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Cultural map of the world-Ingelhart Welzel

Angela

Angela

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I'm not usually a fan of this kind of thing, but Razib Khan brought it up on an article, and I think it's pretty interesting.

Cultural_map_WVS4_1996.jpg


Both religion and political systems are at play.

See:
https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2017...-thing/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
 
IronSide said:
Basically you would want to maximize Secular-Rational and Self Expression values as much as possible, the top right corner.
Interesting where Israel is located.
Click to expand...

I don't fully agree with that. While thinking rationally is important, I think it's good for people to have some traditional values. It helps to create a sense of community, identity, as well as moral guideline. Celebrating traditions I think helps make life worth living. I guess it becomes a problem when some traditions are harmful, or too inhibiting. Nevertheless, I believe traditions were created for practical purposes; it creates structure and stability. I guess it's important to find a balance.

Personally, I wouldn't want to live in a country like Sweden. But that's my preference; I'm sure it would be ideal for others.
 
Jovialis said:
I don't fully agree with that. While thinking rationally is important, I think it's good for people to have some traditional values. It helps to create a sense of community, identity, as well as moral guideline. Honestly, it's what make life worth living. I guess it becomes a problem when some traditions are harmful, or too inhibiting. Nevertheless, I believe traditions were created for practical purposes; it creates structure and stability. I guess it's important to find a balance.
Click to expand...

But I love Logic and openness :grin:

If traditions were created for practical purposes then definitely now is the time to leave them, especially in the Middle East.

Even in morality we can apply reason, we can debate right and wrong and decide for our selves, or we can blindly follow the errors of the ancients ?
 
IronSide said:
But I love Logic and openness :grin:

If traditions were created for practical purposes then definitely now is the time to leave them, especially in the Middle East.

Even in morality we can apply reason, we can debate right and wrong and decide for our selves, or we can blindly follow the errors of the ancients ?
Click to expand...

so, you would put your country at the bottom, but where along the horizontal axis?
 
davef said:
Bicicleur, no offense, but that post was very racist. I know you're better than that.
Click to expand...

Really ? I thought it was normal.

If that's racist then I'm racist to my own group.
 
davef said:
Bicicleur, no offense, but that post was very racist. I know you're better than that.
Click to expand...

There's nothing racist about what Bicicleur said. Traditional values vs rational/secular values in cultures are quantifiable. There's nothing inherently defective about being more traditional or more rational/secular. They're just different outlooks, and as I stated before, I think a balance between the two are ideal in my opinion.

A lot of those ex-communist countries are high on the secular rational scale, you think that's a better place to live? Perhaps the reason why they have such a high alcoholism and suicide-rate is because anything considered not "rational" or practical is shunned in their societies. There's no room to celebrate life. Not to say that all of the people are like that there, because I'm sure they're not. But ultimately, the culture there may be responsible for that.
 
@Jovialis,
I completely agree

@Bicicleur,
I think that's right. This is why I said I normally don't like these kinds of analyses. It's too subjective in a way. I think East Asians are extremely traditional in terms of their culture. They aren't very "spiritual" or religious. I think the terms or "qualities" were not chosen very well, or perhaps the individual questions upon which this was based didn't get to the heart of the issues. What he may be getting at is "religious" vs. secular.

Israel is indeed an interesting case, because as a result of the nature of Israeli politics, the religious parties have insured that public life in Israel is very "traditional" or religious, i.e. everything, but everything is closed on Saturdays, there's no civil marriage or divorce, and on and on. Yet, most European descent Jews are very secular, while "Sephardic" Jews are more traditional. Then you have the Druse and the Palestinian Israelis. It's that tension which results in that placement, I guess.
 
Jovialis said:
There's nothing racist about what Bicicleur said. Traditional values vs rational/secular values in cultures are quantifiable. There's nothing inherently defective about being more traditional or more rational/secular. They're just different outlooks, and as I stated before, I think a balance between the two are ideal in my opinion.

A lot of those ex-communist countries are high on the secular rational scale, you think that's a better place to live? Perhaps the reason why they have such a high alcoholism and suicide-rate is because anything considered not "rational" or practical is shunned in their societies. There's no room to celebrate life. Not to say that all of the people are like that there, because I'm sure they're not. But ultimately, the culture there may be responsible for that.
Click to expand...

Ok when I said that i haven't yet seen the axis where it says "rational", once I saw it I realized that "rational" according to this map means being less "traditional". I took his post as him implying that Japanese people are unintelligent, but he was implying that they're very traditional, so if that's true it's fine with me.

Still though, it's harsh for this study to use the rational label, its obviously possible to be traditional and engage in religous activities while still having a sound grasp of logic.
 
Angela said:
I'm not usually a fan of this kind of thing, but Razib Khan brought it up on an article, and I think it's pretty interesting.

[..]

Both religion and political systems are at play.

See:
https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2017...-thing/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Click to expand...

That's from 1996. The biggest problem apart from the terms they use is that each year they change the questions, so they measure different things.

Greece was close to 'Protestant Europe' 20 years ago and after 2004 started to move towards 'South Asia' along with Croatia and Slovakia. (LOL)

Here a more recent one (2017) based on 2010-2014 data, as far as I understand.
http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/images/Culture_Map_2017_conclusive.png
 
davef said:
Ok when I said that i haven't yet seen the axis where it says "rational", once I saw it I realized that "rational" according to this map means being less "traditional". I took his post as him implying that Japanese people are unintelligent, but he was implying that they're very traditional, so if that's true it's fine with me.

Still though, it's harsh for this study to use the rational label, its obviously possible to be traditional and engage in religous activities while still having a sound grasp of logic.
Click to expand...

I know it is an oversimplification, not all Japanese are the same.
I have been in Japan only once and it was 20 years ago.
Maciamo has spent there a long time, he'll be able to tell more.

When I went there Japanese economy, stock exchange and real estate was booming.
And it looked like Japan was going to outcompete the west.
Management guru's told the west should adopt the Japanese model, always making decisions in consensus and not top-down as was still the custom in the west at that time.
What striked me was that everyone was that everyone was following rules and traditions very strictly.
IMO that was because they were afraid to take inititiative and stick out of the crowd.
And their decisions 'in consencus' was a consequence of that, nobody dared to take leadership.
Soon after the Japanese economy busted which confirmed my impressions.

Of course the Japanese are capable of rational thinking, but they prefer to hide themselves behind traditions.
And that behaviour is a big problem for Japan.
 
A. Papadimitriou said:
That's from 1996. The biggest problem apart from the terms they use is that each year they change the questions, so they measure different things.

Greece was close to 'Protestant Europe' 20 years ago and after 2004 started to move towards 'South Asia' along with Croatia and Slovakia. (LOL)

Here a more recent one (2017) based on 2010-2014 data, as far as I understand.
http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/images/Culture_Map_2017_conclusive.png
Click to expand...

Like I said, I usually distrust this kind of thing. South Asia close to Belgium and Italy. Ah, I don't think so.
 
davef said:
Today I learned that Greece and Israel are Protestant European countries.
Click to expand...

LOL LOL [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]
That’s funny [emoji1]
 
bicicleur said:
I know it is an oversimplification, not all Japanese are the same.
I have been in Japan only once and it was 20 years ago.
Maciamo has spent there a long time, he'll be able to tell more.

When I went there Japanese economy, stock exchange and real estate was booming.
And it looked like Japan was going to outcompete the west.
Management guru's told the west should adopt the Japanese model, always making decisions in consensus and not top-down as was still the custom in the west at that time.
What striked me was that everyone was that everyone was following rules and traditions very strictly.
IMO that was because they were afraid to take inititiative and stick out of the crowd.
And their decisions 'in consencus' was a consequence of that, nobody dared to take leadership.
Soon after the Japanese economy busted which confirmed my impressions.

Of course the Japanese are capable of rational thinking, but they prefer to hide themselves behind traditions.
And that behaviour is a big problem for Japan.
Click to expand...
got it, thanks for making yourself clear!
 
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