Power or Love?

Being in an intercultural context can be quite a challenge. It doesn't have to be, but it can be. It we don’t pay attention, if we’re only looking to accommodate our own comfort, it’s not that big a challenge. If we are truly trying to engage and understand the culture? Participate? Have real friendships and relationships with other people? It’s a challenge.

All my life, I've often thought about how much easier it would be if I would just accept the norms. The problem is, I have a little trouble accepting norms, especially if they hurt people. I seem to have a different set of rules and perhaps they very rarely comply with what is socially acceptable. I like to think my rules are really just one: Do unto others as you would have done unto you. That’s the Golden Rule and some version of it is found in every single religion in the world. This rule seems to be the most perfect rule for human interaction. Free of cultural bias, social norms and traditions, punishment, power and judgment. And it’s always worked for me. Unless I get distracted.

Today I had an epiphany. I've been working on lots of things that I've yet to publicize based on my recent experiences. The basic definition I've followed to describe this kind of culture is this one:

“Shame is a reaction to other people's criticism, an acute personal chagrin at our failure to live up to our obligations and the expectations others have of us. In true shame oriented cultures, every person has a place and a duty in the society. One maintains self-respect, not by choosing what is good rather than what is evil, but by choosing what is expected of one.”

The conundrum for me has been that in the US, we focus on the "good" or "evil" behavior of others and what they “are” rarely matters. For example, “He’s a personal injury attorney BUT HE’S NICE”. Here, it seems that what you “are” is what is most important and you must choose the behaviors expected of you. “He’s a PERSONAL INJURY ATTORNEY but he’s nice”. What I realized today is that both ways are wrong.  Both are ways to determine the value of another human being. (Needless to say I believed that actions should be everything – anything as superficial as position or social status is obviously useless, but don’t we all know that actions can be acts, like being nice?)

A person’s actions and a person’s status are important. Both cultures place values on those things, but when one trumps the other, that’s when there’s an issue. For instance, what is NICE?

Even though I come from The South (a known shame culture, as well, but includes an action-based concept of “honor”) and I think I know NICE, it’s different in different places. The short end of the story is that we have to be able to experience more of a person. We actually have to build relationship. And that’s the hard part. Who has time for that? Isn't it easier to follow the established criteria?

There’s an awesome sermon by the Rev. Mike Kinman I used in some of my English classes called  "Eye Contact".  I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read it. It’s worth it. The message is that we are taught early on not to enter into true relationship with other people, especially if they appear to be different or are “the other” (whoever that may be for you).  Another reading I regularly used is this one, by Sebastian Junger (also wrote “A Perfect Storm”) called "Welcome Stranger". Both these pieces deal with how we interact with other people. And both depict beautifully what it means to build relationship, true relationship, one based not on social norms and values, but on the value of a human being. A human being. That’s all. And the world is full of us.

Now, back to my story. I was having so much trouble because I got distracted and started applying the “action” based value system rather than the “eye contact” or “welcome stranger” influences that are more in line with the “Do Unto Others” method. I can argue that I was at the receiving end of the status based value system and my cultural mechanism jumped in, but that’s a long, yucky story. This story is beautiful!

Sometimes, our cultural ways have nothing to do with love, kindness, status, or actions, but POWER. Plain and simple. Power to keep another person in their place. Power to prevent full participation in the marketplace of ideas. We often use the unearned power of privilege due to race, religion, gender, etc. to promote the results we want (or to justify a behavior or status  that we want) We can hide behind all kinds of cultural things and say that what we've done is justified. For instance, I’m from the US and we value honesty so I can say “Your outfit is really atrocious and I can’t believe you wore that to work” and then say ‘oh, I’m from the US and we’re just honest.” In this context in which being ambiguous and intentionally misleading is an art form, (certainly not malicious, but considerate and conversational, as well) ignorance can be claimed and excused, or intentional lies can be given to “save face”. The thing is, when culture is employed to excuse a harmful action, often the action was not meant to uplift, affirm, empower or encourage. Both examples are of pure meanness, likely power related, and using culture to excuse it.

Enter “Do Unto Others”. When we treat others the way we’d like to be treated, the cultural things take a back seat. Maybe it’s being kind. Maybe it’s just being honest. Or maybe not. But the kicker is that we’re basing our behavior on something other than power; on love. Love of self, maybe, but love. And love never fails.

And that’s how to build relationship.