Walking the middle line: cultural communication, part 1

 A long time ago I developed the thesis that we must (my target audience at the time was Christians, but I think it applies to everyone) first transcend our culture in order to re-enter it and communicate with people within it and from other cultures. 

By transcend I mean get a 30,000-foot view of what actually motivates us in our culture, what's really going on, get an understanding of how it infiltrates (almost) everything we do (I'm not a cultural determinist), and then re-enter our own or reach out to people of others with a renewed or transformed "consciousness." Of course, one would also need a theoretical, at least, understanding of the other culture's motivating factors, although total identification with it would be impossible without long-term immersion. 

I like to think that my study of cultural communication theory has at least given me a 10,000-foot view. 

Most communication theorists in this field make the primary distinction between collectivist and individualistic cultures. Another distinction is high context v. low context; there is some overlap with the collectivist/indidividualist continuum, but they are not analogous when it comes down to cases. High context means you grow up in the culture and just know; low context means the rules are more explicit and have to be because individualism and choice are prized.  

Another distinction is honor and shame cultures v. fear cultures v. responsibility (guilt) cultures. The book The 3-D Gospel by Jayson Georges does a fine job on this topic. 

I have learned a lot about this from my ESL students from the Middle East. If I visit one of them from Sudan, she or her child bring out tea or water and cookies. They don't ask. It is their duty to be hospitable. I realized yesterday that most American people with any upbringing will ask if a visitor wants coffee, tea, water, a snack. (Some won't, and that's a sign too, either of "you weren't invited and I don't want you here" or "I wasn't raised right.") Of course, I live in the South, too, which is slightly more on the honor/shame side of things, even still. But we ask; we give a choice and don't expect the person to eat or drink. 

I'm not saying one is better or worse; you can't do that with most cultural practices (you can with some, probably, but that's a different discussion). But I did notice the difference. Americans are accused of being inhospitable; I'm not sure if that's totally true, since we are so willing to help. We just do not like to (and are often discouraged from) violating someone's choice. I think that's why the Kitty Genovese principle/case is so ingrained in us. (There is a lot of mythology around that case, by the way.) 

By this I mean the tendency of a person to intervene in an altercation where a person seems to be victimized if they are by themselves rather than if the possible intervener is in a crowd.  Our individualism is appealed to in one situation; we also don't often help people unless it's clear our help is desired or needed. If a woman is being bullied by her boyfriend in a public place, we might interfere, we might call the cops, or we might take a photo, based on how we individually assess the situation. 

This happened to me at Christmas at Walmart. The bell ringer for Salvation Army was sitting there in a Santa-type outfit, talking to a young woman, rather pitiful looking, and her boyfriend came up and started cussing her and bullying her. The bell ringer didn't seem too worried about it; he got looks from people. I was concerned, based on my experience; in fact, I was a bit "triggered. " I took a photo and really considered going to the manager. However, I think the bully was working for Walmart as security! (His shirt seemed to say so, and he was mean and burly, muscular.) I chickened out; he calmed down when I came by again. In retrospect, I should have done something. It might have motivated the girl to re-examine her relationship with someone who would cuss her out so publicly in front of a Walmart. 

So, back to the original point. We have to step back and see how our culture has influenced everything we do and think, without believing we are choiceless or determined by our cultural upbringing. More on this in part 2.