The state of our religious, economic and political values

We live by changing, transforming, aging, and depleting at a dizzying pace. The events we witness every day, and the unexpected behaviors of those we know—those with whom we thought we shared a covenant—in connection with the incidents we are part of, create immense disappointments in us.

What we call change actually permeates our lives through sell-outs, renunciations, abandonments, and giving up. The giving up of many people perhaps causes anxiety in some others. Are we not all in the same boat? Who is going where? Let those who leave go, but why resort to sinking the very boat we are all in together? How is it that those who resort to this do not hold back from fighting to grab the most comfortable spot on the boat?

Femicides, child rapes, organized crimes involving entire villages and sometimes the populace of entire cities, cover-ups, thefts, corruption, and brazen acts—even if they have always existed—are now mundane evils that everyone hears about, sees, and witnesses intensely every single day. Witnessing these and being unable to do anything about them, having what we witness challenge us with our own helplessness, has a completely different impact. What is the result of this? What is happening now? What is happening to us at the end of the day in the face of so much witnessing?

One should not talk about and spread evil, because mentioned evils create a sense of familiarity in people, and familiarity inevitably leaves a stain on people's hearts. Believe me, as that stain grows, it can lead to indifference in the face of evil, becoming accustomed to evil, and subsequently becoming a potential perpetrator of that evil.

This situation is another manifestation, another feeling of what we call the erosion of values. Values are the unchanging ideals—that ought not to change—concerning what a society desires to be. That is how sociologists define them. The late Erol Güngör, who was among the first in Turkey to study this subject at the intersection of social psychology and sociological interest, approached values as factors that have a decisive influence on human behavior and defined them as "the belief regarding whether something is desirable or undesirable." We have desirable or undesirable values regarding family, nation, society, and economic distribution. We attribute great value to these values and adopt this as a way of defining our social identity.

The depletion we feel we are experiencing is also related to the erosion of these values. What do we deem worthy of this society to which we think or feel we belong, what do we desire to see, and what do we see as a result? What is the current state of our family values, which we boast about so much? Do not our tragically increasing divorce rates, nursing homes, and advancing marriage ages indicate that we are facing a serious problem?

And where are our values going regarding solidarity, protecting and embracing the poor, the weak, the oppressed, and the asylum seeker—values we deem most worthy of our society? How has this matter, which we approached with a much greater sense of national pride and considered a point of honor 13 years ago, come to be perceived today as an economic and national problem?

The shift in this regard is a shift in our values, and this is a symptom of issues much deeper than imagined. Change in values is a matter that requires constant monitoring, because values are the most crucial aspect that makes a society distinct, strong, or weak compared to others.

Of course, values are also a dynamic domain subject to constant change. It is not their being in a state of continuous change that is a matter of concern. What matters in this change, of course, is which values are strengthened and which are weakened—for instance, the weakening of values that strengthen society, hold it together, and nurture hard work, solidarity, compassion, and altruism, and the strengthening of selfish, hedonistic, competitive, and racist values instead. Continuous monitoring is necessary in any case. In this regard, it is vital that we maintain an attentiveness that keeps an inventory of our values and tracks their evolution.

The Ankara Foundation for Social Sciences has conducted one of the most comprehensive values surveys of recent times under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Beşir Atalay and with a research team consisting of Prof. Dr. Ömer Demir, İbrahim Dalmış, A. Ömer Toprak, and Cem Eyerci. The 2024 values survey in the fields of Religion, Economy, and Politics attempted to capture a snapshot of today as realistically as possible. They sought to reveal the actual state of issues about which we perhaps complain based on subjective experiences, using data collected from the field by fulfilling all the requirements of scientific research methods.

The research team consists of well-known names whom everyone knows. In particular, Beşir Atalay is a figure who represented and nurtured the sociological dimension for years during the founding of the AK Party and most of the subsequent years, held positions at the highest level in practical politics, and was able to feed his theoretical perspective from there as well. Ömer Demir, on the other hand, is an important figure who worked in the kitchen of all the successful achievements of this era, serving as the President of TÜİK (Turkish Statistical Institute) for years during the AK Party's first term in power and later as the Deputy President of YÖK (Council of Higher Education). Along with the other members of the team, one must also remember their experience at ANAR, the research institution that strongly held and represented the bond between AK Party politics and sociology before SETA.

We have touched upon this topic many times before; in my view, the strongest aspect of the AK Party that sets it apart from other political movements is its strong sociological sensor. Even the decline recently felt and observed by everyone, which is also reflected in the election results, stems from the weakening of this sensor.

As for the nature and findings of the 2024 Values Survey, let us continue with that later.