Knowledge and well-being have gained importance as values in the 21st-century information society, both individually and collectively. This study aimed to examine the relationship between these two values for Turkey over the period 1990 and 2017. The authors use the Johansen cointegration test, dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS), and fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) in the empirical section. As a result of the cointegration test, it is concluded that a society's knowledge and skills and its human well-being level move in the long run. DOLS and FMOLS results demonstrate that level of the knowledge-skills of the society has a positive and statistically significant impact on human well-being in Turkey. As a result of the findings, policy recommendations were discussed in the last part of the study.
TopIntroduction
In the pre-industrial societies of the 21st century, religion was the most important mechanism determining the attitudes and behaviors of people and societies. However, after the French Revolution and the Enlightenment processes, the influence of the established religion in the 21st century lost its central role at the institutional level. There has been a social change from a theological worldview to a more human-centered worldview. The values of the societies have developed in this direction as religion has left its functional determining role to values.
With this social change, the mechanisms deciding what is important or unimportant, what is right or wrong, what is rational or irrational, are now values. In this sense, values are a determining factor in the life of people, in their actions, behaviors, and motivations. In the post-industrial information society, knowledge constitutes the ultimate point of legitimation and sanctification as a value, just like in religion in pre-industrial societies. With the rapid development of knowledge and technology, risks are becoming more manageable and uncertainties are becoming more avoidable. People have become more masterful in the face of nature and its uncertainties and risks, thus the functional need for religion is decreasing compared with medieval times (Inglehart, 2000). Developing technology and science have enabled humans more comfortable lives. By prolonging human life, technology and science have allowed people to live in better conditions as they can easily access health and education services. Just as a religion with its discourses, prepared people to live a better life (in Paradise) in the afterlife; science and knowledge, replacing religion in the modern era, create a life for people to live a paradise-like life on earth. Because in the information society, artificial intelligence and emerging technologies aim to affect human well-being positively by making human life easier and more livable. In this context, knowledge, and well-being are among the most important values of the 21st century, and the relationship between these two values is quite remarkable.
Values are important mechanisms in explaining personal and social organizations and social change. Values have become an area of interest for many disciplines, not only in sociology but also in psychology, anthropology, economics, and other sciences, as well as in medicine and engineering. For example, they are the determining mechanisms in technology designs recently (Friedman & Hendry, 2019).
Values are created by human experience in the long term (Williams & Albert, 1990, p. 286). Values have a decisive effect on many behaviors and attitudes of people (Rokeach, 1973). They help people evaluate situations and guide people's behavior (Adler, 1956; Kluckhohn, 1951; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987). Values correspond to more than the psychological desires, needs, experiences, and beliefs of the human soul. They have the functions of making sense of the existence of individuals, guiding their lives, and making this life more meaningful. They are the determining situations how a person will lead himself in life and society. In this sense, they are important variables defining social behavior and attitudes (Rokeach, 1973). Values are both psychological and socio-cultural constructions of what is desirable. They are not only expressed in action but can also exist only as ideals. They have a decisive influence on the right definition of the social order, the good life, and the identity of individuals.
As stated, individual values explain the motivational basis of people's attitudes and behaviors. Social values, on the other hand, are the standards that determine the personal goals of individuals and social groups and provide social order within the community, and in this context, determine what is acceptable and what is not, what is desirable and what is not desirable. On the other hand, national values are what the people of a country mostly believe in and regulate their behavior accordingly (Hofstede & Hofstede 2005). Of course, values are relative and different values can be at the forefront in every society. However, with globalization in the 21st century, the world has reached a consensus on common values. The only distinguishing point here is that some cultures prioritize certain values more than others (Maude 2011, p. 35).