“The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth.” Sultan bin Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, STS-51-G Space Shuttle astronaut.
I caught a headline the other day announcing that the USA was spending nearly a $100 billion to update and improve it nuclear arsenal. Who exactly are we protecting ourselves against? Ourselves?? I find the concept of “The Other” as one of our greatest problems. In so many countries we have this patriotism and allegiance to a set of beliefs and boundaries that are artificial and yet generate this urge to eliminate anything not recognized as ‘self’ – I sometimes think that this might be equated to humanity being an auto-immune reaction to itself. This could start to get deep so I will keep it simple.
I am a Star Trek fan. Long ago I recall seeing the first episodes of Star Trek on a black and white TV set and recall liking something about it other than simply the Sci-Fi adventures. What appealed to me about the show was how the whole crew was egalitarian (if you can ignore the military context chain of command) about who they were and what they could accomplish. While each of the characters would identify with their place of upbringing – consider the characters Chekov, Scottie, and Spock for example – in the show they considered themselves members of the SS Enterprise. So, you might ask how is that different from saying that you are a member of a specific country or some religious sect with their political and theological doctrines? Being culturally competent helps prevent conflicts and enable people to see each other as related – I might add that includes the way we see the natural world.
In my Environmental Communication textbook, I have a chapter called ‘Communicating Across Cultures’ in which I address how people, even from the same culture, are a mishmash of identities of micro-cultures even within a larger macro-culture. It’s not that all Germans, or all Chinese, or all North Americans are essentially the same. The similarities come from how individuals identify within their main macro-culture. Even individuals that might agree on similar micro-cultures will place different emphasis on the importance of each of those microcultures to themselves.
Why Do We Have Cultural Conflicts? Most cultural conflicts arise, not deliberately, but rather out of ignorance and a lack of sensitivity. A lack of empathy is also highly prevalent. Assumptions can be one of the most debilitating pieces of noise in any communications. All people are more simply members of a culture, for what connects us all is how we have similar hopes and expectations and a desire for respect. This is as true for rich as poor communities, for less-developed countries as more-developed countries.
Cultural Competency exists on a continuum from incompetence to proficiency, and means to internalize knowledge, awareness and sensitivity about other cultures to such a degree that one is able to work effectively with individuals from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, or in settings where several cultures coexist. Becoming cultural competency means admitting personal biases, stereotypes and prejudices, overcoming fears to these ideas, and engaging in continual evaluation of one’s personal feelings and reactions to other cultural perspectives. This includes recognizing one’s comfort, or discomfort, in cross-cultural situations. Richard Jurin
I have said often that sustainable living means learning how to live together effectively and in a more connected fashion. It’s not about giving up your own cultural identity but valuing cultural diversity as a positive power of shared support and cooperation. It’s like looking at a monoculture field of crops that can be ruined by a single blight versus a field of polyculture crops in which the crop diversity ensures food security because no one problem can ruin the field. The same id true of human diversity – it creates more resilience.
I have explained The Platinum Rule in previous posts (e.g. Spiritual Crisis is the World’s Greatest Problem Part 2 – Cultural Sensitivity and Empathy) and I bring it up again because it is a useful heuristic which can be fruitfully applied in cross-cultural situations. Mindful use of the Platinum Rule entails getting to know others before descending upon them with campaigns of social change to fit your own cultural norms, which are merely that, your norms, not necessarily those of others. While the Golden Rule promotes sympathy, the Platinum Rule encourages empathy, and our survival as humanity relies on us practicing empathy.
Kenneth Earl Wilber II is an American philosopher and writer on transpersonal psychology who created integral theory, which is a systematic philosophy promoting the synthesis of all human knowledge and experience into a single framework (A theory of Everything). He predicts that human compassion and our sense of identity, and hence cultural competency, is expanding into wider circles of inclusion. This is seen throughout modern human existence as we expanded our inclusion from hunter-gatherer tribes to city states, and now countries, and even groups of countries like the European Union. Although this latter one is mostly an economically based one it has shown how national boundaries can be minimized.
Wilber expresses how our sense of compassion and identity has expanded into wider circles of inclusion through the centuries, but how far can this feeling of inclusion expand? Consider yourself. What do you identify as first? Do you see yourself as citizen of your country first? Or a member of a specific religion? Or have you reached a point where you see yourself, first and foremost, as a citizen of Earth? This is related to the concept of Ecocentrism where you accept the whole ecosphere as central in importance (See my previous posts – Richard’s Research on Worldviews and why he is optimistic about a transformation, and Centralized versus Decentralized Living 5 – Another look at SOL and QOL). Do you just consider all life as equivalent to your own (biocentrism) or do you still feel humans are first and foremost of importance (anthropocentrism) on the planet?
Wilber also believes that we have reached a critical point in human growth we are becoming an ‘Earth Federation’ species. Today, over 30% of the global population now identify themselves as ‘Worldcentric.’ That is, they see themselves first and foremost as citizens of the world. This means that 70% are still at what is called an ethnocentric stage – this means they identify themselves first with their race, country or religion. But the good news is that more and more of this 70% are moving to the world centric stage at this time. I find this especially positive in these stressful times, and in conjunction with my own worldview research (see Richard’s Research on Worldviews and why he is optimistic about a transformation) raises my optimism that humanity is on the cusp of being able to change, adapt, and transition to a world where sustainable living is a foreseeable reality in the near future. Am I being naïve? Possibly, yet all the indicators point to a growth in the human psyche were this kind of change is really about to happen. Will it be a smooth transition? Probably not. We are long past that kind of straight forward change, but I do believe that when it happens, our whole global humanity will move into a new age of thinking, feeling and connectedness. Some may go kicking and complaining, but I think the majority will embrace the changes needed as they see the benefits.
To Be Continued ……………
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