Page 254 - Cultures and Organizations

What Is Different Is Dangerous 227

ian, and Dutch Roman Catholicism are very different. Indonesian, Iranian,
Saudi, and Balkan Islam mean quite different things to their believers and
to their countries. Thai, Singaporean, and Japanese Buddhism have quite
dissimilar affective and practical consequences.
It is evident, as was suggested in Chapter 1, that religious conver-
sion does not cause a total change in cultural values. The value com-
plexes described by the dimensions of power distance, individualism or
collectivism, masculinity or femininity, and uncertainty avoidance seem
to have survived religious conversions. These value complexes may even

have influenced to what extent a population has been receptive to cer-
tain religions and how the accepted religion has evolved in that country.
Indonesian (Javanese) mysticism has survived Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim,
and Christian conversions. In the Christian countries, the Reformation has
separated almost exactly those European countries once under the Roman
Empire from the rest. All former Roman countries (the ones now speak-
ing Romance languages) refuted the Reformation and remained Roman
Catholic; most others became Protestant or mixed. Poland and Ireland
were never part of the Roman Empire, but in their case Roman Catholicism
provided an identity against non-Catholic oppressors.
In establishing a relationship between uncertainty avoidance and reli-
gious belief, it makes sense to distinguish between Western and Eastern
religions. The Western religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—are
based on divine revelation, and all three originated from what is now called
the Middle East. What distinguishes the Western from the Eastern reli-
gions is their concern with Truth with a capital T. The Western revela-
tion religions share the assumption that there is an absolute Truth that
excludes all other truths and that human beings can possess. The differ-
ence between strong and weak uncertainty- avoidance societies adhering

to these religions lies in the amount of certainty one needs about having
this Truth. In strong uncertainty- avoidance cultures, the belief is more fre-
quent that “There is only one Truth and we have it. All others are wrong.”
Possessing this Truth is the only road to salvation and the main purpose in
a person’s life. The consequence of the others’ being wrong may be trying
to convert them, avoiding them, or killing them.
Weak uncertainty- avoidance cultures from the West still believe in
Truth, but they have less of a need to believe that they alone possess it.
“There is only one Truth and we are looking for it. Others are looking for it
as well and we accept as a fact of life that they look in different directions.”