3: Attitudes: Promoting Progress or Destroying Dignity?

“Attitudes” are what drive us and condition our behavior on the individual and small group level. “Institutions” – whether they are practices rooted in widely accepted cultural norms of behavior or formal organizational structures such as businesses, agencies of government, nongovernmental organizations, or organizations based on religious practice – are created to operate more on the macrosocietal level and influence our behavior more profoundly “from above” than from street level (see next chapter). Attitudes are more fundamental, yet at the same time, more encompassing than institutions. Formed on the basis of individual and social experience, they operate on both individual and societal levels. They are key to the shape and character of the societies we create and therefore, in a very practical sense, to the nature of the lives we lead.