Iceland Indulgent Culture

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Surrounded in darkness, for half the year would make any country seem like a miserable place to live it. However, “Iceland consistently ranks as one of the happiest countries in the world” (Weiner, 142). What makes Iceland a happy and blissful country to live in is a direct result of its culture. Icelandic culture is multifaceted and two dimensions of its culture that assist in the happiness of all Icelanders are indulgence and individualism. Iceland is an indulgent culture instead of resistant one. There are different parts of Iceland’s culture that make it an indulgent one. An indulgent culture is defined as “the extent, to which people try to control their desires and impulses” (Hofstede). These parts are leisure ethic and creativity. This leisure ethic presents itself in several different ways. The first way presented is obvious, binge drinking. Icelanders are heavy drinkers and spend the whole weekend drinking. This represents leisure because during this time they are not worried about working hard but about having fun and temporarily forgetting everything and everyone. The fact that Icelanders are …show more content…

This is very individualistic because one is able to completely focus on their interests, if they want to try something they can, without the fear of failure. This is because Icelanders’ admire failure; failure is not seen as failure but as trying. Iceland is a nation of born-again and this belief really exemplifies the individualism in the culture because people are free to try something new that interests them. This is evident with Icelandic artists because before they discover the amazing things they are capable of they start be produce less than stellular art. It is through the bad that they are able to grow and discover the good (Weiner, 162-163). Being able to focus their energy on what they want to pursue contributes to Icelander’s overall

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