When the World Gets Rid of Bad Habits

As hundreds of same-sex couples swapped vows two weeks ago on the day that their weddings became legally recognized in New York, commentators took the opportunity to marvelonce more at the dramatic change in U.S. public attitudes toward gay marriage over the past decade, with support climbingfrom less than one-third to more than half of the public in just seven years. It is usually thought that such rapid shifts in cultural values are very rare -- which can be a problem when the cultural shift you're talking about is a much-needed evolution in attitudes toward class or race, the sort of thing that can bring entire populations out of a discriminatory economic sinkhole. But actually, rapid cultural change isn't nearly as unusual as people think.