Article and Cover Story by Manuela Andaloro for FocusOn Mag, January 2020
In October 2020, I will have spent 13 years of my private and working life between the United Kingdom and Switzerland. I also had significant interactions with countries such as Germany, Italy (my homeland) and, generally speaking, the rest of Europe. A whole book could be written about all the big life lessons learnt while working and living in multinational environments. In a certain way, this learning curve derives from interpreting and adapting to different cultures or approaches which can, at times, be very similar, all contributing to opening up your mind. Speaking three languages and different passports in one family has helped me understand the approach of the societies of different countries towards reality.
It should come as no surprise that the similarities between people of different nationalities do not depend on their place of birth or passport, but rather on their level of education, culture and understanding of the global picture.
If we take a look at the European population, Germans, Italians, British and Swiss with similar experiences of private and professional life have much more in common than two random British, German, Swiss or Italian citizens with very different backgrounds and education. Similarities are horizontal, not vertical. They are not based on passport and birthplaces.
We all have witnessed how the social and political scenario has gradually changed since the financial crisis of 2008. The media, social platforms and the perception of reality have had a considerable impact on our society, economy and democracy. However, I couldn’t help but notice how the cultural approach and the relationship between perception and reality change among countries like Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany on one side, and Switzerland on the other.
As shown by the IPSOS data reported below, in the first three countries, the majority of the citizens has a rather negative and profoundly erroneous perception of the reality and the events of their country. In Switzerland things are the other way around: the perception of reality is often very positive and, yet, wrong. I fondly remember an ex-colleague of mine who, in my first week working in Switzerland, after spending a few years between Milan and London, proudly said to me: “You know, Switzerland is the best country in the world. We also have the best universities in the world.” “Really?”, I replied with a smile.
I also remember with a hint of bitterness the numerous complaints that other ex-colleagues from England, Germany or Italy used to raise – and still do – against their own countries, perhaps with just as little knowledge of the facts. An overly negative or positive perception of one's own country has equally an unfavourable impact on the common good and democracy. Where does this discrepancy come from? How is it possible to have such a wrong perception, both in excess or defect, of the actual, measurable facts?
Looking at the global picture, various IPSOS studies show that citizens from Italy, the United States, France and Australia are wrong about the key facts of their society, whilst Swedes are more rigorous. Since 2014, IPSOS has been conducting studies on how people look at social reality in their country. All this data converged in the book “The Perils of Perception: Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything”, by Bobby Duffy.
The study is based on over 50,000 interviews carried out in these countries, asking 28 questions regarding the number of immigrants, crime rate, teenage pregnancy, obesity, how happy people are, unemployment rate, owning a smartphone and many other social facts. Previous studies have shown that Italians were wrong about many aspects of their society. For example:
• They believed that 49% of Italians of working age were unemployed, while the real figure was 12%
• They reckoned that 30% of Italians was made up of immigrants, while the actual figure was 7%
• They thought that 35% of people in Italy had diabetes when in reality, only 5% did
The data reported by IPSOS is quite worrying and embraces all sectors of public life in the country. As regards the economy, in 2014, Italians believed that 49% of them were unemployed whilst the real unemployment rate was 12%. That’s like saying that one Italian in two was looking for work and could not find it.
Italians believed their economy to be similar to that of Greece, when, in reality, the latter has a GDP equivalent more or less to Lombardy alone. Italy is the second largest manufacturer in Europe and one of the top ten world economies, but more than one Italian out of 7 was not aware of it. In terms of population, the over-65s currently represent 22% of the total population but for the Italian public opinion they were 48%.
The median age is 45 but Italians assumed it was 59. The distortion in the economic and demographic area can be partly explained as an exaggeration of real facts such as the economic crisis, precariousness of work and ageing of the population. People in the United States were also wrong about many aspects of their society.
• Americans thought that 17% of their population was Muslim when the actual figure was around 1%
• They believed that 24% of girls aged 15 to 19 gave birth every year when the actual figure was 2.1%
On the other hand, Swedish citizens seem to be well informed about certain facts. For instance, they assumed that 32% of prisoners in Sweden were immigrants when the actual figure was 31%. But also the Swedes are wrong: they believed that 24% of the population was unemployed, when it was only 8%, at the time.
But why does the relationship between perception and reality have no balance? Why do we tend to misrepresent the facts, to have incorrect – often negative – perceptions and, ultimately, we complain about our reality that, objectively, is positive, works fine and provides high living standards, especially from a European perspective? Why such a big gap between perception and reality?
IPSOS has vetted many possible explanations, ranging from the education system to the characteristics of the media and politics, the degree of trust and the attitude towards the government.
In a globalised, fluid, complex society, reality becomes more and more difficult to grasp, therefore the perception of public opinion risks straying from real data to the point that a deep gulf divides what is true and what is believed to be true.
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Walter Lippmann, in his historic essay of 1922, Public Opinion, already noticed how easily public opinion ideas could be distorted. He argued that public opinion often does not reflect reality, which is too complex to be truly understood: opinion depends on the external pseudo-environment that people construct on the basis of prejudices and stereotyped visions of reality, in a more emotional way than a rational one.
However, despite its malleability, public opinion has become increasingly important over the years.
Furthermore, there is the question of scarce credibility in the institutions and a soaring individualism.
The Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman accurately caught the meaning of the crisis of institutions: he described modernity as a liquid society, a world ruled by consumerism, in which all the solid and collective certainties of the past – religious beliefs, states, parties – have collapsed, leaving individuals lost in chaos and uncertainty.
In such confusion, the selfishness of individuals easily emerges: as Giovanni Orsina writes in his book La democrazia del narcisismo (The democracy of narcissism), modern citizens are selfish mass-men who have lost all trust in others and considers themselves as the only standard to judge reality around them. For this reason, they feel entitled to believe what they want and do not accept any opinion other than theirs, as shown by the growing polarisation of politics and the barbarisation of public debate. The mass-man distrusts institutions – that are now liquefied – the facts and experts’ opinions. Sociologists tell us that even the most introverted ones have the capacity to influence around ten thousand individuals in an average lifetime. Just think of how many people we might have influenced in our life so far, whether knowingly or not. We should make the best use of the power we have, in a proper way.
As educated and modern individuals, citizens of the world who have – mostly – an understanding of social and global dynamics, who care for our society, our children and future generations, being aware of all this, we have the duty, the right and responsibility not to give in to the empty concept of the “selfish mass-man” and to push forward a cultural model of citizenship that can confront with the great challenges of our time.
M.
(info@smartbizhub.com)