What Culture Actually Is: We Can Be Better. Saturday’s Core Brief
All People Are the Same: They Just Do Things Differently. Series 22 #6
Every person on earth wants the same things. Safety, belonging, status, meaning, order, and the freedom to enjoy life. Monday’s Edition opened with that premise. The four dimensions covered Tuesday through Friday explain the mechanism by which the same wants produce dramatically different behavior.
Culture is not a collection of customs. It is a program that runs our lives. It runs on specific instructions, four of which we covered: define the self this way, distribute authority this way, respond to the unknown this way, and measure a good life this way. Every person alive received a version of that program.
The program was installed before you were old enough to question it. Family, school, community, and language delivered it continuously through childhood, reinforcing which behaviors earned approval and which got corrected. By adulthood, the instructions no longer feel like instructions. They feel like common sense, basic decency, and simple logic. The person who defers to authority without question is not being weak; they are running the program their culture installed. The person who challenges authority directly is not being disrespectful; they are running their own. Neither is making a free choice in any meaningful sense; they are responding exactly as they were programmed to respond.
This is what the four dimensions make visible. Portugal scores low on individualism and high on power distance; its program defines the self in relation to the group, and authority is accepted. The UK’s program does the opposite; the individual is most important, and authority is questioned. Japan scores very high on uncertainty avoidance and achievement orientation; its program treats the unknown as a threat and material items and status as measures of success. Sweden is virtually the opposite; its program treats the unknown as an adventure, a puzzle to solve, a chance to be creative, and measures a good life by free time, relationships, and freedom from obligation. No one chose these values; they inherited them, they were reinforced across generations, and built institutions, laws, families, and workplaces that keep the program running.
The behavior that follows from each program is internally consistent. It is the predictable output of a specific set of instructions applied to the universal human wants that every person on earth shares. The friction between cultures is not a clash of values that can be changed; it is a collision between people who received different programs and are certain that theirs is the right way and the other's is interesting or, at worst, wrong and dangerous.
That recognition changes things. When you understand that the difference is just that, difference. It is not right or wrong, better or worse, superior or inferior, just different. That is when you stop judging and start understanding. That shift, from judgment to understanding, is what cultural perspective is all about.
“All people are the same. They just do things differently.” That is not a sentiment. It is a description of how humans are. And once we see that, understand it, and change our behavior, we become better people and the world becomes a better place.