I am not totally sure this belongs here, but here goes.
(MOD, feel free to put it where you feel best)
In yesterdays (sunday) paper was a small article that
I think has a tremendous bearing on a lot of things.
The article was by Manfred Wolf, a professor
of English at San Francisco State. it is a book review of a
book by Youseef Azghari, a lecturer in communications and
sociology at a dutch collage. The book is called
“Culturally Determined Communication” which is not yet
translated from the dutch. Azghari is a moroccan/dutch
who is Muslim. Now his thesis is this, the west is a
“content directed” society. This means in its societies care more
for the content of the message than the form in which its
delivered. Equality, honesty, acceptance, tolerance and clarity
are values such societies espouse. Even children are urged to think
for themselves. Freedom of expression, individualism and
democracy are prized above everything else.
The east which Azghari takes to include the Muslim world as
well as the Asia, is “form-directed” Its societies value the package
more then the message. The way something is said trumps
individual expression. Obedience, loyalty, respect, empathy
and discretion are supreme values. The naked truth is unseemly,
for truth is less consequential than the manner in which it is
revealed. Children learn to respect their elders,
and citizens learn to fear the state. Such societies ultimately
favor a hierarchy, a reigning ideology- and a strong leader.
Loyalty counts for more than self, and sacrifice is venerated.
Any of this sounds familiar? One instance for example given,
is the idea you hear sometimes from soldiers, That Iraqis “can’t
be trusted” or “lie” to you. Azghari argues that several factors
are at work. One is a certain “poeticizing” tendency", embellishing
what is otherwise bald and unpleasant, A second is a desire
to spare listeners by telling them what will not offend them,
and third an emphasis on intentions rather then results.
Does this not accurately explain the total failure in Iraq along
with the decades/centuries long conflict between the
west and east. We have failed to understand each others
language. Conflict between east and west will continue as long
as we fail to understand this difference between the east and
the west.
Tabula Rasa:
“widespread rural ignorance makes oratorial skills more important than actual (political) content”.
K: Are you saying because they are less educated, that would mean
oratorical skills is more import then actual content.
Is this a function of education?
There are only 3… 4 major cities in Tr as I see it, İstanbul, pop 15 mill, Ankara pop 10, İzmir, pop 3 and Diyarbıkar to the east pop don’t know. Total pop of Tr about 70 mill.
Education is slowly getting better, but at primary school (either morning or afternoon, starting woefully late at 7 years old) usually we are talking 50 children in one big classroom with one teacher, who lectures, does not repeat, and most often does not care wether the children get it down or not. Maths and Turkish is pre-eminant, the rest, somewhat hap-hazard. You would not want a Turk on your Pub-quiz team. This is the big cities.
Extreme example, my mother-in-law: “How do the people of England understand what is on their TVs if they can’t speak Turkish…?”
Outside of those there is mainly land-ownership, and farming, the reasonably wealthy will send their kids through school, the not so, won’t. The Turks aren’t stupid, please don’t mis-understand me, but compared to the West, they are poorly educated, firery and emotional, nationalist (drilled into during childhood), and easily swayed by manipulation of Kemalist themes. A good speaker, as long as he is not overtly religious, rises.
Having thought some more, I think the major differences stem from the clash of what were chiefly nomadic ancestories, and more settled ancestories, linguistic ettiquette and mind-set still carry the traces of this to the day.
The real culprit is cultural reductionism, which is kinda sorta what Pete mentions in the opening post. There is always the problem of translation of not only the word itself, but how it relates to the culture that produced the word. The opportunities for misunderstanding are manifold. It’s a wonder there is any communication between different cultures - past automatic gunfire.
Too often, we accept a translation of the words, but filter those words through our particular world view, as if it is the only way to understand. It ain’t so, and most of the blunders between cultures can be directly attributed to this.
There is just no accounting for the way people see things.
And when it suits people these opportunities are sought for and exploited by both sides wilfully. And the problem is not always just that there are limits to what those in inter-cultural discourse can say, but also that there is a limit to what others will allow themselves to hear. To hear properly means to accept change on both a personal and cultural level, change is hard, change is a little death of the soul.
There is, I think, but to fully understand a people, you must understand where they came from, and why; the era of physical isolation may have ended, but the isolation of ethos has yet to be fully overcome.
Yes, and history is replete with this sort of thing. But even in those circumstances where good intentions exist, there is still the POV problem. Too many judgements are made without a thorough understanding of the culture that lies behind the words. Little wonder that we don’t understand where others are coming from.
Fully overcome? Some would argue that we haven’t even begun. It is much too easy to fall into the trap of us/them, and as long as we have bigger guns…
