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Spiritual Revival around 2010 – Traditional religions or nouveau-hippies?

Ian Pearson, Feb 2005

Future trend spotting often relies on noticing weak signals today that are pointing in a similar direction. Social trends are particularly hard to notice until they are already well under way. But there are already lots of weak signals that Europe and the USA are ripe for another major social adventure along spiritual lines. This could play out as either a nouveau hippy movement or a religious revival, both of which would tackle many of the same needs. Some time between now and 2010, some charismatic person will probably lead a major movement of one of these two kinds. It will combine spirituality, care for the environment and for other people, some mystery, some personal health and happiness stuff, some social rewards, some love, and of course some sort of life code. I wonder how it will start, and who will do it?

Let’s look at some of the evidence, which is a little different for Europe and the USA, so the strength and nature of the consequent trends are likely to differ somewhat too, though the overall effect will be similar. Many people today are characterised by subscribing to one or more of the following trends.

Firstly, there is a strong anti-science undercurrent in Europe. This has been obvious for many years now, but is increasing, not going away. Many people are less inclined to believe scientists than almost anyone who contradicts them. The reactions to BSE, Genetic modification technology, the MMR vaccine and cell-phone radiation are all typical examples of this. Environmentalism is another example of a field where emotion currently dominates over science (which is very bad news for the environment, which has already suffered badly because of this). The USA anti-science trend is weaker, but there are certainly many subscribers to anti-science there too.

Secondly, emotional display has also been very much in fashion for several years but is still increasing. Men have felt encouraged to show emotions, even to cry in public. There are good and bad effects of this. Seeing sports and pop stars crying regularly on TV is undesirable to most of us over 40. Women are encouraged to feel free to show their emotions more in the workplace, even the boardroom, without fear of criticism. Emotional intent and reaction are now legally significant factors in the treatment of racial offences and in employment law. Emotions, it seems, are in fashion.

Thirdly, perhaps most importantly, with the decline of traditional religion throughout Europe, and a more polarised community in the USA with the religious right versus a strong anti-religious community, a spiritual vacuum has been growing. While some people are happy not to have any spiritual feelings at all, most people seem to have the need to feel spiritual in some way, and certainly a need to feel that they are a ‘good’ person, even if they don’t want to believe in any particular god. Traditional religion provided a universal benchmark of ‘goodness’ for people. Now, this is provided by an assortment of traits, beliefs and behaviours which can be grouped under the banner of 21^st Century piety. The list is long, and includes political correctness, militant vegetarianism and animal rights, new ageism, semi-mystical pseudo-eastern health regimes, crystal therapy, environmentalism, anti-car, anti-speed, anti-capitalism, pacifism, religious extremism, and even the obsession with fitness. This trend is certainly true of both the USA and Europe. It is all to do with achieving an inner feeling of self-worth, i.e. believing that you are being holy. Unfortunately, it is very often accompanied by sanctimonious behaviour too.

Fourthly, people seem to be showing much more love for their fellow men than before, and it is suddenly very fashionable to be seen to be caring of people overseas. People suddenly seem to feel connected to the world around them where once their attention was much more localised. This has been particularly conspicuous in the sympathy for people in Iraq, and after the recent tsunami. While other catastrophes have seen a large response, the more recent ones seem to have received far more than earlier.

Fifthly, a lot of recent research has highlighted the importance of high quality relationships for happiness, and also the lack of impact on happiness of material wealth. Many people already realised this of course, but others are now starting to take note. Coupled with the huge debt problem that has appeared recently, many of the rest are probably ready to follow this trend. A closely related trend is that of downshifting, where people take a less well paid job that allows them more control over their stress and more time to do what they want.

Sixthly, new technologies are making it much easier for people to keep in touch more intimately, flirt, to show affection to people where previously they might have kept such feelings to themselves, or to develop secret relationships more easily. This is especially evident with technologies such as text messaging and email, which bypass the social barrier of embarrassment and give people a low risk mechanism to approach people with less fear of embarrassing rejection. Other technologies such as the web, and Friends Reunited in particular, have made it easy for people to track down old sweethearts from school or earlier jobs. Nor is there any longer a social stigma associated with using computer technologies to find partners. People seem quite open to using technology to improve their social and sex lives. Broadband, web-cams, chat rooms, mobile phones and instant messaging are all important tools already. Soon, people will be able to afford large displays, for life sized, full body-language images over broadband.

Seventhly, an increasing market exists for lifestyle gurus. People are feeling fat wallets but thin emotional reward and are looking to lifestyle gurus to help them find happiness.

Eighthly, a recent trend in the USA has been called The Slow Lane. It is manifested by people abandoning the rat race, fast food, supermarkets, and the other high speed, low human contact lifestyle, and instead opting for a much slower pace of life, with a much richer level of human contact. They are waiting in queues and chatting to shop keepers, rather than rushing in and out. So while many people are still trying to pack ever more into an increasingly frenzied life, many others are dropping out into the slow lane. And generally speaking, so far at least, they are feeling much happier there.

Ninthly, most people in the West are fairly comfortably off. In terms of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, they have moved far above the basic need levels of subsistence and physical security. On his traditional model, (which I still think is the best, in spite of meddling by academia) most people in fact spend a lot of time at the top of the pyramid, on self-actualisation. But as society has developed, more and more options have become available to people, and it is not enough for many to play at this level, many feel actually stressed by the bewildering range of options available. Should they be doing yoga, or learning feng shui? Swimming or weight training? Crystal therapy or colonic irrigation? Become a wine expert or learn to paint? Paradoxically, successfully rising to the top of the pyramid of needs starts them on another needs cycle, and they suddenly feel deeply insecure, worrying that they might not be making the most of their life, that there might be a greener fad on the other side of the fence. They are uncertain about their situation, and once gain insecure. With their feeling of security undermined, it is impossible for them to be happy. They may have met their physical needs but they are now in the cultural world and similar hierarchy of needs exists within it which they must now climb. People in this situation are often longing for a life code. That’s why every new diet or lifestyle book does so well. They are desperate for guidance, guidance that once came from religion.

Finally, one of the main long term socio-economic trends is towards the care economy. This recognises that the unstoppable march of technology will eliminate most physical and mental work by automating it. What is left is the large number of jobs, and parts of jobs, that rely on human contact. It is possible to make a robot to wash out bed pans, but not to replace the caring part of a nurse’s job by a machine. The same goes with teaching, policing, therapy, child care, hairdressing, acting, singing, sports, and millions of other jobs. Future human work will be dominated by human emotional skills, not by intelligence or physical dexterity. Hence the term the care economy.

Altogether, these social forces and technological tools are creating a society that is ripe for major change towards a loving, caring, more emotional sub-community, which may undo much of the social fragmentation that has been evident in recent decades. Paradoxically, for other reasons, counter-trends will affect other parts of the same communities and will increase tribalism and conflict, we will probably see some intergenerational conflict, inter-cultural conflict, and there is already even an anti-child-centric movement! Both of these trends are likely to be strong, but they will generally affect different segments of the community, and will exist alongside each other. Society is not homogenous and social trends rarely affect everyone. But in terms of the ‘love society’, some people are already starting to drift in these various directions, and it will not take much to convert this slow drift into a torrent. As people start to notice, natural leaders will emerge to drive it forwards.

In a highly secularised society, such as some parts of Europe (I would guess Northern Europe), the overall effect might be something akin to the hippy movement, where people were conspicuously loving to each other, at least superficially, for some years before they finally got bored or frustrated with it and moved on. It seems there is only so much love people can give, and when they reach the limits of their capability, other new relationships are at the expense of existing ones, which is a force producing instability and eventual collapse. If everyone loves everyone, relationships become too thinly spread to be worthwhile and dissatisfaction occurs. Even love is vulnerable to sustainability and we can only love sustainable when we stay within our long term limits and concentrate on a smaller number of meaningful relationships. Nevertheless, people who are currently living a high speed, high intensity lifestyle, but not feeling very happy will be ripe for the picking. They will look at their high stress levels, thin relationships, high debt levels and general discontent with life. They will compare with people who have dropped out, who live easily, peacefully, happily, with high quality relationships, lower stress and better happiness and health levels. And very many of them will be only too happy to switch.

Religious revival is a strong contender though, and is more likely to win in the USA (except West Coast) and some parts of Europe, such as the UK and Ireland, maybe France and Germany. The rest of Europe is much less vulnerable to these trends for a variety of socioeconomic and religious penetration reasons. Of course, the two can live side by side, and some people might go for religion while other become Nouveau Hippies even in the same town.

The religious trend over the last decades has already been aligned with some of these forces, so we may see a rapid acceleration of existing changes and a revival in terms of overall membership, now that the community is ready for change. We have seen a quite rapid decline in large scale organised religion in the UK, such as the Church of England and Roman Catholicism. Some of these followers have simply abandoned religion and opted either for secularism or 21^st century piety, but many have merely rejected the form in which it was presented, so some of these would be susceptible to new approaches. The rest have moved to small independent churches that offer a more close-knit group, and churches such as these are growing in number and size. They provide a desirable package for people that are affected by the social forces above. As well as the traditional reassurance of a pleasant afterlife, they offer a better spiritual reward and re-assurance through a closer, more personal relationship with God. They provide a ready made package of shared beliefs and a common benign life-code instead of the DIY pick-and-mix packages of the new age world. Most importantly, they offer a stronger social reward, with more friends, closer relationships, more genuine love, better support and consequently an overall happiness improvement. This last one is key, because it has many advantages in common with the hippy route. People can only have so many close relationships, and if they spread themselves too thinly, they become less happy because their relationships are too shallow. The natural size of a successful social group is a few dozen people. And people will generally have only a few very close friends among this group. It has been estimated that people mostly have 11 or 12 close friends at any time during their life, and as new friends come along, others get gradually dropped. Small churches conform very well to this model, and offer a few dozen people in the ‘tribe’ with smaller cliques of closer friends. Churches stop working so well as numbers climb higher, and people start to lose their sense of close belonging as they grow to around 80 to 100 people, the natural size of a human tribe – they simply don’t know everyone any more. Many other people would say that these churches work well because they follow the natural social model of the early churches, and are based on principles designed by God into our human nature. But whether by design or evolution, these small tribe-sized churches certainly do seem to work socially, and are ideally placed to capitalise on the forces outlined above. Even areas such as the desire for physical health and child care are catered for in many of these churches. Recent studies have confirmed that people in churches such as these really do feel happier than the population at large, so regardless of the truth of their religious beliefs, they would offer a good social solution to the emerging social pressures. If a religious revival happens, it will almost certainly be these sorts of churches that benefit rather than old-fashioned large churches.

So it is highly likely that we will see a major upheaval of society in the next few years that will give people the choice of either becoming a nouveau hippy or joining a small church. It is a classic market problem. The proportion of people that go either way will on marketing and the existing preferences of the community. In a highly secularised society that has long since rejected religion, religious revival will probably lose out to a nouveau hippy movement if this is pushed by sufficiently charismatic personalities. In areas where people still have enough religious background, revival would seem more likely. Ultimately, the package that is made most attractive to people according to their own backgrounds and prejudices will win most people. But the evidence is that we will see one or both of these trends bear out in the next few years.