Culture Identity

As a transplant from Switzerland to the US I have spent half of my life on each continent. When I moved to the US in 1989, I would never have considered myself European: I was Swiss. I had not learned to grow my identity beyond my horizons, which were squarely in Switzerland. When the first person in New York asked me if I was European I actually said ‘no’ as a first impulse. I had to learn to see myself as European… and as white, and so on. It was a transforming and liberating experience.

Not only does learning a new culture give you insight into more ‘truths’ you also learn so much about yourself. About how you see yourself and how the outside world sees you. Most importantly I think you learn to not take yourself for granted – or: you learn not to take yourself too seriously. It’s a great exercise in humility.

Learning a Culture

‘Culture Learning’ is a topic that will hold my interest endlessly; not only because linguistics and how we communicate fascinate me, but also because I am a cultural transplant myself. When I talk about culture I mean language, conventions, traditions and rituals, as well as the sub textual behaviors of a civilization: communication in its broadest sense.

The popular philosopher and critical theorist Slavoy Zizek talks about how we are embedded in ideology and defines identity as follows: “Identity lives in the space between invention and reality.” (Slavoy Zizek, “How are we Embedded in Ideology”, Prague 2007).

What is reality, or said differently, what is truth? Truth is the sum of a society’s conventions. There are rules and meta-rules, which are unknown knowns, call them habits or unspoken conventions that set the parameters for moving flawlessly through a society. It is a social network of implicit rules that tell you how to deal with the explicit rules.

Immigrants come into a new set of rules that are the makeup of their host society. Some rules are obvious, some are not. Assimilation and integration starts with learning of the explicit rules. But the meta-rules or implicit rules we only learn over time by trial and error, by using our intuition and assessing situations and reactions to us.

When too many people do not know the implicit rules of a society, the context for these rules weakens. Once the rules lose their context, they collapse. That is what ‘fear of the Other’ really is – a fear of losing one’s own truth.

60 Minutes, Greg Mortenson, Nicholas Kristof and my friend Martina Radwan

While I watched the 60 Minute piece on Greg Mortensen, his book “Three Cups of Tea” and his Central Asia Institute, an organization that builds schools in Afghanistan, I had a very uneasy feeling. I’m a big fan of 60 Minutes, but as little as I know about Greg Mortensen the piece seemed to be a fishing expedition – with smelly fish at the tackle.

I kept thinking: don’t you have bigger fish to fry? So Mortensen took some liberties with his book (big deal) and there are allegations (no proof from what I can tell) that there are irregularities in the books of his charity. REALLY? This man has built many schools for Afghan children, has put many girls back to school and has had the guts to try and fix from the inside with little means. And you go after him? I can think of a hundred stinky other stories that are more deserving of 60 Minute scrutiny.

My friend Martina Radwan who started a wonderful organization “Children of the Blue Sky” talks about the Mortensen ‘affair’ from her point of view as an activist, visionary and executive director of her own organization: check it out.

And while you’re at it read what Nicholas Kristof has to say about Greg Mortensen in his op-ed in the Seattle Times of last week just after the 60 Minute piece aired. As always he keeps a wonderful balance between facts and questions and his description of the ‘real’ Greg Mortensen is quite charming.

Don’t go and punish the wrong guy and as Martina said: if you are going the throw the first stone think long and hard as to how big it is going to be and where it will land. I for one will throw now stones but blow some fresh air gently into Greg Mortensen’s corner and hope we will see more of his great advocacy work to come.

Truth - Part 2

“Identity lives in the space between invention and reality.”

What is truth? Truth is the sum of a society’s conventions. There are rules and meta-rules, which are unknown knowns, call them habits or unspoken conventions that set the parameters for moving flawlessly through a society. It is a social network of implicit rules that tell you how to deal with the explicit rules.

Immigrants come into a new set of rules that are the makeup of their host society. Some rules are obvious, some are not. Assimilation and integration starts with learning of the explicit rules. But the meta-rules or implicit rules we only learn over time by trial and error, by using our intuition and assessing situations and reactions to us.

When too many people do not know the implicit rules of a society, the context for these rules weakens. Once the rules lose their context, they collapse. That is what ‘fear of the Other’ really is – a fear of losing one’s own truth.

[Watch 90 absolutely fascinating minutes of Slavoy Zizek’s discourse in Prague (2007) on “How are we Embedded in Ideology”.]