Cross-Culture

Tim Berners-Lee

Interesting article in the Telegraph this morning about Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the modest creator of the web:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2008/03/30/sv_timbernerslee.xml

He seems to see the best way forward for the web as a middle path between what he calls 'cultural potholes', where people can fall into very limiting dark virtual worlds focused on one blinkered hobby-horse, and a bland global world of (here it comes again...) McDonald's English.

For him the key is 'interconnected communities'. Yet another example of how important it is to be able to bridge different worlds, while maintaining our own identity.

by Michael Gates

McDonald's

First of all, thank you to all the people commenting on our brand new blog. Much easier to write when you know there is an audience. Thanks, obviously, to those who have agreed with us and have said nice things. Perhaps TOO nice in some cases. But thanks also to the start of some debate. Very interesting (and I mean that...) to get an American perspective on the Barack Obama posting.

Plenty of stories with a cross-cultural angle in the press at the moment – like Tata, the Indian company, taking over Land Rover and Jaguar. Of course, Tata is – at least at senior level – almost more British than the British. The Indians have a name for the sort of patrician, Oxbridge-educated, leaders in the large traditional Indian conglomerates. They call them the 'brown sahibs'. And then there was that story about the number of Muslim worshippers in the UK taking over the number of Christian regular church-goers by the year 2020. Interesting times...

But, reader, back to our theme. McDonald's. Why? Well, I have not been travelling the last two weeks for a change, but sitting in my office. And the view is onto that unofficial US Embassy's local outpost. As I have not been able to comment on new cultural experiences other than the Finns leaving and entering the office, I began to think about McDonald's. Not the food – though I admit to the occasional foray when time is short. But the idea of using McDonald's as a cultural benchmark – rather in the way the Economist has its Big Mac Index to compare global price movements.

Yes, I know it has been done before. Forgotten who it was, but one cross-cultural writer back in the days when the first McDonald's opened in Russia, compared the different meaning the brand had to Russians compared to Americans. For Americans it meant a cheap fast meal. For some Russians it was a status symbol to eat there, and an expression of freedom.

Even in Finland, look round the people eating there and it is rather different from the typical McDonald's clientele in the UK. It's not unusual to see business people in suits amongst the kids and families.

And then there are the local twists in what is served. Over here you can get a McRuis burger. Ruis is the Finnish word for 'rye'. Because Finns are addicted to their rye bread. In Spain you are able to get a beer with your meal. And then think about the transference of the concept, but with totally different foods. I read a while back about a McDonald's style concept in Thailand, but the fast meals consisted mainly of crunchy fried insects.

Whether you are lovin' it or hatin' it, McDonald's is a potent symbol and a goldmine for those fascinated by cultural semiotics. Jacques Chirac, trying to bolster relations with the US during a particularly bad patch, talked fondly of his days as a student travelling around the US and his love of hamburgers. The Americans countered by re-naming French fries 'Freedom fries.'

One of my favourite pieces of political graffiti was in a lift in the Montparnasse tower which I saw more than 25 years ago. There, in the heart of Sartre's stamping ground, the slogan read 'BIG BURGER IS EATING YOU.' It seems that the route to a nation's, as well as a man's heart, is through its stomach.

by Michael Gates

The Crooked Timber of Humanity

Re-reading (amongst other things) Isaiah Berlin's wonderful collection of essays, The Crooked Timber of Humanity. The title is based on a quotation from Kant "Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made."

At heart it is a passionate defence of diversity and the liberty to choose.

He traces his realisation that more than one system of values exists in principle as well as in practice to Machiavelli, and blames a lot of the '-isms' that caused so much turmoil and cruelty in the last century to a belief in absolute values running from Plato, via the French Enlightenment, to Marx. Berlin witnessed the Russian Revolution first hand as a young boy in St. Petersburg, so knows from experience – not just theory – what he is talking about.

One of his heroes is clearly the German philosopher Herder, pupil of Kant, who taught in Riga – the town of Berlin's birth. Herder reacted against French rationalism and a belief in absolute values and argued that values are culturally-determined and that our whole way of thinking is dictated by the language we are brought up with. This pre-dates the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis by about 200 years.

Nowadays the accepted wisdom seems to be somewhere between Sapir-Whorf and the opposite view of Chomsky who thinks that language is at bottom universal, or Pinker, who seems not to believe that we think in language at all. Who knows?

But the idea that not everything human can be unified into one all-embracing system, and that many of our problems arise from believing that we should try to find and impose one, is one that is of bigger relevance than ever today.

Being able to enter into other world-views and understand and feel them, rather than just know about them, is a must-have skill for the 21st century.

The Germans have a good linguistic distinction for this, which Berlin mentions – the difference between 'verstehen' which is more like understanding by putting yourself in someone else's place, and 'wissen' which is more like scientific knowledge.

Deep thinkers, these Germans!

by Michael Gates

Fair Play

Saw an article in last week's press about a new study showing that the British really do have a sense of fair play. Apparently in scientifically-controlled games if Brits were reported as cheating by fellow players they accepted the situation and began playing by the rules. So did the Americans and Swiss. The Russians and Greeks, on the other hand, sought to get revenge on the people who had reported them.

It's good to see that there are some scientific ways of demonstrating culturally-determined behaviour, as cultural difference is so easy to see and experience, but so hard to pin down and prove.

On the subject of Russians, I was talking with some of them the other day about trust and was reminded of an episode I once witnessed on a Lufthansa plane. The pilot announced that we would have to wait  2 hours before take-off because of bad weather in Munich.

A Russian lady in front of me beckoned the hostess over until she was within whispering distance and said "Please, tell me the REAL reason!" The hostess drew back and said in a loud voice: "Are you calling me a liar?"

Russians tend not to believe official announcements, and so this poor lady was actually showing how much she trusted the hostess on a personal level to tell her the truth.

Makes you wonder how many disputes, broken business deals and even wars have resulted from such cultural misunderstandings...

It seems silly to wait until differences can be scientifically proven before using experience and observation to modify where we tread in the cultural minefield.

by Michael Gates

Barack Obama

It is understandable why cross-culturalists around the world are showing greater-than-usual interest in the lead-up to the US Presidential elections.

It is hard to imagine a more classic example of an outstanding multicultural being than Barack Obama. Of mixed German and Kenyan parentage, Obama was partly brought up in Indonesia, then pursued his education in Harvard before entering politics in Illinois and emerging as the first black American with credible aspirations to the Presidency.

What a breath-taking chance for the American public! If they vote Obama in, they will in one majestic stroke not only elect a President who possesses understanding of and sensitivity towards European, Asian and African cultures, but they will atone – to the best of their ability – for centuries of unpardonable injustice (also perpetrated by England and other countries) to the millions of slaves and their descendants who make up a significant proportion of the populace of the United States. Rarely can a nation have such a heart-warming opportunity!

Americans cannot re-write their history, but by permitting a citizen of the humblest origins to assume the highest office in the land, they would display a magnanimity and vein of wisdom that America sorely needs. United States' allies of all colours and creeds would applaud the 'correction' of history's misdemeanours. America's foes and critics would be largely confounded. The errant policies of a needless war, of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib would be seen as aberrations, rather than characteristics, of America's role in the world.

Sweeping changes are in the air. Multicultural Obama would seem to have the breadth of perspective to propose the right ones.

by Richard D. Lewis

Stiff Neck

I was in Finland all week this week for a change, so a chance to observe the Finns' unique approach to social language as they enter and leave the office and greet me and the staff and say goodbye. Got a very Finnish answer to my "How are you today?" to an earlybird client this morning. "I have a stiff neck," he replied. I can see how disconcerting this would be to someone not used to such honesty.

I will never forget meeting our secretary in Helsinki for the first time, 20 years ago, when I was living in Tampere. We had spoken on the phone previously so I was able to ask her "How are you?". "I have diarrhoea," she said.

Having been here so long now, it is actually quite refreshing, and sometimes the British and American social dance - what the linguists call 'phatic communion' - can irritate with its forced jollity or over-the-top gushiness. I can feel the Finns' pain in such situations! Though British politeness masking ruthless criticism can give a dimension of humour missing from the palette of more direct cultures.

A friend witnessed the following situation in the famous Coach & Horses pub in Soho recently. A rather tipsy young lady staggered into the bar and asked a group of elderly male theatrical types for directions. After a silence one of them said "I'm terribly sorry, Madam, would you mind slurring that again?"

by Michael Gates

Britishness

The debate on Britishness in the UK press is here to stay. We are not alone. Australians, Germans and the Dutch - to name a few - are going through the same process of wondering about their national identity. The special challenge we have in the UK is that we tend not to like putting definitions about ourselves in writing. In fact, unlike our cousins the Americans, we don't even like to put our constitution in written form.

So, why are we and others so concerned about the issue at the moment?

Well, the key reason must be the growing realisation that 'multiculturalism' as an ideal, rather than simply a description of the fact that there are many cultures in the UK, has not really worked in practice.

The force of opinion now very much seems to be, from all sides of the political spectrum, that we should re-emphasise what makes us British rather than what makes us different. A change in direction that would appear to make sense if we are to have an integrated society.

But what never seems to get a mention in the drive to improve the social fabric is intercultural understanding - particularly communication.

If different ethnic groups were better able to understand the intent of other groups' communication and the impact of their own verbal, and non-verbal, messages, we would come a long way in improving relations between them.

Rather than focusing purely on British values, we may do well to look at shared values and where those values may be interpreted differently. For instance, the much bandied around terms 'fair play' and 'tolerance'. What do they mean to a native British person, to someone from Bangladesh or someone from China or Poland?

Until we define our terms in ways that mean something, and until we understand each others communication patterms and listening habits, we are going to have an uphill struggle in moving towards a more integrated society. Knowing the rules of cricket and how many members of Parliament there are is not going to help as much as understanding that when a native Brit says "Hmm, interesting idea..." they may mean precisely the opposite. It is on these issues that all important trust is made or broken.

by Michael Gates