Czech Republic is the World’s Most Tolerant Country
A recent study found Czech attitudes towards morally controversial topics the most liberal
Czech Republic is the World’s Most Tolerant Country
A recent study found Czech attitudes towards morally controversial topics the most liberal
by
Published 19.08.2015
Last updated 19.08.2015
Last updated 19.08.2015
Controversial headline? Maybe. But according to a recent study, Czechs espouse the most tolerant attitudes towards some of the world’s most morally controversial topics.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Bloomberg naming the Czech Republic the most decadent country in the world. Here’s a study that, I think, puts a better spin on some similar opinion-based data.
In 2014, the Pew Research Center surveyed citizens of 40 countries across the globe on a number of different areas for their Global Views on Morality survey.
The study asked participants in each country their views on eight morally controversial subjects: extramarital affairs, gambling, homosexuality, abortion, premarital sex, alcohol use, divorce, and contraception use.
Respondents were asked whether they found each subject morally acceptable, morally unacceptable, or not a moral issue.
Among the countries surveyed, more Czechs answered "morally acceptable" to half of the subjects than any other country.
56% of Czechs found homosexuality morally acceptable, slightly higher than Spain (55%) and Germany (51%). Unsurprisingly, respondents in many Middle Eastern and African countries reported the opposite; 0% of respondents in Tunisia were OK with homosexuality.
Extramarital affairs aren’t exactly popular anywhere, but 17% of Czech respondents found them morally acceptable, followed by India (14%) and Chile (13%).
Premarital sex? 67% of Czechs found it morally acceptable, followed by Venezuela (61%) and Greece (59%). 0% of respondents in Pakistan said the same.
More Czechs found abortion to be morally acceptable than those in other countries, too, at 49%. Japan (44%), Germany (43%), France (38%) and Spain (35%) were the only other countries to rate above 30%. In the US, only 17% of respondents found abortion to be morally acceptable.
Somewhat surprisingly, the country didn’t rate first in alcohol use – a whopping 66% of respondents in Japan found alcohol use morally acceptable. The Czech Republic came in second at 46%, which still seems pretty low.
The country ranked highly in the remaining categories, too – 60% of Czechs found divorce morally acceptable (third behind Chile and Brazil), and 74% of Czechs found contraception use acceptable (fourth behind Venezuela, Brazil, and Chile).
Only in gambling did the country rate in the middle of the pack – 11% of Czechs found gambling to be morally acceptable, compared to 38% in Japan, 31% in France, and 25% in Germany and the US.
You can view the full results of the study at this link.
If you were to assign an overall “rating” to these numbers – like the Bloomberg study did when they named the Czech Republic the most decadent country – you would find that the Czech Republic leads all of the other countries surveyed by a significant margin.
What do the numbers mean in aggregate?
I think I can say that the Czech Republic is the world’s most tolerant country. At least, going by these morally divisive topics.
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Dědkov(Guest)
Published: 12:59:54 22.08.2015
Do you know why Czech people are the most tolerant people? Cause they don´t care about others.
Sorin(Guest)
Published: 11:59:27 21.08.2015
Tolerance is a morally grey concept. One cannot say that tolerance is equal to morality, in other words that it is universally "good". I could not tolerate rape, murder, propaganda, because stuff like gambling, abortion, euthanasia, alcohol abuse, and so forth, are not that different if we are to look at them objectively. A man cannot in good faith believe that he should always be tolerant when living in a society, when doing so goes against the values which to him gives meaning, joy in life. I cannot tell myself that if I want to see myself as a moral person I should tolerate a checklist of things that an arbitrary western philosophy based poling institution came up with to measure tolerance (as objective and thorough this study was). And I personally, as much as I would like to think of myself as a moral person, as much as I respect people's right to decide their own fate, to decide what they do with their bodies, cannot see for example abortion as being a proper way to handle one's irresponsibility towards sex. Does that make me an intolerant person? And if I am. is that a bad thing?
+1: as a native Czech, I've always argued that "indiference" is not "tolerance" to naive visitors. Far from it. Electing M. Zeman as president by popuar vote, the way of the preceding campaing and the current (for those who follow Czech /social/media ) erruption of hatred and hysteria about migrants and refugees shows it - David descibed it preciselly - Czechs do not give a s**t til the very second it even imaginary touches their "pohoda". Then even a cannabis smoking dredded laid-back reggae musician in a smoky tearoom backroom tells you things any Nazi officer would subscribe to right away.
Daniel(Guest)
Published: 09:55:14 20.08.2015
+1 @ David
After living 10 years in Prague I would be rather careful with the use of 'tolerant'. Sure, most of those topics will fall into 'not giving a s**t' category for most of Prague people (careful again, Prague != Czech Republic !!!), yet - ask them about something that is actually touching their lives, like gambling, Russians, UK Tourists etc etc. People I met in Prague are definitely liberal but to call them all at once tolerant that's another thing...
David(Guest)
Published: 08:54:17 19.08.2015
Being 'liberal' doesn't mean you're 'tolerant'. If you want to argue that Czechs are liberal re: drugs, sex, and so on, that's a separate issue from tolerance.
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