| The biggest worldview changer for me was probably the work of the late Edward T. Hall. Hall was an anthropologist attached the the University of New Mexico. He and his research partner, linguist Norman Trager, were doing research in comparative culture. Hall discovered they would need to provide a comprehensive theory of culture to define what they were comparing and make it possible to do meaningful comparisons. The results of that effort are documented in Hall's books _The Silent Language_, _The Hidden Dimension_, and _Beyond Culture_. Culture is normally thought of as "Everything we know and do", but Hall demonstrated it was broader and deeperl Like the proverbial iceberg, 90% of culture takes place on an unconscious level, handled by reflex. We aren't aware may things we do are done by reflex, unless we find ourselves in a culture that does things differently. As an example, you are at a gathering of some sort. (What sort doesn't matter.) It's not crowded, and there's room to spread out comfortably. You are talking to someone you just met. How far apart are you standing? Why that distance instead of nearer or farther away? If you live in the US, the answer to "how close are you standing?" is "about 3 feet". The dominant culture here derives from northern Europe, where that is the correct social distance to maintain with folks who aren't family or close friends. No one ever explicitly tells you "Thou shalt stand three feet away from strangers and folks you don't know really well!" You absorb it by osmosis beginning in early childhood, by observing and mimicking what you see the adults do. By the time you are old enough to be out on your own, it's embedded reflex you do without thinking. Now plunk yourself down in a culture with a different notion of correct social distance, like Greece, where the default is about a foot and a half, and watch the fun. Someone from our culture will think the Greeks are "pushy" and "in your face". The Greeks will think we are cold and standoffish. Each side is simply attempting to maintain the social distance correct for their culture. Many things fell into place when I read Hall, and my notions about why various things occur changed radically. A lot of current international problems can be considered clashes between cultures with differing underlying elements. Religion, political structure, and economic system are overlays on top of underlying cultural patterns, and differences in the overlays may mask the deeper underlying issues.
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Dennis |