We live in an increasingly multicultural society. With the insane growth of the internet and other mass media outlets, we are now, more than ever, exposed to a vast array of cultures beyond our own. As such, it is undeniable that we may need to communicate across cultural borders at some point in our lives, whether for personal or professional reasons, but the idea remains the same: to successfully communicate between cultures we must practice certain levels of ethical communication.
The textbook goes to great length to discuss the ins and outs of ethical intercultural communication, but I found that the theme that resonated the most with me was the idea of culture shock. I've heard it all before: "I wasn't ready for that." "Is that really how it's done here?" "That's not normal." "It's just such a culture shock!" Culture shock. The book describes it as the feeling of disorientation you get when encountering events that disrupt your own expectations (162), the sense that your own daily routine has been disturbed. Why do we experience culture shock? Because we often view our own culture as, well, not a culture. It's the norm for us, that's why we don't see it as the distinct and uniquely specific communicative and societal practices that it actually is. We only begin to see our own culture when we hold it in comparison against another culture, but that is sometimes not enough.
Normalcy is in the eye of the beholder. "What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly," Morticia Addams would say. It is the same with culture. Image yourself transported to a busy street in the center of Mumbai, India. Voices all around, motorbikes weaving through traffic, cars bustling alongside swarms of people, even the architecture of the city and the accents of the people send your senses into a whirl. "Culture shock!" you may claim, but what is it that you find so shocking? Their culture is what shocks you, their practices, their lives, because they are so different from yours, but you do not acknowledge that the reason you find their culture so different is because you judge your own culture as right, as normal, as typical - when in reality, it is not. Context defines what is normal. Context creates culture.
It is a matter of assumptions. As the student in the textbook states, "Do not assume you know the culture of another or even your own. Learn about each" (159). You may assume that your culture is normal and you have every right to assume so. For you it is, but for another it is not. You may assume that it is their culture that deviates from the norm, but it does not deviate from their norm, only yours. Assumptions can be lethal in terms of intercultural communication and intercultural communication ethics because they block your ability to learn and to be open.
I agree that intercultural communication is inevitably in this historic moment because through technology, we have created a small world that allows people from around the world to have interactions that they may have never had a chance previously. As wonderful as this exposure and interactions are, I think that this may contribute to assumptions. We do have more intercultural communication, so people may be quicker to make assumptions with the little information they have. A person might be talking with someone from a different culture and they are learning things about that culture, so they may assume that this a universal good within that culture. When intercultural communication is so rampant, it is necessary to not connect that with a better understanding of culture's differing 'goods'.
ReplyDeleteI like how you bring up assumptions and how it can form a dichotomy of them vs us. This new culture to you, like you said, would be different from the norm, but it is necessary to think of it from different perspectives. One challenge with intercultural communications and assumptions is ethnocentrism. This may be a generalization, but I think that Americans have a ethnocentric view of our culture deeming it superior and the best. It is perfectly okay, like you said, to feel proud of your culture and the norms surrounding it, but the assumption that your culture is right can destroy any chance of effective intercultural communication. I think you have brought up many great points of how intercultural communication resides in this historical moment and how we must be aware of why we experiences culture shock and to refuse to make assumptions.