Page 253 - Cultures and Organizations

226 DIMENSIONS OF NATIONAL CULTURES

but are more likely to find a modus vivendi in which groups tolerate and
complement each other. Countries in the lower right-hand corner often
harbor considerable antagonism toward minorities and ethnic, religious,
or linguistic opponent groups (Belgium!), but the universalism of the indi-
vidualist state tries to guarantee that everybody’s rights are respected;
extremism versus others is restricted to the political margin. Finally, in
countries in the lower left-hand corner, such as the United States, a major-
ity will at least in theory support integration of minorities and equal rights
for all. An event such as the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, puts
this tolerance to a rough test, as Arab-Americans and Arab-looking Amer-
icans have experienced.
Strong uncertainty avoidance leading to intolerance of deviants and
minorities has at times been costly to countries. The expulsion of the Jews
from Spain and Portugal by the Catholic kings after the Reconquista of
the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors (1492) has deprived these countries
of some of their most enterprising citizens and is believed to have contrib-
uted to the decadence of the empire in the following centuries. One group
of Iberian Jews settled in the Netherlands and played an important role in
the seventeenth-century Dutch colonial expansion. Others went to Costa
Rica, which even today is a favorable exception to Latin American person-
alismo and stagnation (see Chapter 4). In more recent history the exodus
of top scientists, many of them Jewish, from Hitler’s Germany enabled the
Americans to develop the atomic bomb.

Uncertainty Avoidance, Religion, and Ideas

Earlier in this chapter religion was mentioned as one of the ways in which
humankind avoids anxiety. Religious beliefs and rituals help us to accept

the uncertainties against which we cannot defend ourselves. Some religions
offer the ultimate certainty of a life after death.
The grouping of countries according to UAI score in Table 6.1 is some-
what associated with their dominant religion. Most Orthodox and Roman
Catholic Christian countries score high; exceptions are the Philippines and
Ireland. Muslim countries tend to score in the middle; Protestant Christian
countries below average; and Buddhist and Hindu countries medium to
very low, with Japan as an exception.
A problem in classifying countries by religion is that the major reli-
gions of the world are all internally hetero geneous. Polish, Peruvian, Ital-