The Seven Shoulds

The following nugget is from a great piece of cultural analaysis that my friends at the Center for Cultural Studies & Analysis recently did for NASA. Although in the appendix "The Seven Shoulds" provides the beginning of a cultural template for any marketing of products to the American Mainstream.

Cultural values are simply broad tendencies by members of any group to prefer one state over others. Values are rarely articulated, since they operate at a pre-conscious level, but they are instantly recognized in their violation. They are expressed over time as a consistent pattern of movement in the direction of a desired state. They express a deeply held feeling for the way things “should” be.

In the US, some of the key “shoulds” are:
1. Individuals should determine their own destiny.
2. Individuals should control their social and physical mobility.
3. Actions should be judged in a moral light.
4. Authority or “bigness” should be viewed with suspicion.
5. We should have as many choices as possible.
6. Anything can and should be improved.
7. The future should be better than the past.

From Appendix A of the 2004 report to NASA "American Perception of Space Exploration" by the Center for Cultural Studies & Analysis