I think we are saying some of the same things but in different ways. Let me take a stab at how I am looking at culture using your analogies plus one of my own.

On one level, I believe you are correct in that I am coloring within the lines as a way to make sense of Michael’s story and how it relates to me. It’s like a giant jigsaw puzzle where after years of searching I’ve finally found two pieces that go together. I want to view the two pieces from many different angles so that I can get a better idea of how they interact.

In this initial stage, I am observing the different pieces as being fairly static which is my way of learning or getting ‘it’. When I am familiar enough with this new concept or way of looking at the world, I can start to color outside the lines by making inferences on how these pieces fit together with culture as a whole.

Actually, I do see culture as being dynamic and ever changing. And my view of culture is constantly being altered by the people I meet and the places I visit. At least in most of the world that I am aware of, there is no such thing as a static culture. It is constantly being shaped and re-shaped, folded over and blended with other viewpoints, philosophies and ways of being.

For me, the only time culture is static is when I am wrestling to incorporate a new viewpoint into my world view. I need to cement the new learning before I can extrapolate.

Let’s face it, as has been pointed out to me, I’m a white guy starting to ‘get’ something which for a lot of people seems simplistic and every day. I’ll keep trying to expand my viewpoint and hopefully between my insights and the insights of people commenting, such as yourself, we’ll be able to affect new understandings for others.

Thanks so much for the dialogue.

Tom

However, suppose instead of staying within the lines you explore and begin to color outside of the lines. It can become such a better picture and more of your own that can be interpreted many different ways. The way in which you described culture seems to me more of the coloring book variety. The problem is that there is no sense of agency (culture is “there” that can’t be changed or varied as the lines are already drawn). I like to look at culture as something that is more dynamic, where the lines are constantly being redrawn as we bump up against other cultures and experiences and understand them. We then must begin to recognize what is the “core” picture (or culture) and what goes beyond the lines, to overlap with other pictures and create a collage that when put together, seems to mesh together nicely (although when looking at them, they initially seem to be so different).

You’ll get no argument from me that visuals can help access all the many facets of culture that are not obvious through a cursory glance. We live and breathe this at VisualsSpeak.

I also absolutely agree with you that it is human nature to make assumptions about people based on life experience, cultural group, etc. What I am attempting to do with this post is to illustrate how I miss pieces of what defines my culture because Of what I don’t expect as I go through my daily life.

For example, I have been aware of discrimination for a long time. I was back east recently. I traveled by plane, rented a car, stayed at hotels. I noticed that I carried no expectations that I might be discriminated against. When I introduced the ‘what if’ factor, my thinking changed quite a bit.

What if I was not part of the dominant group? Would I have the expectation that I might not have been offered a newer car at the rental agency? Seems like a fairly simple thing, but if I had to go through my whole life with these expectations than I imagine that my life perspective would be quite different.

I also use visuals when I teach ESL. They help me to not only engage my students and help them practice their conversational skills, but help me to uncover my students’ passions. Knowing what a person is passionate about makes learning (and teaching) more meaningful.

Thanks for your thoughtful comments.

Tom

One of my favorite activities is to have students listen to pop music that is popular in various cultures. I then have students talk about their assumptions based on what they hear. I could see the same thing with visuals (in fact, I have done this when teaching ESL).

I believe it is human nature to make initial judgments based on their assumptions and experience. This is the fight or flight reaction. What is important as a human being is to understand why we have a reaction, learn to analyze it, and decide in a thoughtful way if we are misinterpreting cues. The fact is, your colleague may also have been getting strange looks from the African American community (if he was in a poor neighborhood where those who wore suits were considered a threat from authority), but since the neighborhood may have “looked” familiar, he was not threatened by the looks (when in fact he may have actually been in a threatening situation).

When I teach cross cultural communication, I begin by giving students words and doing stream of consciousness responses (what comes to mind). Often there are trigger words for some groups (for example, upstaters or downstaters, as I teach in New York state, cracker, easterner) with a real depth of feeling. Those within the same “groups” (New Yorkers for example), have a real emotional response that others outside of the group don’t get. We then discuss how these words trigger those responses. I can see doing the same thing with visuals (i.e. logos, the American flag, the winning shot of Italy winning the World Cup) which would also get to those “blank spaces” of culture and help to develop empathy for the reactions of others outside of your group.

And I just love those glass doors at the entrance to a building that are emblazoned with a ‘Push’ sign yet present you with a handle designed to be pulled. Isn’t the human race wonderfully imperfect?

Yes, we do grab the bull by the horns here. ^_^

Cheers, John.

One aspect of visuals being the “human computer interface” is that they evoke stories. That is at the heart of what VisualsSpeak does. Our tools and techniques elicit stories of either what has been, what is, or where a person or organization wants to be.

Stories are a natural part of the human experience. In fact, we see and hear stories all of the time. A resume is the story of someone’s education and job history. A company’s quarterly financial report is the story of three month’s of that company’s history told in numbers.

The advertising industry has known this for a long time and has been particularly effective at creating product and service stories. Buying a BMW (in the US) is not about buying a car. It is the story of being successful, of grabbing the bull by the horns (do you have this expression in Aussie Land?), and of telling the world you are someone to reckon with.

Stories contain the shared values of cultures and have been the primary way humans have passed them down to he next generations since the beginning.

Next time you look at a hotel shower faucet think about the story that lies behind it. The real interesting thing about visuals is if we took a photo of that shower faucet and gave it to ten different people, we would come up with ten different stories about how it came to be.

Don’t get me going about visuals!

Thanks for your perspective.