Moving beyond democracy

[Hrothbern]

Ah, so feminism is the secret to happiness? An interesting point of view. As for Heert Hofstede, I guess I'll have to check out his research.

"secret" goes too far for me, but lack of masculinity and/or presence of feminity is by direct properties or by factors supporting/enabling it, supporting a feel of quality (as one of the I guess many mechanisms)
Whereby I would seek it in the direction of social empathy.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

When it is about the usual indicators to measure the quality of life in countries, the Nordic democracies score indeed high.
Striking thereby is that the Nordic countries have all a very low masculinity on the Heert Hofstede cultural dimensions, compared to most other countries.

Correlation ofc no causality
But empathy for your fellow citizen does matter.

Trudeau said yesterday:
"Teaching boys to be feminists gives them a sense of justice and empathy and helps them “escape the pressure to be a particular kind of masculine” that is damaging to men and those around them, Trudeau writes. “I want them to be comfortable being themselves, and being feminists – who stand up for what’s right, and who can look themselves in the eye with pride.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ay-on-raising-feminist-sons-all-of-us-benefit

I agree with your post and appreciate the observation. Just out of curiosity.. I have studied the Hofstede index both in university and privately and ended up at the conclusion that it is absolute garbage, akin to similiar theories like "clash of civilizations", which I am sure you are familiar with. Often times people like Hofstede enjoy generalizing complex issues simply to have "actual results", which in turn are often flawed, without nuance and heavily ideologically biased.

As for your observation regarding feminism.. I do feel like this is a very important step forward in mankind. I think the definition of "a real (tm) man" should be a person who stands up for himself and others, has a healthy moral compass and takes responsibility for his actions". Indeed, I want to see it completely removed from any "traditional" gender roles: "a man should be strong, assertive, a leader.. etc". I do agree with you that these ideals can be potentially harmful for young people growing up.

 

[Hehehe]

"secret" goes too far for me, but lack of masculinity and/or presence of feminity is by direct properties or by factors supporting/enabling it, supporting a feel of quality (as one of the I guess many mechanisms)
Whereby I would seek it in the direction of social empathy.

I've only taken a preliminary look at Hofstede's research, but it is interesting.

In Feminine countries the focus is on “working in order to live”, managers strive for consensus, people value equality, solidarity and quality in their working lives. Conflicts are resolved by compromise and negotiation. Incentives such as free time and flexibility are favoured. Focus is on well-being, status is not shown. An effective manager is a supportive one, and decision making is achieved through involvement.

It is true that Nordic countries are fairly egalitarian, and there is a fair bit of solidarity. But I never considered these to be "feminine" traits.

Indeed, I want to see it completely removed from any "traditional" gender roles: "a man should be strong, assertive, a leader.. etc". I do agree with you that these ideals can be potentially harmful for young people growing up.

I think that "traditional gender roles" are at least somewhat down to biology, and that therefore they will never be fully erased. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely believe in equal opportunities for men and women, I just don't think that it will necessarily lead to equal outcomes.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I think that "traditional gender roles" are at least somewhat down to biology, and that therefore they will never be fully erased. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely believe in equal opportunities for men and women, I just don't think that it will necessarily lead to equal outcomes.

Personally I think "traditional gender roles" are mostly a construct of the 20th century and did not exist in the past as we see them today, but obviously you are open to have your own opinion on this subject.

Surely it is true that men and women are to some degree biologically different, but nonetheless there is compelling evidence that, for example, women have worked alongside men not just in the "household", but also manual labor on the field and so on.

Point is, with physical strength being close to irrelevant in the future, those biological differences become less and less imporant.

It is true that Nordic countries are fairly egalitarian, and there is a fair bit of solidarity. But I never considered these to be "feminine" traits.

I fully agree with you. There is nothing inherently feminine about those traits at all. This is, imo, where Hofstede's limited understanding of the world shows.

 

[Hehehe]

Personally I think "traditional gender roles" are mostly a construct of the 20th century and did not exist in the past as we see them today, but obviously you are open to have your own opinion on this subject.

Surely it is true that men and women are to some degree biologically different, but nonetheless there is compelling evidence that, for example, women have worked alongside men not just in the "household", but also manual labor on the field and so on.

Point is, with physical strength being close to irrelevant in the future, those biological differences become less and less imporant.

Well, women have evolved wombs and mammaries. Is it impossible to think that there might also be some psychological adaptation towards a more nurturing personality, for example? And again, I must reiterate, I'm not trying to force women into any gender roles here, I believe in equal opportunities, I'm just saying, is it possible that there might be some differences?

As for history, yes, women have worked and sometimes even fought alongside men. There are always going to be huge variation among individuals, but is it possible that if we average this all out, then there might be some differences?

 

[Hrothbern]

I agree with your post and appreciate the observation. Just out of curiosity.. I have studied the Hofstede index both in university and privately and ended up at the conclusion that it is absolute garbage, akin to similiar theories like "clash of civilizations", which I am sure you are familiar with. Often times people like Hofstede enjoy generalizing complex issues simply to have "actual results", which in turn are often flawed, without nuance and heavily ideologically biased.

As for your observation regarding feminism.. I do feel like this is a very important step forward in mankind. I think the definition of "a real (tm) man" should be a person who stands up for himself and others, has a healthy moral compass and takes responsibility for his actions". Indeed, I want to see it completely removed from any "traditional" gender roles: "a man should be strong, assertive, a leader.. etc". I do agree with you that these ideals can be potentially harmful for young people growing up.

This post back only on the usefulness of Hofstede.
Hofstede started as construction engineer (NL, University Delft, 1953, Ir.). He did sociology, promoted on organisation (NL, University Groningen, 1967, Dr.). IBM decided that cultural sociological differences between countries were both bigger than their management could handle, and important for the results. Those managers with mainly technical background, often not talented in social skills and empathy. (we call them not nerds here, but "technical horks").

From personal experience: Raised as a technical hork, I worked for a long time in a London Stock Exchange based niche tech industrial global company in many countries and was lots of time in most of those countries. Service, business to business. Cultural understanding mandatory of your own people and the customers.
The lack of cultural understanding from the anglospheric headquarters on local/regional business and human culture was appalling low. They had no clue where to trust or be cautious, where uniformity made sense and where not.
Travelling around, what I typical did was having dinner the evening before with some or most of the people, I had the next day the formal meeting. To quick immerse in their way of thinking, to touch or get the tone of the context. (and for example to readjust my ears to the next dialect of German language like deep-Bavarian, Schwarzwald, Steyermark ). To lower the treshold to discuss things that they would be insecure to raise in the formal meeting (is cultural !).
That and the book "Mind you Manners" of John Mole was everyting I had in my luggage at first.
When somebody pointed out Hofstede, I, as uneducated as I was in sociology stuff, was really happy with it, with for me new concepts, because it helped me to better store/archive away, calibrate my experiences. No more. No bible. From there I started reading more. Perhaps it is only a really usefull book for people that have no professional clue on sociology and yet need some basics in international dealings as extension of only minding your manners.
Using it to understand anecdotical experience is ofc the reverse process of predicting theoretically from it, how interactions will go from a theoretical ordened question lists. Using Hofstede as source of eyeopeners to investigate upon, or challenge, yet another dimension.

 

[Hrothbern]

I fully agree with you. There is nothing inherently feminine about those traits at all. This is, imo, where Hofstede's limited understanding of the world shows.

agree
that terminology is misleading.
You must read his definition there to understand what he measures (you must always do that, also with statistics)
Perhaps another word would be better. (but no political (loaded) word).

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Great post. I think that Hofstede can potentially be incredibly useful as a tool for "adult education", to help clueless managers bridge cultural differences. Of course there are books that do that job better, but I think Hofstede is precisely the type to really appeal to that certain demographic of "culturally illiterate". FWIW I respect him as a scholar and I have some friends at Gröning Uni, it's a great university

Well, women have evolved wombs and mammaries. Is it impossible to think that there might also be some psychological adaptation towards a more nurturing personality, for example? And again, I must reiterate, I'm not trying to force women into any gender roles here, I believe in equal opportunities, I'm just saying, is it possible that there might be some differences?

As for history, yes, women have worked and sometimes even fought alongside men. There are always going to be huge variation among individuals, but is it possible that if we average this all out, then there might be some differences?

I don't like how you are steadily alluding to things, trying to get me to reach some conclusion you have made in your head already.

You are not Socrates and I am not Alcibiades

In the first place I never actually disagreed with your hypothesis that these "physical differences" might also be mental. Infact I think it quite irrelevant whether or not women have a slightly differently composed brain.

You are very careful with your is/ought: You do not try to turn biological realities (if one can even call it that) into societal imperatives. That's always good.

 

[warpus]

I don't know if it necessarily is the best we've figured out. The main problem with democracy is that it operates terribly slow due to the need to build some sort of consensus on an issue before taking action. That makes democracy great during times of relative peace and stability, but becomes more of a hindrance than a help during times of crisis or when faced with adversaries that don't have the ball-and-chain of building consensus to weigh them down. We are seeing this now with multi-national corporations coming up with new ways to exploit consumers and employees years before democratic government can even formulate some kind of response. And by the time they do formulate a response, the corporations have already moved on to something new.

Yeah it's not perfect and it can be slow to respond in times of crisis, but what better system have we discovered? I can't think of one. Dictatorships can work very well during times of war, and that's great, but doesn't really help in times of peace.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Dictatorships can work very well during times of war, and that's great, but doesn't really help in times of peace.

Is that a good thing? The goal should be zero wars and a government that can only be changed by war or similar is not a good thing.

 

[Lexicus]

I don't get why people seem to think dictatorships work well during wars. Wars are the time when you really really need accurate feedback and dictatorships never produce that.

 

[BvBPL]

Well, if you say so, it must be true.

Yup.

 

[Yeekim]

You do not try to turn biological realities (if one can even call it that) into societal imperatives. That's always good.

I think we're well past that.
Currently arguments tend to rise between people who think that unequal representation of genders always indicates discrimination and those who think natural predilection is still a thing.

 

[luiz]

I don't get why people seem to think dictatorships work well during wars. Wars are the time when you really really need accurate feedback and dictatorships never produce that.

Yeah and the historical record is certainly in favor of democracies when both face each other. That said, it's quite evident that civil liberties get curtailed in democracies during war time.

 

[Lexicus]

That said, it's quite evident that civil liberties get curtailed in democracies during war time.

Sure, but with rare exceptions this has always struck me as being more about the government's paranoia than out of real necessity.

 

[aelf]

To be honest, I'm too lazy to dig up statistics here, but I daresay that when measured by whatever positive metric, you'll find democracies at the top of the list.

There certainly are confounding factors such that it's not immediately clear this is not a correlation rather a causal relationship.

Homogeneous and white? I thought that was a bad thing? That diversity is the way to go?

Maybe a language barrier is at work here? Nowhere did I make a clear judgement value on democracy or on its criticisms, let alone on the issue of diversity.

There are those who claim that Nordic social democracy only works because of homogeneity. Some may also cite cultural factors. So they certainly aren't going to be satisfied by a simple argument that says life in the Nordics is good and that must be because of democracy.

Often times people like Hofstede enjoy generalizing complex issues simply to have "actual results", which in turn are often flawed, without nuance and heavily ideologically biased.

Wasn't he an engineer by training? Interdisciplinary work can be interesting and insightful, but his theories also seem to be championed by the business world. Can't be a coincidence.

Yup.

I'm already well-aware of moderates' limited capability to argue rationally in a way that actually reaches across the aisle, despite their claims, but thanks nevertheless.

 

[Robo-Star]

I don't get why people seem to think dictatorships work well during wars.

They conflate conquest with war.

 

[BvBPL]

Ridiculous theses to the contrary, political systems do not struggle against each other in zero-sum game of winners and losers. Democracy endures, and its sustenance does not recede with the success of other systems. The continued existence of democratic systems is threatened not by external political ideologies, but from within by the will of the citizenry. Such is the case with all political organizations.

What makes democracy exceptional in this regard, and why it will persist, is that democracy is a very elastic system. Unlike more autocratic alternatives, democracies embrace a broad scope of political opinions. What’s more, an individual democracy can shift itself from one political pole to another without losing the essential quality of being a democracy. It is through both containing multitudes and a mutable nature that democracy will continue.

 

[Commodore]

Yeah it's not perfect and it can be slow to respond in times of crisis, but what better system have we discovered? I can't think of one.

None. A system better than democracy is going to be one we haven't discovered yet. I guess my point is that we shouldn't just automatically assume democracy is the best and stop looking for something better.

 

[warpus]

None. A system better than democracy is going to be one we haven't discovered yet. I guess my point is that we shouldn't just automatically assume democracy is the best and stop looking for something better.

Is anyone assuming that though? The popular quote by Churchill is after all "Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried"

Maybe I'm wrong but the consensus doesn't seem to be that it can't be beat, but that we just haven't found anything better so far