Summary of the Worldview Prototypes

A shared ground that defines the Finnish non-religious group-affiliates consists of 1) alienation from traditional religiosity; 2) secular humanistic disposition and 3) experiential dimension where feeling at home in the universe is combined with finding nourishment and sustenance in music, art and poetry. This commonality provides the background for observing different worldview proto- types. The commonality provides the big picture. An example related to tourism would be to inves- tigate how the Nordic capitals Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki in some ways resemble each other more than if any of them would be compared to a set of African capitals.

The next and in some ways more interesting step is to discover the local differences. It is here that we can see how Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki are different from each other. What looked like small differences from a distance now become a matter of local identity with its own idiosyncrasies. The three main non-religious prototypes were named after their personal responses and engagements with FQS. It is important to keep in mind that the prototype names and characterisations reflect more patterns internal to the study at hand, than distinctions in a larger context. What is clear is 512 that all prototypes are relatively non-religious.

An example of this is when the Communally Irreligious prototype is compared with one of the prototypes found in

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Johan Terho’s study of conservative Christians. CI ranked two items that address communal orientation higher than the most communally oriented Christian prototype, even though the differences were not large. If the analysis was left at that, it would seem like CI is more communally oriented than conservative Christians, which would be a surprising re- sult. Such a conclusion is unwarranted, since there are many items which address communal orientation with a religious wording, and get ranked much higher by Terho’s respondents, and for obvious reasons get ranked lower by the CI than by some religious prototypes. To compare a communal orientation between different worldview traditions is therefore a complex matter. One would need an instrument where communal orientation is expressed in non/religiously neutral language. Since that is not the case with all FQS items that address this issue, I refrain from making any conclusions other than by observing that communal orientation is comparatively important for the CI prototype, at least within the affiliated non-religion in Finland. See Terho 2013: 64 and 99-104.

The different prototypes are approximations based on shared viewpoints that arise by analysing the many different individual sorts. No respondent corresponds 100% with any of the prototypes. A prototype is more like a cluster of priorities, where resemblance with a family of dispositions de- termines an individual’s association or dissociation with a prototype. Nevertheless, the prototype descriptions arise from the choices made by the respondents, and are therefore more rooted in em- pirical findings than in pre-conceived notions about fixed worldview types that ought to exist somewhere in the world. This leads to the conclusion about the usefulness of FQS: whereas a group of nearly 80 respondents assembled in a non-random manner does not suffice to establish global generalisations, it can give hints to be confirmed by future research, and is sufficient to deconstruct existing generalisations, if they go against the empirical findings such as those of this study. It is like claiming: “Black, red and blue diamonds have been found, hence not all diamonds are white.” Other studies are required to establish the presence and proportions of such gems in certain geo- graphical locations.

I conclude this section by illustrating the notable features of and differences between the three pro- totypes in a table-form. The table is meant to enable easy comparisons between the key areas of the three worldview prototypes.

13. Summary of the prototypes 513

Themes P1: Content Altruist P2: Experientially Spiritual P3: Communally Irreligious Emotions and experiences Stability; contentment values:

*music, art, poetry *nature

Meaningful positive ex- periences

values:

*music, art, poetry *nature

*spiritual experiences *spiritual practices

Awareness of negati- ve emotions *irritated about reli- gion

values:

*music, art, poetry *like-minded compa- ny Social orienta- tion Universalism Activism Individualism Self-actualisation In-group Activism Religion and spirituality

Moderate rejection Spiritual but not Reli- gious

Consistent rejection

The three instantiations on the social orientation dimension reflect the differences between these prototypes. To pla

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ce these orientations in a more global context, more nuanced descriptions might be necessary. The universalism of the Content Altruist prototype means that persons of this prototype are likely to feel connectedness to others, regardless in- group considerations. Individualism can be further investigated on another dimension which ranges between the opposi- te poles of self-transcendence and self-enhancement. Neither the FQS nor interviews indicated that the Experientially Spiritual respondents would be geared towards personal achievement and competition that would be characteristic of the self-enhancement orientation. It seems, therefore, that their individualism is more of a self-transcendent type, which allows for connectedness with others, without in-group considerations. The Communally Irreligious are clearly the least individualistic, and also least universalistic of the three prototypes. In other words, their feeling of connectedness is likely to manifest within their group. An excellent discussion about the various modalities of interpersonal orientation can be found in Lassander 2009: 14-17 and 2014: 101-120. The samples of these studies consist of London Open Uni- versity students and of contemporary Pagans from three countries.

8. INSIGHTS INTO THE PROTOTYPES FROM THE INTER-