This Chart Explains Every Culture In The World

BI ^ | 7-2-2014 | Christina Sterbenz

[SIRTRIS]

Yup, the further you are from islam... the better are your prospects of living.

[knarf]

Poland squeezed in among the Asians ?

[skeeter]

What happened to Poland?

[cong. dance leader]

I guess Israel didn’t make the cut.

[skinkinthegrass]

Like Hitler, Putin took it.

[ArtDodger]

Not to be party pooper but...many of the religions, and indeed the countries, on this chart are only in existence today because of the influence the USA and its nuclear umbrella. Without The United States, this chart would be very different and simpler.

[skinkinthegrass]

Might be influenced by the German coauthor? ..Jordan is there.
The Jordanian Pali-Arabs are rejoicing.

[Nervous Tick]

bfl

[ExCTCitizen]

We should sent Muslims to another planet so everyone will have a better changpce of living.

[mason-dixon]

What happened to Poland?.... its history. Poland has been a dismembered (prior to ww 1) and occupied (after ww 2).This would bias toward the “survival” aspect. Its national identity is very strongly tied to its religion — Traditional Roman Catholic — to bias toward “traditional” aspect.

[Gaffer]

What’s going on with it is that the ordinate axes are solely subjective criteria. In the subjective context, they are subject to the interpretation of the chart’s creator.

[IronJack]

The first thing I noticed is that they misspelled “Marocco” and “Danmark.” Not an inducement to credibility ...

[FreedomPoster]

Poland has had an interesting history, being a land athwart a natural major invasion route with no natural defensible borders. It does not surprise me they are unlike their neighbors.

[blam]

(ahem) Marocco

[nitzy]

Are you sure about that?

If they asked, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how strongly to you believe in a creator who influences events in the world?" or "On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to base an important decision on what you feel is right in God's eyes?" or "How often do you go to church?"

These would seem like objective measures of Secular-Rational Values and Traditional values. No?

[Gaffer]

Well, maybe if you were to believe the personal interpretations of each respondent. In the end, though, the answers are not ‘fact’ but interpretations and feelings.

I guess what bothers me most about the whole graph being subjective is the term “Secular-Rational” values vs. “Traditional” values as if the former were the preferable because it is rational.

To me, it seems more humanistic even though some of the questions were related to belief in God, etc.

[Oratam]

My interpretation: Sweden is the gayest country.

[nitzy]

If they are attempting to paint a picture of the cultural differences between countries they have to find some way to categorize beliefs and values. While I admit that mind reading and truth serum would probably render more accurate results, that may be difficult to do. Ultimately, surveys of "interpretations and feelings" are going to be the best bet. You may not like the Rational/Secular vs Traditional label but I imagine that is probably an area which is widely different between different cultures and a good thing to measure. I think you are reading too much into it to assume one is preferable over the other.

They could simply say, "Measuring and categorizing culture it too difficult. We give up." I for one am glad they attempted it. I find it very interesting and being that we live in a global society where national political boundaries are having less meaning I think understanding cultural boundaries is going to be very important going forward.

I am accused by my liberal friends and relatives of being a racist and I say I am not. I am a proud "culturalist". I don't believe that any race is superior to any others but I do believe that certain cultures are superior to others.

[canuck_conservative]

It’s not perfect, but that’s a really interesting chart, and mostly pretty accurate.