We may admit that cultures are incompatible with each other, but we tend to ignore their enormous power to shape who we are.
If I had been born among people whose custom is to grow and braid hair, I guess I would be doing so.
Suppose the longer the braids, the nicer looking you are, and yours are considered among the best. Now if you go to a country where everybody is supposed to have her/his head shaved with an intricate pattern, what do you think is going to happen?
If I did not know anything about their practice, I will be greatly shocked. In their eyes, I will be an item of curiosity. They may think I am a complete weirdo, or it could be that they think I am a long awaited savior.
It is much more likely that you would be deemed a barbarian and be despised.
What if the Skin-head people come over to my Braid country?
You will be laughing at them.
So, we always win home games?
If I had been born among people whose custom is to grow and braid hair, I guess I would be doing so.
Suppose the longer the braids, the nicer looking you are, and yours are considered among the best. Now if you go to a country where everybody is supposed to have her/his head shaved with an intricate pattern, what do you think is going to happen?
If I did not know anything about their practice, I will be greatly shocked. In their eyes, I will be an item of curiosity. They may think I am a complete weirdo, or it could be that they think I am a long awaited savior.
It is much more likely that you would be deemed a barbarian and be despised.
What if the Skin-head people come over to my Braid country?
You will be laughing at them.
So, we always win home games?
Culture is a set of unwritten codes of conduct; the more people adhere to it, the more powerful it is. Headcount matters, and that is one of the biggest reasons why Benedictus is against contraceptives and homosexuality. Going back to your trip to the Skin-head land as a Braid person, you would be disturbed and hurt by scornful reactions to your braids, instead of praises and respect that you have been used to.
Will I have a crisis?
That's certain. If you are destined to go back to your Braid country after a short period of time, you would endure the humiliating situation without doing anything to your braids. Once you return, you would hasten to tell your family, friends and colleagues how uncivilized things were in the Skin-head country.
If I had been deeply wounded by the disrespectful treatment, I will have every incentive to do so. I may even exaggerate, just to get even.
If you have to stay in the Skin-head country for a while, however, you may opt to cut off your braids and shave your head.
God forbid...
Do not despair, comrade. It will be a wise decision on your part. Suppose you keep your braids and try to do whatever you wanted to in the Skin-head country. It's going to be awfully time consuming and frustrating. In fact, it can take forever.
Are you telling me that I will not accomplish my mission, however noble that may be, simply because of my braids?
Yes, because you stand out so much that the focus will be on your braids. It will require quite a bit of time and effort to make the Skin-heads see beyond the strange appearance of yours. Your difference on surface is so big that it may be a fatal barrier against making yourself understood.
I shall blame them for judging by appearance alone!
It may be justified to do so, but as I have been telling you, we are so influenced by looks and there is not much we can do about it. Anyway, if you are practical enough, I am sure that you will be going to the barber's before too long.
And the Skin-heads will think that I am finally enlightened, liberated, emancipated... The bastards!
Shhhh, it's all hypothetical, comrade. Besides, the worse is yet to come.
You mean they may not accept me even when I do away with my beautiful braids?
That also. What I had in mind is the dilemma that you would face when your date of return to the Braid country nears.
... Quelle horreur ! I have to get my braids back, but I can't grow my hair to full length just on the day before my departure.
If you start letting your hair cover the nice pattern made on your skull, the Skin-head people are going to talk about it.
"We thought it was a miraculous case of assimilation to our refined culture, but alas, it looks like a barbarian is forever a barbarian." That kind of talk?
You got it. Plus, when you are back in the Braid country, you will find inconvenient aspects that you did not notice before: the trouble of washing your long hair and making it into braids, the fallen hair that you notice everywhere in your house, the attention you have to pay so that the braids do not get caught between elevator doors...
Oh no, will I be missing the Skin-head country?
You may even find the near religiosity that your people have for braids slightly ridiculous.
My stay among the Skin-heads has changed me...
Will I have a crisis?
That's certain. If you are destined to go back to your Braid country after a short period of time, you would endure the humiliating situation without doing anything to your braids. Once you return, you would hasten to tell your family, friends and colleagues how uncivilized things were in the Skin-head country.
If I had been deeply wounded by the disrespectful treatment, I will have every incentive to do so. I may even exaggerate, just to get even.
If you have to stay in the Skin-head country for a while, however, you may opt to cut off your braids and shave your head.
God forbid...
Do not despair, comrade. It will be a wise decision on your part. Suppose you keep your braids and try to do whatever you wanted to in the Skin-head country. It's going to be awfully time consuming and frustrating. In fact, it can take forever.
Are you telling me that I will not accomplish my mission, however noble that may be, simply because of my braids?
Yes, because you stand out so much that the focus will be on your braids. It will require quite a bit of time and effort to make the Skin-heads see beyond the strange appearance of yours. Your difference on surface is so big that it may be a fatal barrier against making yourself understood.
I shall blame them for judging by appearance alone!
It may be justified to do so, but as I have been telling you, we are so influenced by looks and there is not much we can do about it. Anyway, if you are practical enough, I am sure that you will be going to the barber's before too long.
And the Skin-heads will think that I am finally enlightened, liberated, emancipated... The bastards!
Shhhh, it's all hypothetical, comrade. Besides, the worse is yet to come.
You mean they may not accept me even when I do away with my beautiful braids?
That also. What I had in mind is the dilemma that you would face when your date of return to the Braid country nears.
... Quelle horreur ! I have to get my braids back, but I can't grow my hair to full length just on the day before my departure.
If you start letting your hair cover the nice pattern made on your skull, the Skin-head people are going to talk about it.
"We thought it was a miraculous case of assimilation to our refined culture, but alas, it looks like a barbarian is forever a barbarian." That kind of talk?
You got it. Plus, when you are back in the Braid country, you will find inconvenient aspects that you did not notice before: the trouble of washing your long hair and making it into braids, the fallen hair that you notice everywhere in your house, the attention you have to pay so that the braids do not get caught between elevator doors...
Oh no, will I be missing the Skin-head country?
You may even find the near religiosity that your people have for braids slightly ridiculous.
My stay among the Skin-heads has changed me...
We are very much influenced by the communities and the societies that we live in. Of course, there is a great variation in the direction and the degree of influences.
We often think ourselves independent of our environment, but that's not quite true. There is no definite 'I.'
It is a rather scary thought, but I have to agree with you. I happen to be who I am because of the places that I lived and the events I experienced, and the vast majority of those has been beyond my control. In turn, it means that I am a product of chances.
Are we getting into the nature-versus-nurture argument?
No, because I am not saying that our traits are formed either by nature or by nurture. I am simply underlining the importance of the nurture component. My main proposition is: who we are cannot be discussed without reference to our surroundings. When we examine our identity carefully, we discover that the bulk of it is about how we position ourselves in the community or the society that we are part of.
The smart one, the pretty one, the funny one, the complaining one, the nagging one, the bragging one, the one who runs fastest, the one who is good at fixing things around the house, the one who trips over everything, the one who...
Usually, we think as if the attributes were absolute, but for accuracy, we should be adding the word, "around."
The smartest one around, the prettiest one around, and so on?
Have you heard about a village prodigy who goes to the city to attend school and experiences great shock, because s/he is mediocre compared to other students?
We hear that story all the time. In movies, they are the successful ones in the end, though.
Have you thought about why they are shocked?
It's simple. There are many more competitors than s/he imagined earlier.
Another way to phrase it is: the village prodigy can no longer be identified as the smartest one because s/he is in a new environment.
It's an identity crisis, then?
You see, her/his idea of who s/he is hinged on how other people fared compared to her/him. Think about a teenager who aspires to be radical. If s/he lives in a rural area, how radical s/he can be and still be accepted by family and friends would certainly differ from the radicalism allowed to her/him had s/he lived in one of the biggest cities in the world.
It is possible, though, that a radical will be a radical wherever s/he is.
Certainly. But for most of us, our tendency to go in particular directions is measured against how the rest of the society goes along those paths. Our identities are built on where we are in relation to the whole society.
That is why there is no absolute 'I.'
I was brought up by leftish parents in rightish places, and I took pride in being progressive. But at some point in my life, I became friends with leftish people from leftish places. Imagine how shocked I was to find out that I was not a true progressive in this big world!
What did you do?
I was horrified to find out that I was experiencing myself the feelings that I knew the rightish people in rightish places had when they heard of my opinion. I was also surprised to discover that the label of 'left' or 'progressive' was so important to me. I had sleepless nights before I could fully subscribe to the new ideas that I was exposed to, but I managed. I was propelled by the desire to stay progressive, and not become backward by any measure.
So you are now an 'all-region left'?
I know many people who describe themselves left, right, center-left, center-right...
For some reason, no extremists call themselves extremists.
What those labels mean is deeply dependent on where they grew up and have lived. As with any aspects of identity, they think that their adherence is to the ideas and not to their place along the local, political spectrum that they inhabit. On some occasions, I have pointed out that they would be thinking differently had they lived or had lived elsewhere. They would be taking the same political seats in any society---one to the left, to the right, or in the center. However, where that whole assembly room is situated varies, depending on the community that they belong to.
Did you manage to convince them?
They didn't believe me... I have also met quite a number of people in the West who have abandoned Western religions to embrace the Eastern ones, and quite a few in the East who have converted to Western religions. I am certain that had their birthplace been the reverse, their beliefs of choice would be reversed as well. In other words, what matters is the fact of conversion rather than the content of religions that they convert into.
Rejecting what we were imposed upon, and accepting what is presented as an option. Denouncing the institution whose unsavory aspects we have been exposed to, and embracing one whose ugly side we are yet unaware of. I trust that you didn't point these out to them...
The analogy would be taking a seat on a boat on a river. Each of us has a preferred seat: facing upstream or downstream, closer to the center, to the bow or to the stern. We usually choose the same spot of a boat, regardless of which river or where in the stream we are.
Things tend to be all right until we encounter another boat, correct?
It's the same as purchasing the latest model of whichever gadget you are crazy about. You think you are in love with the latest one, but that is true only as long as there is no newer model. In most cases, once another version becomes available on the market, that becomes your passion.
The attribute of being the newest is not absolute, but relative to other existing models.
People who go back and forth among different cultures, thus face a delicate task of balancing their fidelity to certain ideas and their desire to maintain a fixed set of adjectives for their identities.
It will be awfully confusing if you are progressive in some places and backward in others.
Alas, a person who is a true amalgam of red and blue cultures and has turned purple will be considered red among the blue, and blue among the red...
We often think ourselves independent of our environment, but that's not quite true. There is no definite 'I.'
It is a rather scary thought, but I have to agree with you. I happen to be who I am because of the places that I lived and the events I experienced, and the vast majority of those has been beyond my control. In turn, it means that I am a product of chances.
Are we getting into the nature-versus-nurture argument?
No, because I am not saying that our traits are formed either by nature or by nurture. I am simply underlining the importance of the nurture component. My main proposition is: who we are cannot be discussed without reference to our surroundings. When we examine our identity carefully, we discover that the bulk of it is about how we position ourselves in the community or the society that we are part of.
The smart one, the pretty one, the funny one, the complaining one, the nagging one, the bragging one, the one who runs fastest, the one who is good at fixing things around the house, the one who trips over everything, the one who...
Usually, we think as if the attributes were absolute, but for accuracy, we should be adding the word, "around."
The smartest one around, the prettiest one around, and so on?
Have you heard about a village prodigy who goes to the city to attend school and experiences great shock, because s/he is mediocre compared to other students?
We hear that story all the time. In movies, they are the successful ones in the end, though.
Have you thought about why they are shocked?
It's simple. There are many more competitors than s/he imagined earlier.
Another way to phrase it is: the village prodigy can no longer be identified as the smartest one because s/he is in a new environment.
It's an identity crisis, then?
You see, her/his idea of who s/he is hinged on how other people fared compared to her/him. Think about a teenager who aspires to be radical. If s/he lives in a rural area, how radical s/he can be and still be accepted by family and friends would certainly differ from the radicalism allowed to her/him had s/he lived in one of the biggest cities in the world.
It is possible, though, that a radical will be a radical wherever s/he is.
Certainly. But for most of us, our tendency to go in particular directions is measured against how the rest of the society goes along those paths. Our identities are built on where we are in relation to the whole society.
That is why there is no absolute 'I.'
I was brought up by leftish parents in rightish places, and I took pride in being progressive. But at some point in my life, I became friends with leftish people from leftish places. Imagine how shocked I was to find out that I was not a true progressive in this big world!
What did you do?
I was horrified to find out that I was experiencing myself the feelings that I knew the rightish people in rightish places had when they heard of my opinion. I was also surprised to discover that the label of 'left' or 'progressive' was so important to me. I had sleepless nights before I could fully subscribe to the new ideas that I was exposed to, but I managed. I was propelled by the desire to stay progressive, and not become backward by any measure.
So you are now an 'all-region left'?
I know many people who describe themselves left, right, center-left, center-right...
For some reason, no extremists call themselves extremists.
What those labels mean is deeply dependent on where they grew up and have lived. As with any aspects of identity, they think that their adherence is to the ideas and not to their place along the local, political spectrum that they inhabit. On some occasions, I have pointed out that they would be thinking differently had they lived or had lived elsewhere. They would be taking the same political seats in any society---one to the left, to the right, or in the center. However, where that whole assembly room is situated varies, depending on the community that they belong to.
Did you manage to convince them?
They didn't believe me... I have also met quite a number of people in the West who have abandoned Western religions to embrace the Eastern ones, and quite a few in the East who have converted to Western religions. I am certain that had their birthplace been the reverse, their beliefs of choice would be reversed as well. In other words, what matters is the fact of conversion rather than the content of religions that they convert into.
Rejecting what we were imposed upon, and accepting what is presented as an option. Denouncing the institution whose unsavory aspects we have been exposed to, and embracing one whose ugly side we are yet unaware of. I trust that you didn't point these out to them...
The analogy would be taking a seat on a boat on a river. Each of us has a preferred seat: facing upstream or downstream, closer to the center, to the bow or to the stern. We usually choose the same spot of a boat, regardless of which river or where in the stream we are.
Things tend to be all right until we encounter another boat, correct?
It's the same as purchasing the latest model of whichever gadget you are crazy about. You think you are in love with the latest one, but that is true only as long as there is no newer model. In most cases, once another version becomes available on the market, that becomes your passion.
The attribute of being the newest is not absolute, but relative to other existing models.
People who go back and forth among different cultures, thus face a delicate task of balancing their fidelity to certain ideas and their desire to maintain a fixed set of adjectives for their identities.
It will be awfully confusing if you are progressive in some places and backward in others.
Alas, a person who is a true amalgam of red and blue cultures and has turned purple will be considered red among the blue, and blue among the red...
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