Cultural Explanation Gone Nowhere

In 1977, Mochtar Lubis thought that Indonesians are hypocritical, unaccountable, feudalistic, superstitious, artistic (sic!), and some other bad traits.

In 2009, Rhenald Kasali thinks that Indonesians suffer from ten negative "economic culture" (whatever it may mean). He believes that Indonesians love to: bypass (regulations), engage in conflict, be suspicious to each other, insult each other, be photographed (sic!), mobilize mass violent acts, be shameless, be populist, set unnecessary (bureaucratic) procedures, and procrastinate.

My take: I am not convinced at all -if not to say that I don't buy it- for the following reasons.

First, so far I do not see neat working definition for each of those adjectives they used.

Second, I do not see systematic empirical efforts and findings to justify those assertions --let alone considering they take the nation's population as their unit of analysis.

Third, compared to what (nations at what period)?