In this modern world, people more than ever are brought into contact with other people across the globe. Internet allows us to engage in real time with persons from very different backgrounds. Migration and travel bring us face to face with very diverse groups of people. At a simple level, we are all able to partake of such conversations in a civil and sensible way, but often there is arguably a barrier to some sort of deeper understanding where the views and values of the other come from. Often, we do not know what to expect from or how to understand others. This is a dimension of human interaction that is often overlooked. Often we approach the other within the context of our own ways of thinking. Most of the time, that can work well. A deeper understanding, however, offers the possibility of gaining a better insight -however imperfect- into the aims, intentions and range of choices of others. If anything, it makes the thoughts and behaviour of the other more predictable and understandable. At best, it shows respect for people from a different background. All human cultures are based on values that are positive for those that are part of them.
Human beings interact in societies in which they seek to understand their world and achieve solutions to the problems which threaten their survival and improve living conditions. This involves not just such basic needs such as food, security and procreation, but also mental health and the reduction of risk in daily life. It also concerns ways of developing societies and communities beyond such basic needs. A look around the world serves to show that humans have found many, vastly differing solutions to these needs. A common factor seems to be that all human societies have found their solutions by developing world views or religions that served to describe the world they lived in and justify the way human communities have been structured and function. As a result, communities have developed the ideas, linguistic concepts and social values and rules that make behaviour within the community both conform to its world view or religion and (mostly) ensure it is predictable. The kind of world view or religion these communities have evolved have had important consequences for the way the members of different societies have been socialised, interact and, more on an individual level, the way in which they have developed their personalities.
It is often overlooked that there are important emotional effects at play here. A healthy personality is dependent on mental safety and a broad affirmation by others. We all know that personal behaviour has to chime with the group we find ourselves in. It is perhaps not commonly known, however, that most people hate to have to think in order to act or solve a problem. Most of the time human beings act and think based on set patterns. In fact, a given value system serves to reduce problem solving by placing it within an internalised and well-rehearsed system of culture and language. To be transposed to a different community raises basic problem solving questions that involve not just cultural and linguistic problems, but also deeper personality issues and fundamental ways of dealing with other persons. In a different setting, we can feel badly out of place and do not know what to expect. This is as valid for personal contacts as it is for international relations.
Basic to this approach is the realisation that human beings relate to and communicate with the world around them within the (often implicit) framework of their worldview, behavioural patterns and values. There is no self-evident way of interacting with other humans or describing the world. In a way, you could say, other persons are complete strangers and empirical reality is metaphysical to us. We need to conceptualise both social and physical reality to be able to deal with them. We need a certain amount of shared social knowledge to interact in a meaningful way. This is as true of our dealings with our own communities as of our approach to other communities and the physical world around us. Everyday language, behavioural rules, logic and mathematics are human inventions. Language and values have been developed to be able to interact in society. Mathematics serves to quantify physical reality and has proved a basis for modern science. There is no reason why, just like language, there could be a different kind of mathematics. In the last instance, we are all reduced to a mental awareness of reality and the socialised tools to deal with it.
There is also no reason why humans cannot learn to be proficient in other languages, cultures or forms of mathematics. Opponents of the kind of the cultural relativity that I describe here, are quick to point out it is a form of immorality or racism. Such accusations are ludicrous. All human beings have similar brains and the same ability to learn. In that sense, there is no such thing as race. It is a fact, that moralities differ among societies. Culture is acquired, not innate. As pointed out above, however, humans do undergo a socialisation process in which their personalities are formed. Different cultures spawn different kinds of personalities or self-identities. In all of this, individual character always remains a factor. As an individual grows older, socialisation involves making choices about the make-up of one’s personality, that can make it difficult to learn to be proficient in a culture that is not one’s own. In fact, to learn as an adult to function in another culture may bring on what is called a culture shock: a adaptation of one’s personality to understand and function in a newly learnt culture. As with other forms of knowledge involving an important emotional component, some will be better at achieving this than others.
So, how does one acquire the necessary knowledge of a different culture? The most simple answer is to undergo some form of socialisation in that culture. It is first of all learning, thinking through and applying the social rules, that govern human interaction in that culture. A second step is to acquire a knowledge of the legitimation for those social rules. These are the stories that make up the world view and intellectual universe of a culture. The aim is to chime in as much as possible with the other group. Convinced as you are of the value of your own social rules, you will probably not like much of what you encounter, but that is irrelevant. The aim is to gain an insight into how people in that culture interact when you aren’t there. Cultural relativism doesn’t mean that you discard your own values, it merely helps you to understand those of others. And any culture offers a wide range of possible views. Cultures do not determine opinions and views, but merely structure the way they are formulated. This short essay in Chinese or Swahili would probably be written in quite a different way, but convey the same message.
Basic to a socialisation in another culture is learning its language. Languages conceptualise reality in different ways. In English, a horse refers directly to the physical animal. In Chinese, the same word refers to the category of horses, which needs to be individualised through an additional word. This is a subtle, but important mental difference. Words in different languages describing a socially pleasant encounter, such as cosy in English, gemütlich in German, and gezellig in Dutch can’t really be translated accurately. Something is always “lost in translation”. These are closely related, Germanic languages. Imagine the differences in other languages and cultures. Rather than compare, it makes more sense to understand such words on the basis of the social culture concerned. Individual languages, after all, form conceptual universes in which individual words make sense in relation to each other. Importantly, languages also determine how we approach such basic aspects of reality as time and space. Not every society has a nine to five mentality. There is a vocabulary that structures society and the interaction in it too, so we know what to expect from each other in given social settings. These are basic assumptions that affect the way we act.
Language, however, isn’t determinative of culture. English is a good example of a language, that is used in different cultures. Hardly anyone will disagree with me that English, American, Jamaican, Kenyan, and Indian societies aren’t culturally the same. Words may acquire different meanings in different cultural settings. Language is one instrument amongst others to communicate. As such, it is a tool that may be adapted to social and cultural needs. Different cultures may prioritise different needs. It may come as a surprise to many Americans, but money is certainly not the most important thing on the minds of most other people on the face of this earth. Power, status, loyalty, faith or mere curiosity are among other things that are extremely important to many too. More down to earth, happiness, safety, a healthy and successful family, jobs, and holidays are prominent values.
Clearly, culture is a different dimension of our awareness. This brings me to cultural values proper. People partake of groups and societies for different ends. In most of the world, religion, faith or ideology (all Western terms!) is extremely important. So is belonging to a group. These matters provide a structure to reality and fashion behaviour after it. You don’t have to be a Buddhist to understand how Buddhism approaches reality. You merely have to be aware of the fact that people actually believe that is the truth and therefore act after it. A world view provides a framework that is often open to widely diverging cultures. As Clifford Geertz has shown, the Islam of Indonesia is very different from the one in Morocco. Present-day libertarians in the West refer to a natural law of markets and competition without any state involvement. That too is a world view. Arguably, being a fan of a football club can offer a sense of belonging too.
Culture can also be subdivided into subcultures. Local communities, professions, and informal groupings can develop their own codes of behaviour and ideas. Different groups with a culture can be mapped and analysed to show debates with cultures and societies.
The thing is, faiths, religions, and world views, but also social codes, can be described and internalised. With knowledge of such intellectual thought systems, behaviour can be made more predictable. From politics to economics and social codes, these systems structure societies and behaviour. They determine not only what rules are, but how they are viewed. Is a rule hard and fast or is it more fluid? Is it explicit or implicit? Is it to be followed or precisely broken? We often live in multiple layers, where we say one thing and do something else. People in any given culture or society know that, some better than others. Some societies, such as the Japanese, have extremely rigid social rules, others are more flexible. Often, a world view is implicit or important at different levels.
Understanding each other in this global village is increasingly important. Cultural understanding sounds difficult, but can be acquired to different degrees. Awareness of cultural differences calls for a form of empathy that will make the actions of major players on earth more understandable and predictable. It can ease communication between individuals in many different social settings. In a world of rapid change, migration, travel, trade, and war it will facilitate meaningful interaction and accommodation between people. Culture, as a form of communication within groups, can be described and learned. We step out of the narrow confines of our own local debates and grow closer to one another on a larger scale. International peace, climate change, and the future of our children require it, but in order to do so, we have to take the emotional step out of our cultural bubbles.