Culture Quote of the Day - don't assume, don't project

"The first step toward becoming more culturally intelligent is to become more aware of our own cultural identity.... We have a universal tendency to think that other people do things for the same reasons we do them. After all, we learned to do what we do by observing others around us. But as we become more aware of our own culture and its values, we're less likely to project our values onto the Other. Understanding our own culture protects us from assuming the actions of the Other mean the same thing as when we act that way."

David Livermore, Cultural Intelligence

Culture Quote of the Day - self-awareness

"The inward, transformative journey of cultural intelligence involves a heightened understanding of our own cultural background. In what ways are we shaped by the cultures of which we're a part? How does our cultural background shape the way we think, see, and love? ... This kind of understanding about our own cultural background...plays a significant role in helping us move forward in the journey of cultural intelligence."

David Livermore, Cultural Intelligence

Culture Quote of the Day - becoming different people

"Most of our behaviors are habitual. We grow up acting and speaking in a certain way as a reflection of how we've been socialized to see the world. So there's little hope we can deal with our cross-cultural behavior in any kind of sustained way unless we actually become different people. As we think about relating to the Other with love and respect, we have to get beyond behavior modification approaches wherein we appear culturally intelligent and respectful and move toward actually becoming more multicultural people who genuinely love, respect, and appreciate the Other and his or her differences."

David Livermore, Cultural Intelligence

The key question is, how do we change? How do we become different people, in how we relate to the different Other?

Culture Quote of the Day - learning to love

"What do you do when you encounter someone who isn't like you? How do you feel? What goes on inside you? How do you relate to him or her? ... Few things are more basic to life than expressing love and respect for people who look, think, believe, act, and see differently than we do. We want to adapt to the barrage of cultures around us while still remaining true to ourselves. We want to let the world change us so that we can be part of changing the world. And we want to move from the desire to love across the chasm of cultural difference to the ability to express our love for people of difference. Relating lovingly to our fellow human beings is central to what it means to be human..."

"The billions of us sharing planet Earth together have so much in common. We're all born. We all die. We're all created in the image of God. We eat, sleep, persevere, and care for our young. We long for meaning and purpose, and we develop societies with those around us."

"But the way we go about the many things we have in common is deeply rooted in our unique personalities and cultures. So although we have so much in common, we have as much or more about us that's different. Asian. European. Tattooed. Clean-cut. Male. Female. Old. Young. Pentecostal. Emergent. Republican. Democrat. Suburban. Rural. Urban. These points of difference are where we find both our greatest challenges and our greatest discoveries. And as the world becomes increasingly more connected and accessible, the number of encounters we have with those who are culturally different are growing daily. Most of us are more comfortable with people like ourselves. But seeking out and loving people of difference is a far greater challenge. Therefore, learning how to reach across the chasm of cultural difference with love and respect is becoming an essential competency for today's ministry leader."

David Livermore, Cultural Intelligence: Improving Your CQ to Engage Our Multicultural World

The world is shrinking. Even areas of the world which were traditionally "homogeneous," with little diversity of any kind and little contact with "foreigners," have changed and are changing. Diversity is everywhere. When I grew up in white, middle class, suburban Minnesota, I experienced very little diversity (cultural, racial, ethnic, religious). Now, several decades later, when I visit Minnesota I encounter people who are different than "my people" on every hand - Lebanese at the grocery store; Arab, Indian, Vietnamese and many other restaurants and delis; a Tunisian woman working in the coffee shop of the university I attended; a second hand shop we frequent, in which I now hear Spanish more than English; Jordanians, Lebanese, Indians, and more, in my brother's suburban neighborhood; Somali and Ethiopian taxi and shuttle drivers; and more.

As Livermore points out, we have a sense of sharing much in common with other people; but the similarity is clothed in some deep cultural difference, which tends to make us uncomfortable. I remember Tom Brewster, who taught language learning and cultural adaptation, saying "people like to hang out with people of their own ethnicity." And so the question becomes, how will we respond to the difference around us, which is increasing "bumping into" us? Will we seek to run and hide from it, or will we learn to engage "different" people in constructive ways?

I like Livermore's emphasis on love. For those who have Jesus as a model and guide in life, love is the great imperative (and remember, the example Jesus gave to illustrate his command to "love our neighbor as ourselves," was the despised religiously and ethnically/racially different Samaritan, people that the Jews of Jesus's day would avoid at all costs).

Indeed, as Livermore concludes, "learning how to reach across the chasm of cultural difference with love and respect is becoming an essential competency" - for all of us.

Culture Quote of the Day - Cultural Intelligence

“Cultural intelligence is the ability to engage in a set of behaviors that uses skills (i.e., language or interpersonal skills) and qualities (e.g., tolerance for ambiguity, flexibility) that are tuned appropriately to the culture-based values and attitudes of the people with whom one interacts.”

“Successful interaction with people from other cultures is the heart of cultural intelligence. Knowing facts about another culture is helpful, but your approach can’t be only academic or intellectual; you need to know how to interact successfully with people.”

Brooks Peterson, Cultural Intelligence

Cultural intelligence would be at the heart of moving into / living in the realm of what Bennett (DMIS) refers to as ethnorelativism, i.e., the ability to have a positive experience of and adaptation to cultural difference.

Culture Quote of the Day - Mac or Windows?

This quote is a bit long, but addresses the question of whether we are (culturally) more similar or more different:

"Just like computers, we are all programmed. … humans have a ‘cultural programming’ they can’t operate without but that operates largely outside of awareness.

How important is our cultural programming?

               

Macintosh or Windows operating systems look similar at first glance. Both have monitors you look at, with a ‘desktop’ holding a few icons. Both use a mouse and keyboard for input devices. Both have cords and wires coming out the back of a plastic central box that is the core of the computer. Both use printers. Both accomplish the same tasks. You could argue that the two systems are basically the same, with the same ‘look and feel.’

               

In some ways, Mac and Windows systems can communicate well enough with each other, too. When I send e-mails from my Mac, I don’t have to be concerned about whether the recipients have Mac or Windows computers. They can use whatever system they want to open the e-mail at their end.

               

But try putting a Mac program into a Windows computer and you’ll get an error message, because at the programming level the operating systems are significantly different.

               

This analogy applies to humans. A lot of participants in my cross-cultural programs seem to think that people all around the world are basically the same, and at first glance we do indeed seem similar. For example, people basically look the same (we are all human), have the same concerns (health, safety, food shelter, etc.), and experience the same emotions (love, anger, fear, hatred, etc.). And, like computers, we are usually able to communicate, at least on the surface, across cultures. We send letters, faxes, and e-mails; we talk on the phone and sometimes communicate face to face.

               

But at a deeper level, people around the world do have significantly different cultural programming, just like computers do at the operating system level. Try to run an American-style business meeting (Americans will want to get straight to business, use people’s first names as though they’ve been friends for years, dress and speak informally, move quickly, take risks, etc.) with European partners (some Europeans may want to get to know one another a bit before talking ‘money,’ perhaps feel more comfortable using titles and last names or at least more polite ways of addressing one another, dress stylishly, move cautiously to avoid risks, even be given more historical grounding) and you’ll see that not everyone has the same ‘operating system.’

               

There are differences within cities, where each neighborhood can have its own feel, and growing up on the ‘other side of the tracks’ within a city can mean growing up in a totally different world.

               

If this is true, it must follow that daily life in Paris is probably not exactly like daily life in Calcutta. A resident of Calcutta is culturally programmed quite differently from a Parisian. At the surface level, it’s easy to see: East Indians and the French dress differently because they live in areas of different weather patterns; they eat different food, use different transportation, enjoy different leisure activities, and so forth.

Deeper down, they may define family or marriage differently, may have divergent religious beliefs, and may not share similar knowledge and opinions on a variety of topics.

Deeper still, they may have different core values: friendship, convictions that are very strongly held and may not change as long as they live (e.g., humility, face, self-reliance), and so forth. At even deeper cultural programming levels, they probably have what amounts to quite different worldviews. They may view time as abundant or scarce or assume that a god is in charge of their fate or that they determine their own destiny."

Brooks Peterson, Cultural Intelligence

Culture Quote of the Day - are you insular?

“people rarely say, ‘Gee – I’m really closed-minded. I don’t know how to talk to foreigners, and I’m suspicious of almost everyplace in the world outside my own hometown!” 

“The term insularity means ‘having a narrow, provincial attitude about anything unfamiliar or different’ – and implies wearing blinders.”

(Brooks Peterson, Cultural Intelligence)

Culture Quote of the Day (chicken & buffalo)

"To those who say culture doesn't matter and we're all the same, I say: A chicken and a buffalo are essentially the same thing too, aren't they? Both have tails and walk on land, and neither one runs backward very well. They're also about the same size if viewed from a certain perspective." (Brooks Peterson, "Cultural Intelligence")