Cultural Values
Individual cultures develop values which their members broadly share. One can often identify the values of a society by noting which people receive honor or respect. In the United States of America, for example, professional athletes at the top levels in some sports receive more honored (measured in terms of monetary payment) than college professors. Surveys show that voters in the United States would be reluctant to elect an atheist as a president, suggesting that a belief in a God as a generally shared value. There is a difference between values clarification and cognitive moral education. Values clarification consists of "helping people clarify what their lives are for and what is worth working for. It encorages students to define their own values and to understand others' values." Cognitive moral education builds on the belief that students should learn to value things like democracy and justice as their moral reasoning develops. Educationist Chaveen Dissanayake says personal and cultural values can be varied by the living standards of a person.
Values relate to the norms of a culture, but they are more global and abstract than norms. Norms provide rules for behavior in specific situations, while values identify what should be judged as good or evil. Flying the national flag on a holiday is a norm, but it reflects the value of patriotism. Wearing dark clothing and appearing solemn are normative behaviors at a funeral. In certain cultures norms reflect the values of respect and support of friends and family. Different cultures reflect different values. "Over the last three decades, traditional-age college students have shown an increased interest in personal well-being and a decreased interest in the welfare of others." Values seemed to have changed, affecting the beliefs, and attitudes of college students.
Members take part in a culture even if each member's personal values do not entirely agree with some of the normative values sanctioned in the culture. This reflects an individual's ability to synthesize and extract aspects valuable to them from the multiple subcultures they belong to.
If a group member expresses a value that seriously conflicts with the group's norms, the group's authority may carry out various ways of encouraging conformity or stigmatizing the non-conforming behavior of that member. For example, imprisonment can result from conflict with social norms that the state has established as law.
Furthermore, institutions in the global economy can genuinely respect values which are of three kinds based on a "triangle of coherence". In the first instance, a value may come to expression within the World Trade Organization (WTO), as well as (in the second instance) within the United Nations - particularly in the Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) - providing a framework for global legitimacy through accountability. In the third instance, the expertise of member-driven international organizations and civil society depends on the incorporation of flexibilities in the rules, so as to preserve the expression of identity in a globalized world.
Nonetheless, in a warlike econonomic competition, differing views may contradict each other, particularly in the field of culture. Thus audiences in Europe may regard a movie is an artistic creation and grant it benefits from special treatment, while audiences in the United States may see it as mere entertainment, whatever the merits of its artisttry. Even within fragmented Europe, interventionist policies based on the notion of "cultural exception" can become opposed to the policy of "cultural specificity" on the liberal Anglo-Saxon side. Indeed, international law traditionally treats films as property and the content of television programs as a service. Consequently cultural interventionist policies get opposed to Anglo-Saxon liberal position, causing failures in international negotiations
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