When trying to communicate across cultures, being open, showing mutual respect and adapting to the host culture can help to remove obstacles to communication. However, people tend to believe that their own culture is correct, which can lead to ethnocentric pride.
There are many different cultures. For example, Americans focus on individualism and freedom and many Asian cultures value consensus and community. Some cultural differences challenge our basic sense of right and wrong and it is impossible to accept and adapt to these cultural differences. Many cultural differences seem designed to control and diminish others. For example, some cultures oppress women and limit their role in society. In Saudi Arabia, women cannot drive cars and are not allowed to testify in court in most cases.
We can try to adapt, accept and respect these differences to make communication easier, but should we? Communication has other purposes as well, including advocacy and pushing for change. At some point, however, we need to fight for basic principles, like human rights, that we believe are correct even if it results in culture clash.
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I think your post is so accurate. I think ethnocentric pride is one of our (Americans) biggest set backs, because not only do we feel like our culture is the right culture, but because it is so different than most other cultures in the rest of the world, we tend to see a lot of resentment from other cultures. I agree with you in that we need to adapt, accept and respect other peoples cultures and differences because only then can we begin to cross those cultural borders and begin to understand each other and where we are all coming from.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Maisy. Although considering other peoples cultural practices as ‘wrong’ may be misinterpreted at ethnocentrism, I don’t think practices that take away people’s basic human rights should necessarily be supported. Although our book is correct in the sense that “being open, showing mutual respect, and adapting to the host culture” all contribute to making intercultural communication easier, doing so shouldn’t require a person to completely disregard his or her own culture or beliefs either.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point in your post when you say “communication has other purposes… including advocacy and pushing for change” however, I believe this communication for change needs to come from the people within the culture, not ‘outsiders.’ otherwise we will have a situation like we do in the middle east where the U.S. goes in and makes all these changes but they aren’t fully accepted because the native people don’t value certain freedoms and democracy the same way we do.