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“Crying ‘globalist’ fails the test of history. My parents’ story shows why demonising international forums is dangerous and ignores our obligation to humanity … an interest in the fate of mankind beyond our shores is a duty.” The Times, June 7, 2023: 21. Daniel Finkelstein.
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1 Introduction
2 World variation
3 Nations: variation and self
4 Other variation
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1 Introduction
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United? Divided? No. Rather there is a distribution. There is variation within the world. There is variation within nations. There is variation between nations. Comparing nations, the variation within each nation can be greater than the variation between nations - each nation is ‘more varied and less distinctive’. There is variation between groups of nations - but here too though, the variation within each group can be greater than the variation between groups.
Perception of variation can be different from the reality of variation. Perception can involve simplification. ‘United’ and divided’ are two common instances of simplification. ‘United’ can suggest there is no variation. ‘Divided’ can suggest a binary divide with no variation each side of the divide. Another common simplification is the over-estimation of between-group differences and the under-estimation of within-group differences.
Perception can deviate from reality in another way: self-preoccupation. The self can be overvalued and the other under-valued. ‘Our Values’: Unanimous? Universal? Exceptional? Good? Safe? The whole world can be neglected or denigrated – as suggested by the Finkelstein quotation above. Living with others.
As well as consisting of nations, world society also consists of other political groupings and other spheres besides the political. Variation and self are important here also.
These general points are the subject of much current debate and I have addressed them in a variety of my recent writings. What follows is an introduction to these past writings of mine, grouped into three separate sections:
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2 World variation
3 Nations: variation and self
4 Other variation
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2 World variation
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Recent discourse paints a picture of a divided world. This notion is reinforced by a number of recent reports. Here we focus on just two of these reports. My own analysis of these reports prefers to to see not a divided world but a distribution.
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Recent discourse
Recent discourse paints a picture of a divided world.
“Democrats versus Nihilists. The world’s tyrants were given bloody noses this year but are not going away just yet. The West has to rise to the challenge and not only on the battlefield.” Editorial, 31 27
“Putin and Xi seek stronger alliance against the West.” 31, 38.
The “Democrats versus Nihilists” phrase comes an article by Tom Snyder in Foreign Affairs September/October 2022: “Ukraine holds the future. The war between democracy and nihilism.”
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/ukraine-war-democracy-nihilism-timothy-snyder
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_D._Snyder
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The Cambridge report
Putin and Xi seem to agree with The Times that world society is divided. This is in accord with a Cambridge report which suggested “A World Divided”.
https://www.bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk/publications/a-world-divided/ ;
https://www.bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/A-World-Divided.pdf
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My analysis of the Cambridge report
However my own analysis of the Cambridge data showed how world opinion might rather be thought of in terms of continuous distributions.
World opinion: continuous distributions and categorical divides (34 pages) (2022)
The Times editorial refers to Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. What is said about these countries in the Cambridge Report? Figure 25 shows that Russia and China have low social liberalism, but there are perhaps twenty other countries which have lower social liberalism.
Figure 25 in https://www.bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/A-World-Divided.pdf
My own analysis of that section of the Cambridge Report has the following sections:
“11 Opinions and attributes; ‘liberal’ and ‘divide’
Opinion about China and China investment commitments
Liberal democracy and the opinion about Russia and China combined
Satisfaction with democracy; and the opinion about Russia and China combined
Social Liberalism and the opinion about Russia and China combined
Extreme ‘social illiberalism’ – as opposed to Russia, China and the West
Change in Social Liberalism, 1990-2022
Value depends on social distance … single-peaked value functions on multidimensional attribute space”
Section 11 in World opinion: continuous distributions and categorical divides (34 pages) (2022)
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World opinion: surface divides and underlying gradients
Two recent reports invoke the word “divided”:
A World Divided: Russia, China and the West. (Cambridge, 2022)
https://www.bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/A_World_Divided.pdf
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The ECFR report
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“United West, divided from the rest: global public opinion one year into Russia’s war on Ukraine” (22 February 2023)
Timothy Garton Ash, Ivan Krastev and Mark Leonard for the European Council on Foreign Relations, ECFR.
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My analysis of the ECFR report
My analysis of the ECFR report (2023) has so far only looked at the first question in their survey. (My analysis of the other questions is in progress). See Section 4 in:
Positive Value 8: Principled negotiation … Ukraine 55: War options and social choice theory
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My analyses of these two reports argue that what the data exhibits is distributions on an underlying continuous dimension with functional relationships involving gradients.
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3 Nations: variation and self
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Last week: the national self
Self and other; opinions and reality (a couple of paragraphs).
Britannia: Three Prime Ministers and a Queen
Scotland and Britannia … Independence and Referenda
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The national self … empires in Europe … the Ottoman empire
Click: The national self … empires in Europe … the Ottoman empire
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Last week: the national self
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The national self, continued
1 Previous reports
Nations: structure, dynamics and trajectories of power (new)
Extract from my report at the end of 2022 … Russia, Ukraine, Germany, USA
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2 Nations and empires in Europe
German unification, 1871
Hitler and Stalin, Germany and Russia, “Mum and Dad”
Daniel Finkelstein … Germany, Poland, Ukraine …
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3 The Ottoman empire: before, during and after
The Trojan War … Troy
The Celtic peoples … Galatians
St Paul’s epistle to the Galatians
Lygos, Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul
Ottoman Empire: c. 1299-1922 … Turkey 2023
“The New Ottoman”
Hagia Sophia: May 29th, 1453 … May 29th, 2023
Yugoslavia 1918-1992 … 1963
Serbia and Kosovo … June 2023
Israel
Israel protests, June 10, 2023
Variation within a nation: Israel (January 2023)
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4 Other variation
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NOTE: what follows is simply an extract from one of my previous reports
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Variation in systems of ideas
Variation in religion … one true faith? … all faiths?
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Variation in systems of ideas
World society is made up of nations, but it is also made up of different actors. It is also made up of non-actors … such as different systems of ideas. There is debate between the advocates of the enlightenment and its critics. Religion in particular is sometimes a critic of the enlightenment … tragically so in 2015 with the Charlie Hebdo killings.
‘Our values’: the enlightenment … the prophet
Chapter 14, (2015)
One aspect of Putin’s thinking and that of Patriarch Kyrill is that the war is justified as a defence of tradition against liberalism. This and the debate between localism and globalism is discussed in a recent report:
43: Tradition and liberalism; localism and globalism
In November 2021 I was looking at the debate between Pinker’s Better Angels and Dwyer & Micale’s Darker Angels:
In February 2022 I was thinking about Ancient Rome, the Enlightenment and Robert Burns:
In March 2022 my review appeared in JPR Book Notes of the book,
https://www.prio.org/journals/jpr/booknotes/1717
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Variation in religion … one true faith? … all faiths?
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The past week has provided an interesting contrast between King Charles III welcoming all faiths and the late Pope Benedict’s insistence on the one true faith. The week also saw the 250th anniversary of “Amazing Grace” which has a link to the tensions between Catholicism, Anglicanism and evangelical methodism.
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King Charles III, F D
Heads or tails? The heads side of a British coin has the head of the monarch and the letters “F D” or “Fid Def”. This is Latin for Defender of the Faith, defending the faith against other faiths. The faith being referred to here is the faith of the Church of England. One faith only. That has been the tradition.
However, in his Christmas Day address, Charles changed that, saying all faiths and none. The new King gave his first Christmas Day speech to a television audience of almost 11 million people.
“King’s speech is a gift for ‘tireless’ health workers. Charles highlights role as defender of all faiths.” 26, 1
“Faithful King shows he believes all religions can offer hope and solace.” 26, 4-5.
“A 90-year old mission to unite, reassure and console nation.” 26, 6
“Monarchy and message. The King’s first Christmas broadcast conveyed the importance of common civic bonds and the invaluable role of faith communities in sustaining them.” 26, 29.
https://royalcentral.co.uk/uk/first-image-of-king-charles-iii-on-coins-revealed-181946/
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Pope Benedict XVI … Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Pope Benedict XVI (1927-2022) (Pope: 2005-2013)
John Paul II appointed Cardinal Ratzinger as prefect of the CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) in 1981. “Critics claim that Ratzinger used the post to crush dissent and encourage a return to the unthinking obedience of the pre-conciliar church. Supporters argue that he defended the faith of the humble believers against secular incursions”.
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Amazing Grace 1773 … Catholicism, Anglicanism and evangelical methodism
Here is President Barack Obama singing Amazing Grace in 2015:
I live in Newport Pagnell. Just eight miles up the road from us is Olney. On 1st January 1773 the curate at Olney, John Newton, included in his service the first singing of his hymn Amazing Grace.
“How sweet the sound: why the world has found comfort in Amazing Grace. Black orchestra plans to celebrate the 250th anniversary of song written by a repentant former slave trader.” January 1st 2023, The Observer, 3.
A few weeks ago I borrowed from Olney library a biography of John Newton (1725-1807). The book provides an insight into the religious discussions and tension of the time. Just outside Olney is the village of Ravenstone and its curate Thomas Scott (1747-1821) “was in the habit of ridiculing evangelical religion, and laboured to bring [John Newton] to his own sentiments” (110). Later John Henry Newman (1801-1890) referred to Scott as the man “to whom (humanly speaking) I almost owe my soul”. Newman later left Anglicanism for Roman Catholicism and became a Cardinal (148, 311).
Cecil Richard; Rousse, Marylynn (Ed.). The Life of John Newton. Christian Focus: Fearn. 2000.
Newman was beatified in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI, and canonised in 2019. Newman was one of Benedict’s heroes.
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THE END