Enneagram: Styles of Some World Cultures (free Business e-Coach)

Cultural Auras

Styles of Selected World Cultures

Ancient Rome began as a few city states on the Italian peninsula, but eventually expanded to include much of modern-day Spain, France, Turkey, Greece, the Middle East, and North Africa. From the beginning, their culture was driven by conquest, military power, and expansion, which are values of ambitious 8s. One of ancient Rome's most prominent leaders, Julius Caesar, was also an 8. The Romans gave considerable cultural autonomy to the lands they conquered - as long as they paid taxes and recognized Roman authority. Again, many 8s are like this - demanding loyalty but granting remarkable autonomy within certain absolute boundaries. Roman culture borrowed (some would say stole) heavily from others; for example, their religion was taken first from the Greeks, and later from the early Christians, and their architecture also borrowed heavily from ancient Greece. When Rome ran out of new territories to conquer, the society lost some of its sense of mission and began to lose discipline. Without new conquests to bring in more money and resources, the strain of defending its vast territory against myriad outsiders took an enormous financial toll on the empire, which slowly declined until 476 A.D. when the Western portion of the empire collapsed.

Ancient Greek culture was competitive, and valued high achievement. This in itself is not unusual for a Western culture, but the ancient Greeks also idealized perfection, beauty, symmetry, and order. These ideals were incorporated into their architecture, government, mathematics, philosophy, athletics, sculpture and art, all of which stressed high ideals, virtue, and aesthetic order. Greek mathematicians invented the "golden ratio" (1.618...), which they believed to be the ideal proportions for almost everything, from architectural structures to paintings to natural organisms. Greek culture also prized rationality, and kept secret their own mathematical discovery of "irrational numbers" (numbers that cannot be expressed as a ratio of two integers) - this was practically a heretical idea.

Of course, no culture is monolithic, and there were other sub-elements of Ancient Greek culture that do not seem 1-ish. For example, the Greeks worshiped Gods that were essentially like men, only with more terrifying powers. Their Gods were not particularly rational, righteous, detail-oriented, or in any way 1-like as far as I can tell.

Ancient Chinese literature, poetry, religious, and social beliefs heavily emphasized social harmony, as well as harmony with nature. Much more than Western poetry, classical Chinese poetry almost obsessively dwells on the wonders of nature, as do classic Chinese paintings. 9 cultures generally dislike continuous conflict and power struggle, which may be one reason why the rigid Confucian social ideals were so widely accepted in China for the last two millennia. Confucious (probably a 1) defined an age and gender-based social hierarchy with the emperor at the top, and everyone else below in a fixed ranking. Chinese society unified itself culturally and politically in 221 B.C., far earlier than any other region of similar size. Unity remains a national goal today, although it has been distorted and manipulated by the communist government into an excuse to bully Taiwan and Tibet.

Ancient China had a strong self-preservationist cast. The country has been economically self-sufficient for almost all of its history. The Great Wall was designed to keep China's neighbor's out, and represents another self-preservationist defense mechanism. The Wall's construction began about 2000 years ago, and at its peak involved the labor of almost 70% of the male population of China.

Inertia is a characteristic vice of Enneagram style 9, and Chinese society's early precocious advances fell victim to a similar form of stagnation. It is a great historical mystery how China, from the year 221 B.C. to the year 1900, went from being one of the world's most advanced nations to one of the most impoverished and backward. The 9-like culture might be one reason.

Modern China: moving toward 3, with a 6-ish government.
Modern Chinese culture still retains 9-ish desires for stability, unity, and continuity with its own past. But business, profit, and money are increasingly important, motivated partly by a desire to recover lost prestige, to catch up to the West, and avenge their humiliating treatment by Western powers in the 19th century. China is increasingly concerned with how it is viewed by the rest of the world, as evidenced by the national obsession with acceptance to the World Trade Organization, as well as the campaign to host the 2008 Olympic Games.

However, the government of China is still totalitarian, deeply conservative and resistant to major change. This government also contains some strong unhealthy 6-ish elements. The government spends considerable energy attacking small harmless groups (Tibetans, Taiwanese, and Falun Gong). Paranoid elements in the government view these tiny groups as major threats to the entire lifestyle of the Chinese. Taiwan and Tibet each have a population less than 2% of China's, yet are blamed for a host of the society's ills.

3-ish elements in America are quite plain to see: American culture is competitive and goal-oriented, and Americans worship success and winning. The quintessentially American institutions of Hollywood and Madison Avenue are both focused almost exclusively on image-creation. A puritannical 1-ish streak was also present from the early years of this nation. Many 19th century presidents were 1s, including George Washington, James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, and Grover Cleveland. American views on sexual openness, drug use, and other social issues are also quite puritannical compared to the European countries from which most Americans trace their roots. However, there is also a sex-drugs-rock and roll element which could be seen as 7-ish.

England: 1 moving toward 4. Some say 8 moving toward 5. (1-ish aspects include being the birthplace of representative government, the Magna Carta, and constitutional monarchy, but England was also a major colonial power, suggestive of 8).

France: 4+7 (fine food and wine, romance, and a disdain for anyone not French)

The Democratic party in America: 7 - more open to new ideas and diversity than the Republicans, but perpetually prone to fragmentation and a lack of discipline. The party preaches inclusivity, and for the most part practices it. The Democrat party consists of labor unions, most ethnic minorities, intellectual elites, Hollywood, trial lawyers, women, and professionals. All of these groups currently lean toward the democratic party, even though their interests are often greatly at odds with each other.

The Republican party in America: 6 - concerned with security issues, national defense, morality, but also with a frighteningly dogmatic right wing. Traditionally, the Republican party has been better at coordination and working together as a group than Democrats. This cohesion is partly due to the party's domination by a small demographic group: white, male, affluent, heterosexual Christians. The party is generally indifferent or actively hostile toward those who are not white, affluent, Christian, or heterosexual.