Editorial Board:
Editor:
George H. Conklin,
 North Carolina
 Central University

Board:
Rebecca Adams,
 UNC-Greensboro

Bob Davis,
 North Carolina
 Agricultural and
 Technical State
 University

Catherine Harris,
 Wake Forest
 University

Ella Keller,
 Fayetteville
 State University

Ken Land,
 Duke University

Miles Simpson,
 North Carolina
 Central University

Ron Wimberley,
 N.C. State University

Robert Wortham,
 North Carolina
 Central University

Editorial Assistants

John W.M. Russell,
 Technical
 Consultant

Austin W. Ashe,
 Duke University

® 

Volume 8, Number 1

Spring/Summer 2010

Does Culture Have Inertia?
An Cross-National Analysis of the Relationship Between Inertia of Sexual Conservatism and HIV/AIDS As A Social Episode

by

Shyamal Das
Fayetteville State University

Lisa Eargle
Francis-Marion University

Asraf Esmail
Southern University of New Orleans
 

Inertia of Culture:
Background Argument

    Inertia succumbs to "the resistance of a body at rest to being moved, or of a body in motion to being accelerated, decelerated, or redirected. Bodies are assumed to continue in their present state, whether at rest or in motion, without additional input of energy" (Schneider 2001:3). Applying this understanding to culture, culture behaves like a body, which could be accelerated towards adopting particular values; or it may decelerate or redirect towards earlier values. Let us further explain the idea using an example. A culture may assimilate sexual conservatism(1), by the followers of a particular culture (the body) either keeping conservatism for a relatively long period or they could accelerate towards full accentuation of sexual liberalism within the culture. The movement or static condition of a cultural component may depend on the social costs or benefits incurred by a social episode or event, which may greatly relate to the cultural component concerned. Therefore, it can be argued that any presumed "unintended" consequence(s) (e.g. HIV/AIDS) of any new cultural values and practices (e.g. sexual liberalism) may lead people to sustain or change their existing values. If this (these) "unintended" consequence(s) is (are) very costly (e.g. increase in mortality, growing dependency ratio etc.), the body (culture) would have inertia maintaining the pre-existing cultural component for a long time, while the benefits of the move would accelerate the body towards assimilating new values, and thereby resisting inertia.

    In the present paper, we argue that the spread of HIV/AIDS is the force or social episode that has contributed to the inertia of sexual conservatism in several societies, because HIV/AIDS is an episode that brought huge loss for the societies concerned. In other words, while the modernization of cultural values as a result of the globalization process has implanted sexual liberalism in many cultures around the world, sexual conservatism still prevails, because of the presumed negative effects of sexual liberalism (see Akoshah-Sarapong 2000; Kamwendo and Kamowa 1999; Ruel and Cambell 2006). Therefore, the cost (here, it is HIV/AIDS) for assimilating values related to sexual liberalization led the countries to maintain the sexual conservatism that had already existed. This is what we call "Inertia of Values or Attitudes." Thus, the cost exposed from a social episode has reverse effects on the corresponding values.

    The conceptual framework provided above has some complexities, however. We refer to two of them here. One may ask whether the items of particular values (e.g. sexual conservatism or liberalism) behave the same way when affected by a social episode. This is the most difficult part to answer. For example, the members of a society may continue denying homosexuality exists, yet they may want prostitution be in place. To explain this situation in terms of inertia and change, we argue that like a body, all components of a culture may not be in the same condition while facing a social episode. Therefore, an examination of the relationships between the social episode or cost and the items of the values concerned are required to reach a concrete conclusion.

    The second complexity is whether the social episode itself is fuelled by cultural values. We argue, following the law of inertia in body, that as the episode affects values, the initial values affect episodes as well. For example, the existence of extensive prostitution may lead to the outbreak of HIV/AIDS (see Hope Sr. 1999; Kaya 1999). Thus, on the one hand the existing beliefs and attitudes may enhance the episode, while the episode may promote inertia or change in values.

    However, the present paper examines only one hypothesis: controlling for other factors, HIV/AIDS contributes to cultural inertia towards sexual conservatism. The basic premise of our theory is this: if any social episode produces cost or a huge burden for society, the corresponding cultural values that are thought to be resistant to the cost would be sustained by the society for a long time; this condition is called the "inertia of cultural values". This is perhaps one of the reasons why the Iranian people opted for fundamentalism in 1979 after a huge injection of modern values in the society during Shah's regime. Or, this may explain why Islamic fundamentalism receives more support in recent years in Bangladesh, in comparison to the time when they fought against fundamentalism in 1971. Taking this view into account, the following section elaborates the relationship between a social episode and the inertia of culture.

    Referring to the theory of Sewell (1996), Moaddel (2007), in his recent excellent account on the relationship between historical events/ episodes and value changes among Islamic nations, shows that the significant historical events or episodes may contribute largely to the changes of the values in any society. The meaning of any episode impacts the society in a structured way, and this "[.] meaning determines whether and how individuals, and entire societies, reexamine their attitudes toward and beliefs about historically significant issues" (Moaddel 2007: 249). The terms "event(s) or episode(s)" can be used, as we argue, for outbreak of a disaster or disease in a society. While Moaddel (2007) puts reliance on several scholars (e.g. Collins 1998; Moore 1996; Wuthnow 1989) in explaining social disorganization or the reformation and articulation of the ideology structures that unleashes creativity as the results of events or episodes, none of these scholars examined whether these episodes or events even can lead to inertia instead of change in the cultural values and attitudes.

    While Moaddel (2007: 252) defines events or episodes as a "bounded historical process that has a beginning and an end", we argue that the "end" part of an event or episode may not be visible shortly after the "beginning" part starts. Therefore, an "event" or "episode" may capture a significant amount of time in taking full shape, and in the mean time, this event or episode may have a significant influence on the inertia or change in the value systems of society. While the events may influence change in values "[b]y causing ruptures in social structure, changing the balance of social forces or dramatically affecting human emotion" (Moaddel 2007: 252), these ruptures or other changes in social forces may also cause cultural inertia confirming the existing values and beliefs remaining the same for a long time. For example, the significant number of deaths caused by HIV/AIDS in Africa may lead their people to believing in the traditional sexual conservatism. This example suggests that the meaning of the collective trauma, "a socially mediated attribution" (Moaddel 2007: 257), spread by HIV/AIDS may cause the inertia of cultural values.

    The meaning incurred by any episode or event may hit on the emotions of the members of society (Pennebaker, Paez, and Rime 1997). We argue that the emotion of the people is commandeered by either sponsoring a new discourse or by reintroducing/reinforcing old social-ideological base to endorse either a new power-regime or a validating the old hegemonic control. The latter (old hegemonic control) may uphold the inertia of cultural values and attitudes. Simply put, a significant socio-historical episode may either give birth to the emergence of a new discourse to bring change in values (Moaddel 2005) or maintain the old order by enforcing old hegemonic discourses that endorse the inertia of values. Of course, any significant episode or event may be elevated by important socio-economic-political-cultural conditions. 

    Combining the above and the work of post-modern scholars (e.g. Beck 1992 and 1994), it is noteworthy that any existing social discourse leading to increase risk in the society may cause the occurrence of a significant event or episode in society, which may lead to a change (e.g. moving to a "reflexive modernization"(2)or politico-ideological alteration) or an inertia in the value systems of the society. The social stigma attached to the episode or event may lead to change or inertia depending on the context.

    Let us give a very brief scrutiny of the social discourses that relate to sexual values and the cost attached to them. For example, homosexual practices, support for which is one of the components of sexual liberalism, were blamed for the spread of HIV/AIDS at one point of time, while heterosexuals in Africa have the highest rates of HIV/AIDS-affected people (Cameron 2001, and Ruxrungtham, Brown, and Phanuphak 2004 cited in Pick and Dayaram 2006). While the dominant social-discourse in Malawi proposes that the sexual liberalism (giving up traditional sexual beliefs) is responsible for the spread of HIV/AIDS (cited in Kamwedo and Kamowa 1999), this huge risk may lead people believing in and maintaining sexual conservatism, which confirms heterosexual dominance in society, and thus, the inertia of sexual values is upheld by the society. Let us cite a paragraph representing the discourse blaming sexual liberalism:

Alas! With so-called modernity, and its attendant globalization, the African cultural atmosphere has been riped open by the uncontrolled thunder of modernity, opening the floodgate to premarital sex and children resulting from it. And what was considered a cultural anomaly has been thrown to the winds. The result is a continent whose very soul is under siege from HIV/AIDS pandemic" (Akoshah-Sarapong 2000). 

    Based on the above, the present research investigates whether the event itself, i.e., HIV/AIDS, caused change or inertia in sexual values. 

Data

    The population for this study is constructed from the list of countries provided in World Values Surveys (2004). World Values Surveys have conducted surveys on value systems of a total of 82 countries by the year 2004. We take all of our variables on attitudes and values from these surveys. 
 Data on HIV/AIDS for various years were collected from Global AIDS Reports (1999 through 2006), and other sources, such as the Centers for Disease Control. The latter source was used for data in earlier years, such as 1989 and 1990. For the variable of homosexuality, there were 57786 and 79736 respondents in the analysis for 1993-98 and 1999-2004, respectively. We had 56411 and 66025 cases for the variable, values about prostitution, in 1993-98 and 1999-2004, respectively.  There were 58863 and 85872 respondents for the respective panels in assessing the values about abortion. For divorce variable, we had 57827 and 89434 persons for the panels, respectively. For 1993-98 period, the respondents represent 53 countries on homosexuality, prostitution, and abortion views while there were 54 countries for the views about divorce. However, because we did not have data on HIV/AIDS in 1989 for all countries, we used 50 countries in the analysis for 1993-98. By contrast, for 1999-2004, we used 74 countries for abortion and divorce, while 72 and 57 countries were examined for the homosexuality and prostitution variables. 

Independent Variables

    To evaluate the lagged effects of episode on the attitudes about sexual behavior, we use HIV/AIDS as our episode. To measure this, we take the percentage of population who has HIV/AIDS in the age group of 15 through 49. The obvious reason for taking this group into consideration is that this is the most vulnerable group the mode of sexuality of which relates to the society's productivity, including the leadership of the society itself. People are sexually most active in this age group. We used HIV/AIDS data for 1989 and 1995 allowing at least three years to influence peoples' attitude regarding sexuality in 1993-98 and 1999-2004 respectively. 

Moderators: Age, Gender, and Education

    Referring to other scholars (e.g. Alwin, Cohen, and Newcomb 1991; Schuman and Rodgers 2004), Moaddel (2007) contends that the younger generations are more susceptible to the effects of a significant social episode. This trend is obvious in the effects of the type of episodes that we are dealing with in the present paper. Following Pennebaker and Banasik (1997), Moaddel (2007) argues that the effect of any episode on young people below the age of 26 is more extensive than on older groups. Taking this into account, we argue that the young age cohort (e.g. below 26) is more likely to hold the old views about the episode of HIV/AIDS, because the young are more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS through sexual activities, and therefore, they might protect themselves from the spread of HIV/AIDS by holding conservative attitudes about sexuality.

    Thus, we need to evaluate the effects of event on different age groups in maintaining conservative attitudes about sexuality. In so doing, we coded ages below 26 as 1, and respondents aged 26 and above are coded 0.  The hypothesis we will test by this measure is:

The pervasive spread of HIV/AIDS results in more acceptance of older views about sexuality among younger cohort than the older cohort.

The pervasive spread of HIV/AIDS results in more acceptance of older views about sexuality among people with more education than the people with lower education.

The pervasive spread of HIV/AIDS results in more acceptance of older views about sexuality among females than males. 

    The cultural inertia in attitudes pertaining to sexuality and sexual behaviors is difficult to measure, for differential cultural subjectivities are attached to these attitudes. As our earlier discussion suggests, we need to measure cultural inertia by looking at how attitudes about sexuality have been more or less static over time. In so doing, we need to measure these attitudes. 
However, following established researchers in the field (e.g. Inglehart and Welzel 2005), we assess attitudes about sexuality on basic three dimensions: homosexuality, abortion, prostitution, and divorce.

    In original dataset, the respondents were asked to rate their attitude in 1-10 point scales to assess whether homosexuality, divorce, abortion, prostitution, adultery, and sexual freedom are justifiable (1= not at all justifiable and 10= always justifiable). For the ease of interpretation, however, we reversed the codes so that higher values imply more conservatism, and as such, the stable higher scores over time attest to the existence of cultural inertia.

HIV/AIDS: Is Significant a Social Episode?

Figures 1 through 8 show that there is a positive association between HIV/AIDS and the perceptions on sexuality, meaning that people are more conservative when the rates for HIV/AIDS increase over time. Tables 1 and 2 also depict the positive correlations between HIV/AIDS and the conservative attitudes about sexual practices.

Bring UP Tables 1.1 and 1.2 As One Image in New Window
 

Bring Up Tables 2.1 and 2.2 As One Table in New Window

    Table 3 presents results for regression analyses. Over time, the effects of HIV/AIDS are supportive of our main hypothesis that a social episode may bring inertia in cultural values. Comparing the un-standardized betas for both panels with each other, clearly the direction of the effects for HIV/AIDS in sustaining cultural inertia towards conservative views about homosexuality, prostitution, abortion, and divorce remain identical over time when the interaction terms are not considered. This means that HIV/AIDS as a social episode greatly contributed to the inertia of culture regarding attitudes about sexual behavior. This supports our first hypothesis adequately.
 

    As for as the interaction terms regarding attitudes toward homosexuality and prostitution, HIV/AIDS contributes to producing progressive views in peoples' minds if they are older males with no education. This pattern remains the same over time. When people are young and they have higher educational attainments, the increase of HIV/AIDS makes them more inclined towards conservative views, and this pattern is visible in both time-points. However, for the gender parameter, if the respondents are women, then HIV/AIDS increases conservative views over time.

    The findings for interaction terms for attitudes towards abortion indicate that the older males with no education perceive progressive views more than conservative views if HIV/AIDS increases over time. When people are young and they have higher educational attainments, the increase of HIV/AIDS makes them more inclined toward progressive views during 1999-2004, and this pattern is non-significant during 1993-1998. By contrast, when the respondents are females, HIV/AIDS increases the acceptance of progressive views toward abortion during 1999-2004, but this result is not significant for 1993-1998.

    Divorce is the only item where HIV/AIDS ceases to be significant in the final model when interaction terms were added for 1999-2004, although this remains significant as far as main effects concerned. When people are young, and they have better education than others, HIV/AIDS promotes the conservative views regarding divorce over time. The women of any society are more inclined toward conservative views about divorce when HIV/AIDS increases in 1999-2004, but this is not significant at the earlier time point. 

    The effects of sex and education on the attitudes about prostitution, and divorce have not changed over time. It is noteworthy though, that the effects of young age have changed its direction somehow in the attitudes towards homosexuality, abortion, and divorce. For prostitution, the effects for young age, sex, and education remain the same over time.

    On homosexuality item, the young people seem to accept more conservative views over time, whereas the overall effect of the youngness as a result of HIV/AIDS on the attitudes about homosexuality remain the same, meaning that young people continue to uphold the same view about homosexuality over time. As estimated effects for interaction terms suggest, young people are more progressive if there is no HIV/AIDS at all in the country. By contrast, a 1% increase of HIV/AIDS leads young people to holding conservative views about homosexuality. The same conclusion can be drawn about prostitution. These support our hypotheses related to young age.

    For abortion, the results regarding the interaction between age and HIV/AIDS are somewhat different than expected. The effects of young age interacting with HIV/AIDS are non-significant for 1993-1998, while they are significant in 1999-2004. Clearly, the young people are more accepting of abortion when HIV/AIDS increases during this time. This is opposite to our hypothesis.

    When divorce is concerned, the interaction term between HIV/AIDS and age is significant for both time points. However, the simple effect of age when HIV/AIDS is zero suggests that the tendency of young people to accept divorce.

    The simple effects of age, sex, and education do not change the attitudes about homosexuality, prostitution, and divorce. For both homosexuality and divorce, if there is no HIV/AIDS, the young men with better education promote progressive views over time. In case of abortion, these findings are true for 1999-2004 as whole. Also, people with higher education accept progressive views when there is no HIV/AIDS in both panels.

    In general, the results suggest that HIV/AIDS as a social episode greatly contributed to the inertia of culture. Also, as the interaction effects suggest, the increase of HIV/AIDS promotes more conservative views about homosexuality and prostitution amongst more educated and young people. As for both abortion and divorce, the direction of the effects of age and education are somewhat opposite, when there is a spread of HIV/AIDS, to what was predicted. The reason lies in the fact that the young and educated people are more likely to understand the consequences of a particular episode, and therefore, the spread of HIV/AIDS could be limited if abortion and divorce are well accepted, because fewer number of HIV/AIDS infected babies would born to carry the risks incurred on society.

    As far as gender concerned, we note that females are more conservative on homosexuality and prostitution when HIV/AIDS spread, while they carry somewhat opposite views about abortion and divorce in the same situation upheld by HIV/AIDS. The latter part does not support what we hypothesized. However, what follows from here is that the prospective risk factor related to HIV/AIDS and the conservative views about abortion and divorce may put the women of the society at greater jeopardy; this could be the reason why women are progressive on these two parameters. We observe that the young and educated people become more progressive when a country does not have HIV/AIDS at all. The same is true for women too.

    As we conclude in the above assessment, HIV/AIDS and likely social episodes may lead to the inertia of some cultural attitudes about sexuality. The influences of age, sex, and gender are mixed when there is a massive spread of HIV/AIDS. The rationales for such findings involve the risk factor related to the social episode, and thus, in broader theoretical aspect, our hypotheses are not rejected. Even though some societies are expected to be more modern on some views, they may not be like that if there are social risks for a particular social episode. Therefore, social episodes are very important as social events.

    The future research on the topic may explore the relationships between specific risks incurred by HIV/AIDS and the inertia or change of cultural values. In so doing, larger datasets representing more countries and timeframes would serve the research objective as outlined here. Another suggestion regarding future research is to examine whether a society could decelerate on cultural views. 
 
 

(2)The reflexive modernization as outlined by Beck (1992) relates to “unintended” consequences of modernization itself. For example, nuclear accidents, global warming, and ozone depletion. 
Return to Text
 
 

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