, younger generations are becoming more ‘secular’, which Pew defines as calling oneself, atheist, agnostic, or no religion. Only 5% of ‘Pre-boomers’, born before 1946, are secular, as defined. Of the ‘Boomer generation, born 1946-1964, it’s 11%. ‘Generation X’ (1965-76) boasts a secularity rate of 14%, while of the post 1976 ‘Generation Y’, 19% claim to reject religion. Still, that means over four fifths of the most secular generation are still steeped in superstition.

A more encouraging trend, presumably unrelated to the hocus pocus factor, is that the proportion agreeing that ‘the best way to endure peace is through military strength’ has declined to it’s lowest point since 1987, at 49% after a steep decline from the 2002 peak of 62%, while those disagreeing have reached a 20 year high of 47%, up from the 2002 nadir of 34%.

There also appears to be some erosion of ‘conservative’ social attitudes. Sixty-nine percent now say the ‘Government should care for those who can’t care for themselves’, up from a low of 57% in 1994, but still short of the 1987 peak of 71%. A 20 year high, 54%, say the government should help the needy even if means greater debt’, the highest since 1987 after bottoming out at 47% in 1994. The proportion who think ‘school boards should have the right to fire homosexual teachers’ has plummeted by nearly half, 23 percentage points, from a high of 51% in 1987.

While the trajectories on these four indicators may be cause for optimism, it’s important to realise that even in this day and age, over 30% don’t want any government provision ‘for those who can’t care for themselves’, presumably the disabled. Nearly half begrudge ‘the needy’, and a plurality still think that military power is the key to peace.