I
hate uncertainty. When I go to the store, I want to know what I am getting: I
have a list and a budget, and I already have an idea of what my trip will
cost. I don’t get into browsing much; if I don’t have a conception of what I
want or need, I just stay home or do something else. Spending hours walking
through stores makes me tired and grumpy. I do not go to the library until I
have looked up my items online, printed out the call numbers, check
availability, etc; I don’t browse much at the library, either.
I
have difficulty getting started on a writing assignment when I do not know
exactly how I will start, what points I will make, and how I will conclude. I
even have difficulty starting research if I do not already know where I want
the project to go point by point. I blame it all on being a “big picture”
guy.
However, it is when I veer off the planned route that I often find the best
stuff. When I am at the store to buy socks, I sometimes find a shirt that I
didn’t plan on buying, but it becomes a favorite item to wear. I may discover
a food item, tool, or device that I didn’t know existed and now cannot live
without. At the library, I have found some favorites just by looking at the
books on the shelf near my targeted title. Recently, I read The Confessions
of Max Tivoli because the spine grabbed my attention. It was a fantastic
read; one of the best novels I have read in a long time, and one I will
re-read in the future.
When I fail to conceive a project from start to finish but plunge in anyway, I
find some of my best sources and points. There are times when I start writing
and hit a dead end. Just as often, I find a new thread to follow, or I come up
with a whiz-bang conclusion. In fact, I think most of my best writing has been
spontaneous rather than methodically planned.
The threat of uncertainty has caused me to procrastinate, to let writing ideas
go, and to shy away from certain projects and opportunities. That is too bad
because most of the times that I was at the mercy of fate, I have been
pleasantly surprised at the very least.
As I was mulling this tendency of mine over, I realized that it has been
studied in cultures. Geert Hofstede is a well-respected researcher and author
in the field of Cultural Studies. He got his start by analyzing the employees
of IBM in over 70 countries and categorizing how their culture influenced
their values. He has since expanded the study, updated it, analyzed it,
exposed it to peer review, defended it from criticism, and updated it with
more recent and relevant data. It is a hefty topic, and I just want to touch
on a small piece of it here.
One value that Hofstede used to identify and categorize different cultures he
called Uncertainty Avoidance. A high score in this category identifies a
culture that tries to avoid uncertainty. On his website, Hofstede says:
“Uncertainty avoiding cultures try to
minimize the possibility of such situations by strict laws and rules, safety
and security measures, and on the philosophical and religious level by a
belief in absolute Truth; 'there can only be one Truth and we have it'.”
http://feweb.uvt.nl/center/hofstede/page3.htm
I
am sure that I have missed out on opportunities and gifts because I avoided
uncertainty. I am also sure that I could have accomplished more, and put more
quality into some projects, if uncertainty had not been an anchor for me. In
light of that, how many opportunities and gifts might some cultures have
missed out on by avoiding uncertainty?
Uncertainty Avoidance helps a culture avoid invasion, espionage, sabotage,
dangerous ideas that undermine the current system, etc. If the U.S. tended
more towards Uncertainty Avoidance, we could have prevented many of the
imported poison fiascos with Chinese toothpaste, dog food, and children’s
toys. We could have kept out the Arab Terrorists in both attacks on the World
Trade Center. We could have prevented the political damage done by communists
in the twentieth century.
However, Uncertainty Avoidance would have allowed Germany to benefit from
Einstein’s genius, rather than us. It would have prevented us from
incorporating many of the ideas, tastes, sounds, sights, and innovations that
make our lives great today. As a melting-pot nation of immigrants, we had no
choice but to embrace a level of uncertainty and hope for the best.
China avoids uncertainty; most Asian nations do. That has held China back from
innovation, economic development, beneficial immigration, and political
evolution. Deng Xiaoping had to drag the nation kicking and screaming to the
foothills of capitalism. Communism and Maoism were known quantities: they
could control the variables and expect certain returns. Capitalism meant that
the future economy was uncertain. Whether enough people would work the right
jobs at the right times in the right places was uncertain; it was uncertain if
“The Market” could be trusted to keep the ship upright and on course. Now they
have found that the uncertain conditions of the market has created an economy
that is like a Tsunami—it exceeds anyone’s predictions or expectations.
Even so, the Chinese economy and society still have many restrictions and
stoppers. If the currency of China (the Yuan) were a floating-rate, market
valued currency, it is expected that the value would rise to a realistic
value, making foreign products more affordable to Chinese consumers and
Chinese products more expensive for other nations to import. However, the
future is always uncertain. It is possible that a floating-rate Yuan still
beats the pants off the dollar and Euro. Moreover, a floating-rate Yuan may
bring in more investment, and increase the demand for Yuan in other countries
to the point that exceeds the current system of fixed-rates. A floating rate
currency does not require a nation to hold
$ 1,034,000,000,000 in
reserves to offset demand, which means China would have some spending to
do.
Currently, China retains an oppressive political system based on Communism. It
includes a lot of nepotism, corruption, and incompetence; there is precious
little accountability or creativeness. Just imagine what the nation of China
could accomplish if the people could freely choose honest, effective leaders,
analyze and criticize public policies, and demand changes when the need arose.
The uncertainty of democracy would, I think, be certain to make China the
unchallenged leader of the planet in every category.
The rankings below were listed in Hofstede’s book Cultures and
Organizations: Software of the Mind (London: McGraw-Hill U.K. Ltd., 1991,
p. 123 and 141) and reprinted International Management by Hodgett,
Luthans, and Doh (Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2006, p. 106-7). First, we have
cultures that, according to Hofstede, tend to avoid uncertainty more, ranked
approximately from greatest avoidance to less:
Greece, Portugal, Guatemala, Uruguay,
Belgium, Salvador, Japan, Peru, Costa Rica, Argentine, Spain, Korea, France,
Yugoslavia, Panama, Mexico, Turkey, Israel, Austria, Germany, Pakistan,
Taiwan, Chile, Brazil, Venezuela, Iran, Thailand, Equador, Arab Countries
(Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Kuwait, Iraq, Saudia Arabia, UAE.)
These nations tend to accept uncertainty rather than avoid it, listed
approximately from least avoidance to more:
Singapore, Jamaica, Hong Kong, Denmark,
Sweden, Malaysia, Great Britain, Ireland, India, Philippines, Indonesia, West
Africa (Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone), East Africa (Kenya, Ethiopia, Zambia),
Norway, Netherlands, Canada, USA, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia.
Hofstede did not include every nation in this study. He was originally limited
to nations with an IBM office, though he argued that his data was still
validated thoroughly, and it compared well to national samples. That explains
why the nation you were wondering about may not be listed above. However, I
think the main cultural clusters are represented.
I
reordered the nations who tend to avoid uncertainty according to a clustering
that made sense to me:
1.Celebrated
cultures that feel they must prevent being diluted or assimilated: Greece,
France, Austria, Germany, Belgium
2.Predominantly Catholic, most of South
America, mainly underachievers, all have been candidates for
socialism/communism, and supporters of mythology and mysticism (political,
cultural, and religious; i.e. Che Guevara and the Virgin Mary): Portugal,
Guatemala, Uruguay, Salvador, Peru, Costa Rica, Argentine, Spain, Panama,
Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Venezuela, Equador
3. Nations threatened or oppressed by
radical and violent Islam (including Islamic nations who are radical because
they feel threatened by the west):
Yugoslavia,
Turkey, Israel, Pakistan, Iran
4. Asian nations, accustomed to a long
history of invading and being invaded, each with a distinct culture that they
feel needs to be preserved and protected:
nTaiwan, Thailand, Japan,
Korea.
I
will consider this subject further but right now I am thinking this is a
problem worth addressing. I have no idea how we get a whole nation, let alone
a whole continent, to embrace uncertainty. It does appear to me, though, that
there would be many benefits to the global community of more cultures tended
to allow, even to embrace, uncertainty.
