What Defines a Culture's Values?
Today I happened to come across a video on my YouTube feed.
It was about a meeting between President Lee Jae-Myung of Korea, and President Nicușor Dan of Romania during the recent NATO summit held in Turkey.
At first, I didn't take much heed of it.
They were both in Ankara for the NATO summit.
Romania and Korea had a deal with Romania to produce K9 SPHs under license.
Korean firms are actively modernizing Romania's nuclear plants and port infrastructure.
I'm sure they had a lot to talk about.
Then, I realized something.
Korea and Romania felt similar.
It wasn't a factual, reasoned conclusion. It was just a feeling.
I've never been to Romania, and I don't think I've ever met a Romanian.
But the feeling was unmistakeable.
This really didn't make much sense.
Korea is in East Asia.
Romania is in Eastern Europe.
Korea is based in Sino-Confucian values.
Romania is based in Latin-Christian values.
The distance between the two countries is 7,916 km.
Different peoples, different language, different history, different culture, different religion.
What is it about these two cultures that felt so similar?
Then for lunch I visited our favorite Mediterranean place, Layla's Falafel.
While waiting for my take-out order, I struck up a conversation with the manager.
I soon found out that he was Turkish, and I told him that I was Korean.
As soon as he heard that, he smiled and said, "We are brothers."
Brothers?
Of course.
21,000 troops sent to Korea during the Korean War.
3,500 casualties
Turks came to Korea's aid and bled for us.
But the term 'brother'?
It goes beyond 'friend', or 'ally'.
The US sent the most troops, followed by the UK, and Canada (Türkiye is #4).
Yet only Türkiye is called a 'brother'. A familiarity reserved for one country...and it's reciprocal.
Türkiye makes movies about Korea, Koreans make documentaries about Türkiye.
(Americans made MASH which spent a decade making fun or, and blatantly discriminating against Korea).
7,800 km distance.
Different peoples, different language, different history, different culture, different religion.
What is it about these two cultures that felt so similar?
Worlds apart.
Nothing in common.
Yet, for some reason these three countries felt similar.
Then I expanded the list to other countries I visited, people I've met, and simply grouped them by cultures that felt similar vs. not.
1. Cultures that feel similar to Korea, and I can easily figure out why:
China, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Mongolia etc.
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This makes sense because they are all a part of the larger Sino-Confucian influence group. So called 'Collectivist' cultures. Add on to that their geographical proximity...and the sheer historical dominance of China. Plus, we all kind of look the same.
2. Cultures that feel different to Korea, and I can easily figure out why:
USA, Britain, Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, Austria, Germany etc.
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This also makes sense because they are all so called 'Individualistic' cultures, geographically close together, or former colonies of these European countries. We look absolutely different. The former 'colonies' are interesting, since not all 'colonies' feel the same:
- USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand are undoubtedly similar to Great Britain.
- Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, most of Africa are very different from their former colonizers.
3. Cultures that feel similar to Korea, but I can't figure out the reason:
Mexico, Hungary, Türkiye, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran etc.
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Have no idea why they feel similar, but they do. Makes you wonder whether they feel similar in the same way. We look quite different.
4. Cultures that feel different, but I can't figure out the reason:
India, Pakistan, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sri Lanka etc. We look and feel quite different.
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Have no idea why they feel different, but they do.
So today,
I wanted to explore this rather unscientific feeling of similarity-distance between cultures, with Korea as the base of comparison.
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Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory
The good news is, there has been a lot of study and research into this topic (see details in the alternative/succesor models in the breakout section below).
Perhaps the most important and influential is Geert Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory,
often considered the gold standard in cross-cultural psychology and international management.
Geert Hofstede (1928–2020) was a Dutch engineer-turned-social psychologist best known for creating one of the most influential frameworks for comparing national cultures. His core question was:
Why do people working in similar organizations behave differently across countries?
While working at IBM as an executive in the HR department, Hofstede analyzed international employee-survey data and concluded that cultures differ along recurring dimensions. He first identified five dimensions, but later expanded it into 6 dimensions.
- Power Distance Index (PDI)
Measures the extent to which the less powerful members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally.High PDI: Inequality is expected. Subordinates expect to be told what to do; bosses are benevolent autocrats. Status symbols are crucial. (e.g., Malaysia, Russia).
Low PDI: Inequalities are minimized. Subordinates are consulted; privileges and status symbols are frowned upon. Bosses act more like facilitators. (e.g., Denmark, New Zealand). - Individualism vs. Collectivism (IDV)
Measures the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members.High IDV (Individualist): The "I" identity. People look after themselves and their direct nuclear family only. Hiring and promotions are based strictly on merit. (e.g., United States, Australia).
Low IDV (Collectivist): The "We" identity. People belong to in-groups (extended families, clans, or organizations) that protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. (e.g., South Korea, Guatemala). - Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI)
Measures how society deals with the fact that the future can never be known. Do they try to control it, or just let it happen?High UAI: Intolerance for unorthodox behavior and ideas. Strong need for rules, precision, and punctuality. Innovation is often resisted if it disrupts the status quo. (e.g., Japan, Greece).
Low UAI: Relaxed attitude toward the unknown. Practice counts more than principles. Deviance is tolerated, and there are as few rules as possible. (e.g., Singapore, Jamaica). - Masculinity vs. Femininity (MAS)
(Note: Sociologists today often rename this "Achievement vs. Nurture" or "Tough vs. Tender" to avoid gendered terms, but Hofstede's original terminology remains the academic standard.)High MAS (Masculine): Society is driven by competition, achievement, and success. The winner takes all. "Live in order to work." (e.g., Japan, Austria).
Low MAS (Feminine): The dominant values are caring for others and quality of life. Standing out from the crowd is not admirable. "Work in order to live." (e.g., Sweden, Norway). - Long-Term vs. Short-Term Orientation (LTO)
How every society has to maintain some links with its own past while dealing with the challenges of the present and future.High LTO (Long-Term): Pragmatic. Truth depends on situation, context, and time. Strong propensity to save, invest, and persevere to achieve long-term results. (e.g., China, South Korea).
Low LTO (Short-Term): Normative. Prefer to maintain time-honored traditions and view societal change with suspicion. Focus on achieving quick results. (e.g., United States, Nigeria). - Indulgence vs. Restraint (IVR)
Measures the ability to control desires and impulses.Indulgent: Allows relatively free gratification of basic human drives related to enjoying life and having fun. Higher optimism. (e.g., Mexico, Sweden).
Restrained: Suppresses gratification of needs and regulates it by means of strict social norms. Less emphasis on leisure time. (e.g., Russia, Egypt).
Using Hofstede's Theory, below is a chart of some of the countries in the world (in alphabetical order):
A list of countries with a set of numbers. Interesting, but it's a little difficult to interpret in this format, outside of looking at each country's individual score.
For example:
Korea:
PDI (Power-Distance): 60
Relatively High. Somewhat believes that inequality is expected, and subordinates are expected to do what their bosses tell them to.
IDV (Individualism): 18
Very Low. Strongly believes that people belong to in-groups that protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.
MAS (Masculinity): 39
Relatively Low. Believes that individuals in a society should care about others and everyone's quality of life, and less about individual competition, achievement, and success.
UAI (Uncertainty Avoidance): 85
Very High. Very intolerant of unorthodox behavior and ideas. Resists innovation if it disrupts the status quo.
LTO (Long-Term Orientation): 100
Very High (in fact the highest in the world). Believes that truth depends on situation, context, and time. A focus on achieving long-term results.
IVR (Indulgence vs. Restraint): 29
Low. Believes in supressing individual desires and impulses and indulgence is frowned upon by society
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Denmark:
PDI: 18
Very Low. Inequality is not tolerated. Subordinates are consulted. Bosses are fascilitators.
IDV: 74
High. Believes people should look after themselves and their direct nuclear family only. Believes society should be merit based.
MAS: 23
Low. Believes that individuals in a society should care about others and everyone's quality of life, and less about individual competition, achievement, and success.
UAI: 23
Low. Relaxed attitude towards the unkown. Deviance is tolerated, and rules are minimized.
LTO: 35
Relatively Low. Prefers to maintain tradition and views societal change with suspicion. Focuses on achieving quick results.
IVR: 70
Relatively High. Prefers to enjoy life and have fun.
Interesting, but in this state very difficult to interpret differences/similarities between countries/cultures.
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Comparing Scores Across Cultures
If we reorder the list so that they are ordered by similarity/difference to Korea, then the data becomes infinitely more interesting (note, that these are similarity/difference based on raw numbers and are not weighted, i.e., PDI = IDV = MAS = UAI = LTO = IVR. In the real world, people and societies would not consider these dimensions equally important).
Some interesting observations:
Observation 1.
My intuition was correct. When looking at similarity and difference between countries, Korea is much closer to Romania and Türkiye (also Russia, Czech Republic, Spain, Portugal, and Indonesia etc.).
Observation 2.
My intuition was correct again. Korea is very distant from the US, Great Britain, Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Switzerland etc.
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"Individualist" countires and "Collectivist" countries separate cleanly. But not all equally.
Observation 3.
My intuition was wrong, when I said that Korea's closest neighbors China and Japan should be similar.
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For China the major gap is around UAI (risk tolerance), and for Japan it's MAS (achievement vs. nurture). Also some major differences in PDI and IDV - which makes you wonder whether there are other factors involved.
Observation 4.
Surprisingly, when using this unweighted comparison, a bunch of countries that I felt were distant is similar to Korea like Russia, Czech Republic.
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This feels like a problem with the the model more than anything. With Korea scoring so high in LTO (100; highest in the world), using unweighted dimensions causes LTO to become a primary sorting mechanism, drowning out the effects of other dimensions.
This led me to think that the 'feeling of similarity', is driven more by some dimensions than others. Particularly IDV and MAS. This makes intuitive sense, because IDV and MAS are social dimensions, they define how you related to others, and the reason you push yourself.
So I reweighted the model and rebuilt the similarity/difference heatmap. Of course there's a risk of manipulating the model so that it fits my intuition - which proves nothing.
With IDV and MAS overweighted, UAI and LTO underweighted, the results shifted dramatically.
Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia rise to the top.
Russia, the Czech Republic drop down.
Romania, Türkiye also get closer to Korea.
The US, Great Britain, Scandinavian countries remain very distant.
Very interesting.
So returning to my original 'gut-feeling'-based groupings:
1. Cultures that feel similar to Korea, and I can easily figure out why:
China, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Mongolia etc.
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a. Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore really are quite similar.
b. Surprisingly, Japan, China, and Malaysia are quite dissimilar (China closer than Japan).
2. Cultures that feel different to Korea, and I can easily figure out why:
USA, Britain, Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, Austria, Germany etc.
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Every country listed here are dissimilar to Korea, no matter what I do with the weights.
3. Cultures that feel similar to Korea, but I can't figure out the reason:
Mexico, Hungary, Türkiye, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran etc.
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These countries exist in the moderately similar range. Romania and Türkiye are particularly interesting, since these are both European countries that beat other Asian countries in similarity.
4. Cultures that feel different, but I can't figure out the reason:
Russia, India, Pakistan, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sri Lanka etc.
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This is where things get interesting. Russia, India, Pakistan, the Middle East, much of Eastern Europe are close, but it's difficult to tease out using Hofstede's dimensions.
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Examining In-Culture Dimensions
On their own, each dimension tells a unique story about a culture/country's belief system.
But what makes this more important is how the dimensions in each country interact with each other.
For example,
1. High PDI, High IDV culture
Cultures where people believe that power is distributed unevenly, and is almost expected to do so, while they consider individual rights to be inalienable. This creates a unique dynamic where the people without power (individuals) have an almost adversarial relationship with those with power (the state, company executives etc.).
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France (PDI: 68 / IDV: 71), Belgium (PDI: 65 / IDV: 75)
2. Low PDI / Low IDV Cultures
Wwhere the culture believes power should be distributed equally, but it isn't an individuals role to fight for it. Extremely rare, in fact the only culture/country showing this pattern is Costa Rica, where instead of the individual, the in-group that the individual is a part of is expected to remedy situations.
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Costa Rica (PDI: 35 / DV: 15)
3. High LTO / High IVR
Cultures that believe in long-term horizons while also focusing on personal indulgence.
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Switzerland (LTO: 74 / IVR: 66), Netherlands (LTO: 67 / IVR: 68)
4. Low LTO / Low IVR Cultures
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Egypt (LTO: 7 / IVR: 4), Iraq (LTO: 17 / IVR: 17), Morocco (LTO: 14 / IVR: 25)
5. High UAI / Low PDI Cultures
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Germany (UAI: 65 / PDI: 35), Austria (UAI: 70 / PDI: 11)
6. High MAS / Low IDV Cultures
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Japan (MAS: 95 / IDV: 46), Mexico (MAS: 69 / IDV: 30), China (MAS: 66 / IDV: 20)
7. High PDI / Low UAI Cultures
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India (PDI: 77 / UAI: 40), China (PDI: 80 / UAI: 30), Indonesia (PDI: 78 / UAI: 48)
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Criticism of Hofstede's Model
Obviously, Hofstede's theory is not without criticism. We've seen some of the limitations above, as we manipulated weights. But there are others.
Criticism 1. The "IBM Bubble"
In his original model, Hofstede didn't survey "nations"; he surveyed employees of one single company (IBM) across different countries. He was measuring the corporate culture of an American tech giant in the 1960s, not the national culture of the people living there. An IBM employee in Japan in 1970 was already a specific type of person—highly educated, urban, and likely Westernized—who was not at all representative of the average Japanese citizen.
Criticism 2. The Fallacy of National Monoliths (the "Variance" problem)
Hofstede assigns a single number to an entire nation. This treats "The United States" or "Italy" as if they are uniform blocks. If we take the US as an example, there are significant differences between; the Coasts (East + West), Education (College vs. non-College), Urban vs. Rural etc. Using averages flattens wide disparity into a single number.
Criticism 3. The "Time Capsule" Effect
Culture is not a stone tablet; it is a fluid, evolving ecosystem. The world has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 500. The rise of the internet, the global pop-culture machine, and shifts in economic structure mean that the "national software" of 1970 is likely obsolete today. This is particularly interesting because LTO and UAI seem to be more about historical events (e.g., communist legacy, recent war or famine etc.), than something inherent in a culture.
Criticism 4. Semantic Bias
Hofstede's model is built entirely on questionnaire responses — and how a question is worded, and how it's understood inside a given social context shapes the answer. The model assumes a Western trade-off: achievement and nurture (MAS) sit at two ends of one scale, so scoring high on one means low on the other. But that trade-off doesn't hold everywhere. In Japan, striving is intense but collective — you push hard, and you push for the group's success, not your own. Achievement is a form of caring for the in-group. The two things the questionnaire treats as opposites are, in Japan, the same act. So the instrument records a startling MAS of 95 — reading fierce group-drive as personal competitiveness — while the "vs." at the center of the dimension quietly falls apart. The scale measured something real, then mislabeled it.
Criticism 5. The "Reductionism" Trap
Hofstede reduces the complexity of human existence down to 6 integers. You can't capture the soul of a people in 6 variables. It's like classifying the world into 4 groups (e.g., blood types), or 12 (e.g., Chinese zodiac) and refusing to acknowledge that there are more than 4 or 12 types of people.
Criticism 6. Describes a Version of 'What', but Does Not Explain "Why"
This is my number 1 criticism. Even taking criticism 1 - 5 as a given, no matter what Hofstede's model does, it doesn't explain Why countries and cultures look that way. For me, a What without a Why is a dead theory. It lacks replicability and predictability. And isn't that why we model in the first place?
When I started writing this Blog post, I originally thought of developing a model that could predict Hofstede's culture/country dimensions. Something that looked like:
Y = g(S) + h(G) + i(I) + j(P) + k(H) + ε
where,
Y = Hofstede-style cultural dimensions
g(S) = Structural and Environmental conditions
h(G) = Geopolitical conditions
i(I) = Institutions and symbolic systems
j(P) = Power capacity
k(H) = Historical path dependence
ε = Things still unexplained by the revised model
But as I thought about it, I realized that tackling this was going to be practically impossible and would take up the rest of my life. So I decided against it. Not that this wasn't interesting, but because there were other things I wanted to pursue in my life. One of the rare moments in my life where I found a limit to my curiosity. However, it is a fascinating subject, and when I find the time, I'll probably return to it.
As a teaser:
1. g(x): Structural and Environmental conditions
- mobility: sedentary, pastoral, maritime, migratory
- production ecology: rice, wheat, livestock, trade, extraction
- coordination burden
- ecological volatility
- geographic isolation or accessibility
- resource concentration and surplus storage
2. h(x): Geopolitical conditions
- invasion exposure
- buffer-state position
- proximity to large sedentary powers
- access to expansion targets
- border stability
- imperial competition
- strategic isolation
- nascent versus established great-power status
3. i(x): Institutions and symbolic systems
- religion
- state capacity
- kinship systems
- legal traditions
- educational systems
- class structures
- language
- honor, face, and dignity regimes
- norm enforcement
How power is legitimized, stabilized, moralized, transmitted, and deviation punished
4. j(x): Power capacity
Expansion (projection) as a switch, not a fundamental (an AND Gate)
Isolation does not lead to Expansion.
For expansion to happen it needs several things ON.
Power =
Population x Technology x Motivation x Opportunity.
5. k(H) = Historical path dependence
- wars
- colonization
- occupation
- revolution
- state collapse
- forced migration
- institutional reforms
- external cultural exposure
- foundational victories or traumas
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In addition, I wanted to look into cultures that dissapeared, not the ones that persisted. Looking into how culture is formed made me realize that the majority of human culture does not persist, it dissapears.
Why do some cultures get dissolved, absorbed, scattered, projected, porcupined?
The categories below describe what happens to a culture’s boundary over time: whether the distinction between “us” and “them” disappears, is incorporated into another group, survives without territory, expands outward, or hardens against absorption. A single culture may move through more than one trajectory across different historical periods.
1. Dissolved: The boundary ceases to be socially remembered.
A dissolved culture is one whose identity ceases to be socially remembered or reproduced.
Its people may leave behind genetic, linguistic, material, or customary traces, but no surviving community continues to identify itself as that people. The state, institutions, language, stories, and social boundaries that once sustained the culture disappear without a recognized successor.
Dissolution does not necessarily mean that the population was exterminated or that every trace vanished. It means that the distinction between “we are this people” and “we are not them” is no longer maintained.
Most cultures that disappeared in prehistory probably followed this trajectory, although they are difficult to identify precisely because little evidence of their identity survives.
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Dissolved cultures are the most difficult to identify with confidence. If a culture truly ceased to reproduce or remember itself, it left no community capable of explaining what happened. Archaeologists can recover settlements, tools, pottery, graves, and artwork, but they often do not know what the people called themselves, how they defined membership, or whether later populations regarded themselves as their descendants.
Most examples are therefore probable dissolutions inferred from archaeological discontinuity. Their people may have migrated, intermarried, or contributed to later populations. What disappeared was the recognizable and socially remembered boundary that had made them a distinct culture.
Cucuteni–Trypillia culture (Eastern Europe), Vinča culture (South Eastern Europe and the central Balkans), Oxus civilization (Central Asia), Ubaid cultural system (Mesopotamia), Nok culture (West Africa), Sanxingdui culture (East Asia) etc.
2. Absorbed: The former out-group becomes part of a larger in-group.
An absorbed culture is incorporated into a larger and more powerful cultural system.
Its population remains, and many of its customs, foods, words, institutions, beliefs, and genetic lineages may persist. However, the population gradually stops identifying itself as a separate people. Over time, the larger society may also cease to recognize it as distinct.
Absorption often occurs when participation in the dominant culture offers greater political security, economic opportunity, social mobility, or institutional access than maintaining a separate identity. Language shift, intermarriage, education, religion, bureaucracy, urbanization, and elite conversion can all accelerate the process.
The culture survives as an influence within its successor, but its independent boundary disappears.
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Absorbed cultures leave descendants and often profoundly influence their successors. What disappears is not the population but its reproduction as a separate in-group.
Northern Kingdom of Israel (Palestine), Etruscans (Central Italy), Gauls (Western Europe), Picts (Scotland), Sumerians (Mesopotamia), Old Prussians (Northeastern Europe)
3. Scattered: The territorial center disappears, but the boundary travels.
A scattered culture loses or leaves its territorial center but continues to reproduce its identity across multiple host societies.
Its survival depends on portable institutions rather than control of a homeland. These may include sacred texts, household rituals, endogamous marriage, lineage memory, religious law, specialized occupations, schools, community organizations, and transregional networks.
A scattered culture maintains the belief that “we remain us even while living among them.” Its members may adopt the language, professions, and public institutions of their host societies while preserving a distinct internal boundary.
Territory is lost or fragmented, but the culture travels with its people.
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Scattered cultures preserve their boundary after the loss, fragmentation, or abandonment of a territorial center. Their homeland may remain important, but identity is reproduced through portable institutions and transregional networks.
The Jewish diaspora (Levant → Middle East, North Africa, Europe, Central Asia, the Americas), The Roma (northern South Asia → Europe, the Middle East, the Americas), Armenians (Armenia → Middle Eat, Russia, Europe, the Americas), Assyrians (northern Mesopotamia → Iraq, Syria, southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iraq), Parsis (Iran → western India), Hakka (Southern China → southeast Asia).
4. Projected: Outsiders are moved across the boundary and made insiders.
A projected culture expands beyond its original population and territory by giving outsiders a path into its system.
Military or economic power may make projection possible, but power alone is not enough. A projecting culture also needs scalable institutions through which outsiders can participate: citizenship, religion, law, education, bureaucracy, trade, language, military service, political ideology, or access to social advancement.
Successful projected cultures do more than rule other peoples. They persuade, incentivize, or compel outsiders to adopt their practices, institutions, worldview, and sometimes their identity.
Their defining claim is not merely “we will survive,” but “you can become one of us.”
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Projected cultures move beyond preserving themselves. They export a system that outsiders can adopt and provide some route—however unequal or coercive—through which outsiders can participate in it.
Rome (Italy → Western Europe, North Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East), Han Chinese civilization, the Arab-Islamic civilization (Arabian peninsula → Middle East, North Africa, the Sahel, South and Southeast Asia), The British and Anglophone system (Britain → North America, the Carribean, Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Oceania), The Soviet Union (Russia → Eurasia, Eastern Europe, Latin America), and the modern United States (USA → Global).
5. Porcupined: The boundary is hardened against incorporation.
A porcupined culture survives by making itself difficult and costly to absorb.
It usually exists in a contested environment, under repeated pressure from larger powers, but either lacks the capacity to project itself outward or places greater value on preserving its own boundary. It therefore develops strong mechanisms of cultural defense.
These may include a distinctive language, religion, lineage system, historical memory, defensive geography, military preparedness, educational intensity, resistance traditions, or strong social expectations against assimilation.
A porcupined culture treats the erosion of its identity as an existential threat. Rather than expanding its boundary, it hardens it.
Its survival strategy is simple: outsiders may conquer the territory, influence the society, or govern the population, but fully digesting the culture will remain extraordinarily difficult.
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Porcupined cultures survive by making penetration and assimilation unusually difficult. Their defensive mechanisms may be territorial, linguistic, religious, institutional, military, educational, or genealogical.
Koreans (Korea), the Ethiopian highland state (Ethiopia), the Druze (Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Jordan), the Basques (the Basque region in Spain), the Georgians (Georgia), and the Kurds (southeaster Turkey, northern Iraq, western Iran, northern Syria).
As long as a culture continues to reproduce itself, it does not necessarily remain in the same trajectory. Its territorial position, institutional strength, demographic conditions, economic surplus, boundary rules, and relationship with surrounding powers can all change.
The Soviet Union became one of the twentieth century’s most powerful projecting systems, particularly after 1945. It exported ideology, political organization, economic institutions, education, military structures, and a shared model of modernity across Eurasia and Eastern Europe, with influence extending into Asia, Africa, and Latin America. As the Soviet system lost legitimacy and eventually collapsed, much of this projection infrastructure disappeared. Its successor, Russia, retains substantial coercive and political reach, but offers a far less scalable or attractive system through which outsiders can become participants.
Korea followed a different trajectory. For much of its history, Korea survived as a porcupined culture beside several of the world’s most powerful projecting civilizations. It repeatedly borrowed foreign technologies, religions, institutions, and ideas without allowing itself to be completely absorbed. Today, Korea is beginning to project outward through manufacturing, entertainment, food, beauty, language, and technological prestige. This does not yet mean that outsiders are becoming Korean, but it shows how a culture organized historically around defensive boundary maintenance can begin exporting its practices and cultural influence.
These transitions suggest that Dissolved, Absorbed, Scattered, Projected, and Porcupined are not permanent cultural personalities. They are historical trajectories produced by changing relationships among territory, power, institutions, memory, membership, and the permeability of the cultural boundary.
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The next questions I want to tacke are:
What makes a culture endure?
and,
Do they leave a Mark?
Fascinating, because that ties into my central philosophy of Engrammic Realism. How does Σ'We-Shaped Self' persist in such a way that it becomes a part of our cultureal/societal/personal DNA?
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* Alternative / Successor Models to Hofsteade
- The Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map
Treats culture as a byproduct of a society’s level of economic and physical security. They propose that as a society moves from subsistence (Survival) to prosperity (Self-Expression), its culture fundamentally shifts. Uses to axis; Traditional vs. Secular-Rational, and Survival vs. Self-Expression. - The GLOBE Study (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness)
Considered the "successor" to Hofstede, this study involved over 170 researchers and was designed specifically to fix the "IBM bubble" bias. GLOBE asks two questions: "How is it?" (Practices) and "How should it be?" (Values). Uses 9 cultural dimensions (some overlapping with Hofstede) - Erin Meyer
Meyer focused on how different cultures interact in business. Uses 8 scales - Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner
Takes a more philosophical look at how people relate to each other and time. Focuses on Universalism ("The rules apply to everyone equally") vs. Particularism ("The rules depend on who you are and what our relationship is").
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