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Culture
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These girls are obviously ethnically different and
they seem to be culturally different too, if you look at their clothes. But
yet they seem friends. There is no knowing their culture just from watching
the picture. |
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Culture is the answer that a society has found to basic issues of human
social life. This is inspired by the work of my
father
Geert Hofstede. My acronym CHAOS describes these basic issues:
 | collectivity |
| hierarchy |
| aggression (and gender) |
| otherness (and anxiety) |
| short- vs long-term gratification of needs |
That's all - just five basic issues. But it is enough to get lost.
Because our culture, unlike our identity, is unconscious. Identity is what
you think you are; culture is what makes you think and act like you do.
For an analogy, think of the game of chess. You can learn the basic rules in
an hour. But learning to play takes years, because these few basic rules
give rise to such tremendous complexity.
Look here for an
online overview article
by Geert. |
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| N.B. This looks a bit like the Big
Five personality factors of McCrae and Costa (OCEAN: Openness,
conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism. Want to
test yourself on them?).
But culture is something quite different. You cannot establish the culture
of one person, only of a society or group. Of course you can take a
culture questionnaire as an individual. But the answers then say something
about not only your cultural background but also about your personality, and
your life experiences. Actually, failing to
acknowledge that our societies have cultures that are not just properties of
individuals is a big impediment to social progress. |
These three seem to share a culture. But each is a
unique individual. And are they friends, or competitors, or both?... |
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