Hofstede’s
attempt to teach cultural difference in a developed world was met with
resistance. Where colonial masters and the first set of multinational companies
went, they imported their own culture claiming to have a standardised system
than the locals.
They uprooted local cultures, norms and values, religions,
replacing them with colonial master’s heritage. They simply saw no reason to
consider local culture. Mentality of people is hard to change even when wrong
and such, the programming of individual mind when people think they have a
superior culture, knowledge, belief system, education than the other person,
people or race. It is because we have been wired so and one has been taught to
act according.
The
same Hofstede taught graduate students with an ambiguous image which contained
both an old lady and a young woman. The experiment split a class of intellect
which led to some considering the others who never saw what they saw, morons. One
group saw just the old woman while others saw the young woman. They had earlier
been conditioned; half the class was exposed to a pronounced feature of the
young woman and the other half to that of the old woman. They have been
preconditioned within few minutes and each saw according to the programming of
their mind.
Just
like the theory of Hofstede, our cultural heritage programs us to certain
belief system; proven or unproven and we act, relate, go about our interactions
and businesses based on these belief systems. Even our education does; because
education itself teaches a belief system based on the principles, methodologies
and precepts adopted. A value system that make one believe authority, parents,
teachers, religious leaders etc. without querying their wisdom and errors,
subject one to a side of the story which according to Chinamanda Adachie creates
the danger of a single story. The other half becomes the lie, invalid and erroneous;
while in some cases when it is religious it means doom. In this our prejudice and
sentiments grow and we often find it easy to label a group, a tribe, especially
minority as having one bad trait which becomes a norm even to the group of
minors except for some few ‘rebel’ in the group. We most times see the world
the way we have learned to see it
Religious
angle further divides humanity as a whole. For example in Nigeria, Christianity
and Islam which were foreign (not until 300 to 400 hundred years ago) to us as
a people, has become a real point of divergence, intolerance, killing and
massacres. There were communal clashes before those religions and most of those
clashes were show of superiority where a particular race maim, kill and enslave
the weaker one; most times the minor. Now in the name of religion we
discriminate, kill, enslave and demonise one another. All around the globe
people of majority group kill the minority; Christians killing Muslims, Muslims
killing Christians, majority Christian killing minority Christian. There are
also instances of violent minority rising to kill people of a major belief
system. The list is endless. Yet based on what part of the world one lives, one
sect or religious group is a saint while the other is evil. The character of
people are the same; wired by belief systems that shapes their orientation to
being good or evil and human prejudice take solace in a belief system.
There
is however people of divergent behaviour even amidst this mental programming,
such group of rebel seek value in things that better serve the purpose of
humanity than to conform to a norm which elevate one group of people over the
other.
In
some locality and tribe’, when an elderly person is confronted with allegation
of falsehood the elderly person simply turns the table by asking if one is
inferring that he/she is lying. It is almost an aberration for an elderly
person to be accused of lying albeit no one is immune from lies. People of
spiritual significance, position etc. have simply replaced such traditional
role and to accuse a prophet is to accuse God himself, while in some society
power corrupt and absolute power corrupt absolutely. It is the power distant
nature that differentiates both. In one society, power is entrusted hierarchically
and the person in whom power is entrusted is expected to be fair and just by
reason of age and experience. However in the other society everyone is a
guardian of society’s moral conscience while the person at the helm of affairs
is just expected to coordinate. No culture or disposition is totally superior
or inferior as both society premises the conscience of the society on fairness
by confers power differently.
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