The attacks in Norway on July 22 were a tragic illustration of madness empowered in our modern society. They showcased just how crazy an individual and our society can both be, and they raise some important issues we need to face and manage going forward. And I do mean going forward, not going backward.
Power to the people?
We have all heard the mantras of empowering people, repeated endlessly in the egalitarian societies of Northern Europe and North America, and trumpeted across the globe as THE way to manage people in communities and in organizations. Never mind the fact that only 9% of the world’s population live in egalitarian societies and 91% live in hierarchical societies, the egalitarians think they have it right, and everybody else has it wrong. It has come to the extreme of trying to impose “Northern” values on the rest of the world by employing military force.
The truth is, no culture in itself is better than any other. They are not “right” or “wrong”, they are just different.
To each and every culture there are “positive” and “negative” aspects that must be acknowledged and dealt with. No set of cultural values should be imposed on another community.
For decades the Scandinavian model has been touted as an utopia by many media voices. The tragedy in Norway puts the spotlight on some of its shortcomings. The tragedy also raises important issues about the “right” versus “left” movements in politics and about leading change and managing integration in modern society, in all cultures.
Technological advances in communication (the web, social networking, mobile devices) has given enormous power to individuals. This enables people to find their friends and keep in contact, instantly, no matter where they are. This empowerment of the individual has been hailed by the individualistic and egalitarian media as the apex of “Northern” values come to life, utopia becomes reality: everyone is powerful and free to express themselves as individuals.
The popular revolts I the Arab World have been hailed by such pundits as “Facebook Revolutions” and welcomed as a shift towards egalitarian and individualistic values, leaving hierarchical and collectivistic values behind.
However, we need to realize that social networking is not a value in itself. It is just a technology, and it may be equally used for evil purposes as well as for noble purposes. You can find your friends to conspire, to commit crimes against humanity, just as well as you simply agree to meet on Saturday night to have fun together.
Empowerment of individuals may not necessarily be a good thing, when it also empowers the crazies of Oslo and of Arizona, as well as the jihadists and Al Quaeda. The real issue is not “Facebook”, but rather what is it being used for.
People have criticized the Chinese government for trying to control the internet, but the issue all societies need to tackle is: how do you strike the balance between individual freedom and collective harmony? And how do you resolve the dilemma between equal distribution of power and respect for authority?
Every society has to resolve these dilemmas, and each has done so in a different way. That is the basis of the research and analyses made by Hofstede, Trompenaars and the many social scientists who study culture.
Dark Side of Individualism
The dilemma between Individualism and Collectivism, as enounced by Hofstede, or between individual freedom and group harmony, has actually been approached by many philosophers throughout history. It is sometimes summarized as “my rights go as far as where the rights of my neighbor begin”. Hofstede’s research went as far as measuring exactly how far do societies go in terms of choosing between extremes, and he identified (through factor analysis) five dimensions of cultural values, one of which is precisely the “Individualism versus Collectivism” dimension.
Looking at that research we can see how 100 different countries score as compared to each other, and we can see that the cultures who most treasure individual freedom are the Anglo-Saxon, the Dutch-Scandinavian and the Germanic. These are also very egalitarian cultures, as opposed to the collectivistic and hierarchical cultures found in places such as Guatemala and Malaysia, to mention just two examples on the opposite side of the spectrum.
My point here is that extremes tend to be dysfunctional, no matter on which side they are. When you are sitting in one of those extremes, culture-wise, you tend to think that the other side has got it “wrong”, while you have it “right”. However, it is very important to look at the downside of these extreme cultural choices, as we strive to develop cultural values that will make our world a better place for generations to come.
Individualistic and egalitarian societies offer many benefits to individuals, such as freedom of expression and a sense of empowerment. They also value individual accountability and the respect of individual privacy. However, the downside is sometimes the isolation of individuals and a feeling of loneliness in the crowd.
The empowerment of these societies means that anyone is free to buy automatic weapons and “express himself” by shooting random people. Of course, no society deliberately endorses that, but we need to realize that distortions result from the values we espouse.
Whenever a madman goes on a rampage (Oklahoma, Tucson, Oslo, etc) or when we suddenly find that an individual has kept someone as a prisoner in his basement for years (Austria, Germany, California, etc.), we ask each other: how could that happen? How could this have been averted? Why was this not detected earlier?
The answer lies precisely in the values treasured by these cultures. The extreme valuing of freedom goes overboard and the respect for privacy translates into “not noticing” that someone next door is keeping prisoners captive for 20 years. (!)
Similarly, a guy acts crazy, starts sending all kinds of signals that he is psychotic or a psychopath, but people around fail to see that, or fail to act on that.
People fail to see the signs, because they have been brought up to look at explicit communication, rather than implicit communication. They look for content, rather than format. While people in Guatemala and Malaysia (just to use my previous examples) have been brought up to strive for “group harmony” and therefore are keen on body language, non-verbal communication and implicit signs of expression, people in Scandinavia, the Us and in Germany disregard such signs and focus on the explicit content of messages.
People fail to act on the signals they perceive (if they perceive them) because of the respect for privacy and the unconscious voice that tells them “I am responsible for my own actions, not for anybody else’s… this is none of my business”.
And then disaster happens.
This “individual responsibility” taken to extremes leads to social isolation and even lack of solidarity. It breeds individuals who go crazy and turn against those around them.
The opposite example was shown to me recently in Singapore, where a Chinese presenter stressed the importance of “mindfulness” when leading groups in Action Learning. To my request for clarification, she explained that “mindfulness” is “an awareness of the people in the room, of the situation as it unfolds, being sensitive to what is going on”. Collectivistic cultures (such as the Chinese) foster this “mindfulness” in everyone, since childhood. Individualistic cultures do not.
Best Of All Worlds
I am not saying that the Chinese culture is better than the Norwegian. Nor am I saying the opposite. Let’s just stop advocating that this cultural model is better than that one. Let’s start by becoming aware of our own culture bias and how they lead to prejudice. Let’s start looking at the pros and cons of our respective cultures, and let’s explore ways in which we could make them less extreme, in both sides of the respective spectrum.
Right after the Norway tragedy, BBC reporters where suggesting that Norway should “change its policies” regarding police not wearing guns and lacking surveillance and control of public spaces. These reporters did not realize that they were asking Norwegians to become more British, in terms of reacting to the incident as if they were British. They failed to see that they were judging the situation from their own cultural perspective, rather than trying to take an impartial stance or simply asking open questions and allowing the interviewees to express themselves freely.
Perhaps I am asking too much when I long for news reporters who do not strive to push their own agendas as they broadcast from different parts of the world… That would show some real respect for people!
What I am asking for is for us to look at our values and to discuss ways of improving the way we teach our children the notion of “right” and “wrong”, beyond what we were taught by the previous generations. Globalization means that we have the opportunities to explore and learn from all cultures. Globalization is not “Americanization”, it means exploring the full spectrum in each cultural dimension and forging different futures for each community.
It does not mean moving towards a “single global culture”, but it does mean tapping on the richness of exposure to all cultures, understanding where your own culture is coming from, and shaping your community’s future.
Fear Of Change
The biggest obstacle in all this is balancing support and challenge, balancing the need for continuity to maintain identity and the need for change to adapt for new realities. On one side of the spectrum you have “progressives” who push for change, on the opposite you have “conservatives” who resist change.
This is a different dimension from being “right wing” or “left wing”. Conservatives are basically fundamentalists, and the “clash of civilizations” between “West” and “East” is actually a misnomer… In reality it is a clash between conservative Christians and conservative Muslims.
Progressives have nothing to do with that. Progressives are about integrating religions and values to build a better future. Conservatives are about fearing the future and thinking that the past was better, therefore we should preserve it and try to return to it. Progressives are about “up, up and away”; conservatives are about “back, back and stay”.
We need both identity AND change. We need to balance both in order to move forward without loosing our minds and going crazy.
In that sense, the craziness of Oklahoma and Oslo are a signal that, for some people, progress is going too far, too fast, too soon. That doesn’t mean we should stop social progress. It does not mean we should stop immigration and miscegenation, it does not mean we should go back to the notion of “pure” races and Nazism.
It does mean that we must address the social discontents and misfits who turn to violence, that we must manage social change in such a way as to avoid that the Geert Wilders of today turn into the Adolf Hitlers of tomorrow. We need to acknowledge that the “Tea Party” movements all over the world are expressions of the fear of progress, and these movements, when not addressed, may spin out of control (even out of control of their own creators and leaders) and generate mass murder, genocide and even destruction of the whole planet.
In the US and UK media people talk about avoiding that “rogue governments” or “terrorists” (as in Muslim terrorists) gain access to nuclear weapons or chemical weapons and wreak havoc and destruction among millions. I am equally concerned that some crazy Christian fundamentalist in Utah may do the same thing!
People who are afraid of social progress can be very dangerous, whether they pray in a mosque, in a synagogue, or in a cathedral. To avoid the madness we must turn to acknowledging it, recognizing it, understanding it and treating it. It’s no use trying to control it by force, by imposing an Orwellian police state. We do need to address it through education (and I mean radically changing traditional education practices), through social and political debate, through innovative approaches and policies.
If we ignore the craziness next door, we run the risk of becoming their next victim, or worse: we run the risk that our children become the victims of the social craziness we did not address.
28 July 2011