To Females I've Known

If you're reading this I figure that you're either just curious, or this is actually addressed to you and there's something left unresolved between us important enough that you're here.

To any of my exes: if I met you in person today, I hope I'd retain enough composure to express the following thoughts, in roughly this order:

1) Hi! Well, this is awkward. 

2) I hope that you're well.

3) I know that things didn't end well and that the way I acted hurt you. I would have hurt anyone I was with at the time we were together. I was carrying a lot of pain and anger at the time and my behavior was my means of coping with it. Still, I chose my behavior and I take responsibility for everything I've done. If you haven't already, forgive me.

4) I don't want to make any more of this about me. If you have anything you want to say to me, I'll listen. 

To anyone who was interested, threw out hints that I didn't respond to, I apologize. It's quite possible I was attracted to you but I couldn't believe you were interested in me that way. It's taken me a long time to become comfortable with who I am.

Another World View

I've been focusing on the differences between the two cultures I've been exposed to all my life, and must concede that I never considered the idea that at least one other distinct world view exists. I find myself seeking to find terms to use to describe the categories that don't involve region/race/religion or anything else that might cause any sort of polarization or implication that one is superior or inferior. But I'm not sure that I can find these terms, because of the differences between the views, and also because the origin of the descriptions will probably reflect a bias of the describer. My stance on that is that everyone has a bias, and the issue is the level of denial about their bias.

I find no difficulties in choosing the terms linear/individualistic for what others describe as 'western', that is to say, largely European/American, and the terms circular/community for what others describe as 'eastern' or predominantly Asian. But I struggle with the third category because it reflects a view that embraces the supernatural, which seems to be a polarizing issue. 

Since this third world view includes acknowledgement of the supernatural, I have no problem adopting a construct I like that comes from within a Judeo-Christian world view.  The construct attempts to describe the differences in terms of how people tend to view/interpret events in their lives, and suggests that every individual has their own blend of these three world views. It uses these descriptors, followed by my attempt to boil it down to what drives one's behavior:

1) Guilt/Innocence: People ask: is my behavior fair or unfair?

2) Shame/Honor: People ask: does my behavior benefit or hurt the overall community?

3) Fear/Power: People ask: Will what I do offend/please someone/something that has influence over my circumstances?

The third category includes those for whom supernatural interference from the spirit world is a common occurrence, experienced and accepted by the entire community and these cultures are predominant in some parts of Africa, Latin America, Oceania, parts of Asia, and even in parts of North America.

Walking in Two Worlds 1-3: Shame and the Community based culture

The concept of shame is often confused with the concept of guilt. Rather than give you a Reader Digest description of the differences, I'll borrow one that I found online:

"We feel shame when we violate the social norms we believe in. At such moments we feel humiliated, exposed and small and are unable to look another person straight in the eye. We want to sink into the ground and disappear. Shame makes us direct our focus inward and view our entire self in a negative light. Feelings of guilt, in contrast, result from a concrete action for which we accept responsibility. Guilt causes us to focus our attention on the feelings of others."

I suppose that I should next define what I mean by a community based culture and I will attempt to do do by contrasting the thought processes of both. In a 'western' based culture, the world is assumed to operate by discernible and stable rules, contradiction is a problem to be resolved, and entities are viewed as relatively independent agents. Context and relationships between people and objects are relatively downplayed—or, when they are examined, are assumed to operate under parsimonious rules. But with dialectical or holistic (or community based) thinking, a framework more prevalent in East Asian societies, involves greater attention to context and relationships, assumptions of change rather than stasis, and acceptance of contradiction. Analytic thinking is useful for science and daily life. But sometimes dialectical thinking results in more accurate conclusions or pragmatically useful decisions than analytic thinking.

How might this play out? Simply put, western based thinkers see things in straight lines (linear) while community based thinkers see things as circles. Going forward, I'd prefer to use those two terms to describe the world views. These differences map onto more basic differences in attention to context and relationships. In one study, American and Japanese participants were shown cartoon animations of underwater scenes. When reporting what they had seen, Americans tended to start their recollections with mention of the most salient fish in the scene. Japanese were twice as likely as Americans to begin their reporting with the context. Overall the Japanese participants reported 60% more background details and discussed relationships with the background about twice as often as American participants. People from a linear-based culture would be more likely to describe a single fish, while people from a circular-based culture be more likely to describe the pond/lake/ocean.

The values that derive from a circular view aren't necessarily articulated overtly. For example, in Chinese, there are specific terms used greet family members depending on the relationship, and the degree in specificity is much more precise. Brother/sister in English is translated into elder brother/sister or younger brother/sister. Distinctions are made between patriarchal and matriarchal  when referring to grandparents, aunts and uncles - and in the case of the latter, terms also identify whether they are older or younger than one's parents. The point is that the specificity of terms reinforces the idea that one is part of something larger than themselves - the family/community - and that one knows their position within that community.

Some of the social norms found within the community world view include a lack of sense of individuality. To borrow from Star Trek, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few - or the one. As a result, individual strengths are often suppressed, as achievement sets a societal norm that everyone else is expected to match - and for those who can not, it represents a weakness that reflects poorly on the community and typically results in a sense of shame, as it also reflects on the honor of the community. This leads to a sense of abandonment by the community, which then typically leads to depression. As a matter of fact it's been posited that a major if not the major cause of depression is shame and the loss of community.

I would submit that most people who are shamed as part of their childhood do not recognize it as such. While they may acknowledge the emotional toil, they typically rationalize the results of overachieving as a consequence to be a good thing. I was aware of my sense of shame in my 20's and I recall trying to explain my shame to the equivalent of a camp counselor at the time, but I was unable to articulate the depth of it, and he understood it to mean guilt and his attempt to address my issues wasn't much help at the time. I remain skeptical that people who have not experienced shame at this level can fully appreciate how devastating it can be. 

Walking in Two Worlds 1-2

There's a book written by a professor at my alma mater (Go Blue!) called The Geography of Thought. It addresses how significant differences in culture result in different ways of thought. The author, Richard Nisbett, posits that people actually think about—and even see—the world differently because of differing ecologies, social structures, philosophies, and educational systems that date back to ancient Greece and China.

Initial reviews - written by Westerners - were skeptical of Nisbett's "proofs", but as a child of immigrant Chinese parents raised in the U.S. I embrace the work as I immediately was able to identify the source of a lot of the internal conflict I had trying to reconcile the differences between American and Chinese culture. Here's an excerpt from Chapter 3:

"...the social organization and practices of modern Asians resemble those of the ancient Chinese and the social organization and practices of modern Europeans resemble those of the ancient Greeks. In this chapter we’ve seen that modern Asians, like the ancient Chinese, view the world in holistic terms: They see a great deal of the field, especially background events; they are skilled in observing relationships between events; they regard the world as complex and highly changeable and its components as interrelated; they see events as moving in cycles between extremes; and they feel that control over events requires coordination with others. Modern Westerners, like the ancient Greeks, see the world in analytic, atomistic terms; they see objects as discrete and separate from their environments; they see events as moving in linear fashion when they move at all; and they feel themselves to be personally in control of events even when they are not. Not only are worldviews different in a conceptual way, but also the world is literally viewed in different ways. Asians see the big picture and they see objects in relation to their environments—so much so that it can be difficult for them to visually separate objects from their environments. Westerners focus on objects while slighting the field and they literally see fewer objects and relationships in the environment than do Asians."

Here's an example of how this plays out - it's never overtly taught, but the Chinese language itself reinforces holistic/community world view in its greetings within the family:

- brother and sister in English translate into the terms for: older/younger brother, older/younger sister;
- grandmother/grandfather translate into mother's/father's grandmother/grandfather; 
- aunt and uncle translate into terms that not only identify mother's/father's side but ALSO whether they're older or younger than one's parents;

The point is that one is taught to understand that they are a small part of something bigger than themselves - and they know exactly what their place is in relation to everyone else. The result as described from the book - when asked to describe what they see when looking at fish in a pond, a westerner might point out the largest or most brightly colored fish, while an asian might say that he/she sees a pond. 

Another way that I've personally experienced is in the western concept of causality. I tutor test prep (ACT/SAT/ISEE/HSPT) and I've tutored students from community based cultures where both "A" and "not A"  are not mutually exclusive; if anything, with yin-yang "A" actually *proves* the existence of "not A" and there is no cognitive dissonance with mutually exclusive facts or concepts. Events occur in cycles instead of in a linear fashion.  So as they've struggled with making inferences and drawing conclusions and despaired of being intellectually incapable, I've been able to reassure them by explaining the differences in thought process and describing linear thinking like forging a chain one link at a time and witnessed how my students were able to embrace this as a consequence of culture rather than one of intellect - and improve their ability

Another big difference is the aspect of shame and its impact on individuals is much more severe in community based cultures than in western/individual based cultures. This topic deserves its own dedicated post.

The Tower Of Babel

 It seems to me that anyone of faith who grapples with the issues associated with a multi-ethnic community/congregation/what have you should as part of their due diligence study the origin of racial diversity as it has been recorded in the Scriptures in the account of the Tower of Babel. I personally have reached no definitive conclusions, but I will try to address pertinent facts as I recognize them. 

After the Great Flood, the descendants of Noah were one people with a common language. And they decided to build a city that included a great tower, referred to nowadays as the Tower of Babel. There have been speculations on motives behind building the tower and the tower's purpose. Some suggest that the tower would prevent people from dying in the event of another Great Flood, even though God promised that He would never cause another Great Flood.  Others suggest that this tower was to be the first ziggurat, with the physical elevation somehow facilitating a connection between heaven and earth. Others suggest that the main issue was the primary motive "to make a name for ourselves" reflecting what was considered by God to be mortal pride. 

I honestly have no clue what it was that God considered blasphemous, though the NIV version puts it this way:

"Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them."

Perhaps it was the start down we nowadays refer to as the slippery slope? "this is only the beginning of what they will do". The bottom line is that God chooses to destroy their ability to reach a consensus by having them speak in different languages. (I submit that this action also resulted in creating very different world views, something I've referred to in other blog posts.)

The question: Was it the ability to reach consensus what God was addressing? Or was it the consensus "to make a name for ourselves" which is the result of pride, the mortal sin that caused Lucifer to fall? Or was it something else altogether?

It seems to me that if we don't agree on this, we can not agree on any solution addressing the issues that result from a multi-ethnic society- or whether we should even try - at least not if God is not part of the equation, as faith should transcend ethnic culture.  This is ironic because God Himself had His own 'tribe' - the people of Israel. And the story that the Pilgrims first came to America seeking religious freedom is actually a myth. The Pilgrims who came to America had left England ten years earlier and had lived and worshipped freely in the Netherlands under lenient Dutch rule. The move to America was done out of fear that their children would adopt Dutch culture and ways.

Interestingly, the Bible does address the concept of the sojourner (foreigner) and I once did a word study involving every occurrence of that word in Scripture and what I found was fairly consistent: sojourners were expected to obey the local laws - and they were not to be restricted from any rights or privileges granted to local citizens. And the expectation (or fear) was assimilation into the prevailing culture - but then, the people of Israel were God's tribe, and the main fear was loss of faith... and different faiths were incompatible.

Again, I have made no definitive conclusions - but it seems to me that at least within the church, there should be a common consensus - but that consensus should be derived from the faith, and not from secular prevailing cultural values.   
  

Comfort II

I was thinking about the concept of grief and the process of grieving and the word comfort came up. The word is (at least it is for me) associated with the idea of relieving/minimizing pain in some way. It's the concept I embraced with I left the work force twenty years ago and lived off my savings for fifteen years. I still managed to encounter conflict, like when I got sued by someone for alleging incurring a concussion during one of my monthly dance parties, but that's a story for another time.  

The thing is, that is not the primary definition of the word,  which is apparent from a simple analysis of the prefix com "with" and the root "fort" from the latin: strong. To be comforted results in the ability to go forth with strength.

The implications are clear: we are in need of comfort when we are incapable of going in strength. A relief from pain may be a result, but it is NOT the ultimate goal. Comfort is a means to an end. Comfort is not an end in itself; we are expected to get up and get back into the fight.

And I now better understand the quote from C.S. Lewis, although I suspect that he (somewhat surprisingly) was defining comfort as a relief from pain and suffering, but he was describing my life during my sabbatical:

"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair."

The Blessing

As described in the Old Testament of the Scriptures, a blessing was typically bestowed from fathers onto their children acknowledging their passage from adolescence to adulthood. The content of such a blessing typically included elements such as a prediction/expectation of that child's future. These predictions were based on the father's perception/understanding of the unique strengths of that child, which were identified as part of the prediction/prophecy.

The part about identifying, focusing on and commending each child's uniqueness/gifting intrigues me; shaming typically involves identifying and focusing on shortcomings where an individual's talent/skill falls short when compared to some other individual (chosen for the purpose of emphasizing the degree to which the original person misses the mark). Moreover, the strength of this shaming message is enhanced by emotional abandonment, and the effect is again enhanced for those who live according to a holistic/community world view, because the message is not only have they failed as individuals, they have failed the community/family to which they belong, appealing to a sense of honor.   

Simply put, a blessing affirms each individual's uniqueness as a strength while shaming condemns uniqueness by reframing the perspective so that uniqueness reflects how an individual falls short in some way and this is considered an irreconcilable fault. 

This is particularly relevant to me as I received a lot of shaming messages throughout my life and that took its toll. I spent the vast majority of my life being painfully aware of how many standard deviations I am from what's considered the mean of mainstream in terms of aptitude, interests, ethnicity, etc. - which prompted my 15 year sabbatical from life seeking a life sheltered from the pain I'd been carrying, and it wasn't until I ran out of money and was forced to re-enter the world that I learned to be comfortable with who I am and to begin to strive for things I want. (If only I'd had less money?)

The point is that for those of you who've never been blessed by your parents, and never will be, there are ways to recover from that lack in your life and become able to move forward. Those of you who *are* parents, you may want to examine what you've been emphasizing and take steps as needed. If you haven't emphasized a lot of comparisons, that's great, but if you also haven't emphasized much affirmation of a child's unique strengths, omission is as bad as commission. It will never be too late. 

Tribalism

Perhaps this could be titled: The Motives of the Pilgrims Part II as it addresses the fact that the Pilgrims had found the religious freedom they sought after moving to the Netherlands from England. Their primary motive for coming to America was to prevent their children from becoming too "Dutch" instead of retaining their own culture. So they were essentially creating their own new tribe. Nowadays the word tribalism often carries a pejorative sense when it's used to describe the behavior and attitudes that stem from strong loyalty to one's own tribe or social group. There's usually a desire to maintain some sort of tribal purity, which makes it almost synonymous with the concept of provincialism which is typically regarded being unsophisticated or narrow-minded.  The problem is that the actions of a lot of people tend to corroborate the association. I'm guilty of this when it comes to food and the concept of 'authentic' ethnic cuisine. I have little doubt that it is in large part a response to a lifetime of being told by (sometimes) well-meaning friends and acquaintances things like: "I love Chinese food, especially lemon chicken" "I hate Chinese food. It's so slimy!" and I still catch myself sneering at anyone extolling the virtues of places such as Panda Express for getting Chinese food.

It's become my take that the person most offended by having the word tribal or provincial used to describe themselves is likely to be the most provincial or tribal in contrast to the person using the word. If you are familiar with Star Trek, these people have no idea that they are the Klingons. Or they're Miss Caroline responding to Scout Finch trying to explain why Willie Cunningham won't accept her quarter. Someone I really respect has spent time in Hawaii and he once told me that rather than come in and immediately start suggesting ways to improve the seemingly odd customs, traditions and behavior, the best thing to do there is to shut up, watch and listen, and the reasons behind any behavior we may initially find incomprehensible will become obvious and more importantly, perfectly reasonable. The behavior of the "ugly American" in other lands typically includes the expectation that the natives will speak English, as well as the tendency to speak louder one word at a time, as if:

"DO?   YOU?    SPEAK?    ENGLISH???!!!!!"

is going to increase the level of comprehension on the part of the native.

It seems to me that part of the reason for this behavior is some sort of need to be right, to be incapable of considering that there are alternative ways of doing things which do not incur some sort of moral judgement. But I submit that there's also an issue of focus in how we view others. I'd describe it as choosing to be more aware of the differences instead of the commonalities. I'm not saying that the differences are irrelevant. Sometimes they're very relevant - and they're not reconcilable. But if more people elected to place more emphasis on *finding* commonalities, they'd be less likely to focus immediately on the differences.