HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The biggest New Year's celebration is fixed to the Gregorian calendar which Pope Gregory XIII established in 1582. It was moved from March 25 (the Feast of Annunciation) to January 1, where it still stands today. There are however 26 major New Year's celebrations across Mother Earth, that fall outside of the fixed Gregorian calendar. We have made our own New Year Calendar to showcase a few of the festive celebrations across the world.

To put the celebrations into a wider perspective, we round off the year with a cultural deep dive and put two and two domains into matrixes to get culture in stereo.

NB! These are all average scores, and people do vary from these norms.

Power Distance (PDI): This dimension deals with the fact that all individuals in societies are not equal, and it expresses the attitude of the culture toward these power inequalities among us. Power distance is defined as the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally. It has to do with the fact that a society’s inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders. In High PDI societies people respect and praise their leader. The society is hierarchical and autocratic.

Uncertainty Avoidance (Risk): This dimension has to do with the way that a society deals with the fact that the future can never be known; should we try to control the future or just let it happen? This ambiguity brings with it anxiety and different cultures have learnt to deal with this anxiety in different ways. The extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these is reflected in the score on Uncertainty Avoidance.

Long term orientation: This dimension describes how every society has to maintain some links with its own past while dealing with the challenges of the present and future, and societies prioritize these two existential goals differently. Normative societies. which score low on this dimension, for example, prefer to maintain time-honored traditions and norms while viewing societal change with suspicion. Those with a culture which scores high, on the other hand, take a more pragmatic approach: they encourage thrift and efforts in modern education as a way to prepare for the future.

Indulgence: One challenge that confronts humanity, now and in the past, is the degree to which small children are socialized. Without socialization we do not become “human”. This dimension is defined as the extent to which people try to control their desires and impulses, based on the way they were raised. A tendency toward a relatively weak control over their impulses is called “Indulgence”, whereas a relatively strong control over their urges is called “Restraint”. Cultures can be described as Indulgent or Restrained.

Individualism: The fundamental issue addressed by this dimension is the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members. It has to do with whether people´s self-image is defined in terms of “I” or “We”. In Individualist societies people are only supposed to look after themselves and their direct family. In Collectivist societies people belong to “in groups” that take care of them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.

Masculinity: A high score (Masculine) on this dimension indicates that the society will be driven by competition, achievement and success, with success being defined by the “winner” or “best-in-the-field”. This value system starts in childhood and continues throughout one’s life – both in work and leisure pursuits. A low score (Feminine) on the dimension means that the dominant values in society are caring for others and quality of life. A Feminine society is one where quality of life is the sign of success and standing out from the crowd is not admirable. The fundamental issue here is what motivates people, wanting to be the best (Masculine) or liking what you do (Feminine).