IMHO the Dutch are more direct for the same reason they are less sensitive to authority and approach their superiors as equals.

Netherlands effectively being a River Delta, there always was the threat of water, a force greater than anyone. IOW if a flood comes, both the king and the peasant start digging.

This is completely different from neighboring countries UK and Germany, which both traditionally had strong sense of hierarchy and not contradicting the master.

> IOW if a flood comes, both the king and the peasant start digging.

By the same reasoning, India, Bangladesh and China — all ancient civilizations threatened by great rivers — should have developed similar egalitarian cultures but the reality is the polar opposite.

Maybe something as complex as human civilizations can't be the result of just one geographical feature.