I've been wondering for a while about a puzzle presented by the
Ashkenazim. They seem phenomenally, paranoiacally racist, yet at the
same time they dominate liberalism and liberal movements, moreso than
conservative movements (although that may be less true today). Is it
really feasible for a fundamentally low-O, nationalist/conservative
group, to be able to get along well enough with the high-O
egalitarian/liberal mainstream long enough to dominate its agenda? If
Jews really were simply conservative in their outlook, why wouldn't
they have sided with conservatives all along? And why do they seem to
perpetually anger and annoy conservative types? And, why are they
conspicuously active in science? Do they just get their Nobel prizes
by scratching one another's backs?

A quick look at Israel might be illuminating:

http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_israel.shtml

Their PDI is quite low - below 10.
Their IND is around 50.
Their MAS is around 40.
Their UAI is high - about 75.

And in fact, when averaging all predominantly Jewish nations' scores,
we see the same trends. The above web page reports, "The high
Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI), the primary correlating Hofstede
Dimension with Judaism, reflects a low tolerance for ambiguity. This
creates a highly rule-oriented society that institutes laws, rules,
regulations, and controls in order to reduce the amount of
uncertainty within the population."

A country's PDI correlates negatively with the average Openness and
Extroversion, and positively with the average Conscientiousness, in
that country. Likewise, UAI correlates positively with the average
Neuroticism, and negatively with the average Agreeableness, of a
country.

Insofar as low PDI and high UAI is reflective of Jewish personality
traits in general, it seems that Jews are indeed high on Openness -
but also low in Agreeableness and high in Neuroticism, as I have
suggested on previous occasions.


--Mark