On the one hand, we al give lip-service to accepting and even “celebrating” cultural differences. On the other hand, the recognition that said cultural difference don’t only manifest themselves in regional cuisines and quirky traditions people observe at home but also color every aspect of people’s behavior is just not there.
“A Hispanic woman in her 50s”, “a Russian man in his 30s”, etc. are not simply comforting statistics that will look nice and diverse on your personnel reports. They are, rather, actual universes that are governed by laws you might not even be able to imagine.
When I was learning Spanish and spending all of my time with Hispanic people, I had to learn not just the language but also the shared way of being of the people around me. And it was hard. It felt like breaking my own identity into small pieces and reassembling it anew. The process ultimately enriched me profoundly but it was very difficult and often painful.
After this experience, I never assume that people from other cultures are a sort of a version of me with a different accent. We all share a basic humanity but the ways that humanity manifests itself are profoundly disparate.
This is why “multi-culturalism” is not a happy-happy-joy-joy phenomenon but, instead, something that requires very hard work on the part of everybody. And this hard work is something that many people might simply not feel like engaging in.
So instead of saying honestly, “This is too hard, I have too much on my plate as it is, screw multi-culturalism”, people wimp out and pretend that cultural differences are simply cosmetic.
And what bugs me out of my head is seeing people who have dedicated their lives to foreign languages and literature make this mistake.
Clarissa's Blog 
Let’s celebrate differences!
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Of course, this can be milked beautifully. I love saying in a wounded voice, “This is what my culture is like”. That shuts everybody right up because nobody knows I’m doing it on purpose. 🙂
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Heh, this is hilarious.
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“I love saying in a wounded voice, “This is what my culture is like”.”
When I was younger and more innocent I used to fall for that kind of thing…. I’ve learned better.
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Lol, arent you a seperatist? 😉
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Welcome back, Titfortat. here is a post that seems dedicated to you: http://charlesrowley.com/2013/04/24/korean-roulette-versus-tit-for-tat/
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Tit-fot-tat is a game that outperforms all other games in simulated contests, even when its nature is announced in advance. Tit-for-tat can never win in an individual contest. But it always wins across a cascade of contests(Charles)
Hi Clarissa, thanks for the welcome back. 🙂
Did you miss me? 😉
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. . . And when he was good, he was very very good.
But when he was bad, he was HORRRID!
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Ohhhhhhhhhh, the dichotomy. 🙂
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Hi Cliff. It’s Maria from the old LR blog. I’m back online and over at No More’s if you want to say “hi!”
Best regards, hope all is well.
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Oops, separatist, and that was for David. 🙂
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Yes. And I’m not a Trudeau-style multiculturalist.
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This is why “multi-culturalism” is not a happy-happy-joy-joy phenomenon but, instead, something that requires very hard work on the part of everybody. And this hard work is something that many people might simply not feel like engaging in(Clarissa)
For the most part multi-culturalism is a misnomer. For a collection of different cultures to come together and work you need to abandon certain differences and have a collective that agrees on how the culture will be run. This is why you cannot retain all of your cultural traits when you enter into a new one. Eventually, because of this, a new culture will be born from the best traits of each. If not, there will be an implosion. We are seeing this play out in pretty much every major city that has certain vocal religious groups who want their “culture” to take precedence. Can you say, Sharia Law? I wonder how many of us want to be tolerant of that cultural belief?
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I’m strongly against Shariah law.
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How do I know that the person taking a test in my class wearing a burka is the person registered for my class. Does multiculturalism require that I have a female assistant to check her ID and compare it to her face??
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This is not multiculturalism, this is religious woman-hating.
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this is religious woman-hating.(David)
Unfortunately for some that is very cultural.
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What is very weird is the level of naivete that people embrace with regard to cultural differences. For instance, people wearing a headscarf to support Palestine, or fasting for Ramadan in support of Palestine. Perhaps a patriarchal society is not so bad in the case where the political structure experiences oppression? That is not my view, but many people don’t think it through.
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You need to define ‘patriarchy’, a word, like ‘feminism’ I’m rapidly coming to view as so amorphous and/or protean as to be functionally meaningless.
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It’s not too difficult to do some basic research:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/04/don-t-tread-on-my-hair-hamas.html
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@Cliff
Feminism…..
It is almost like Islam being the religion of peace or Christianity the religion of love and then……….well, you know.
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Here is the best definition I know of: https://clarissasblog.com/2012/05/28/what-does-the-term-patriarchy-mean-to-me/
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@Clarissa
Ah yes, your definition of an old word. Im still waiting on a new word for your brilliant new insight.
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Do you realize that every word you used in your own comment is actually older than the one I defined?
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Lol, round and round we go, where she stops nobody knows.
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I’d like to express muchos spasibos to Clarissa for her particular definition of patriarchy. I now know what she’s referring to when she uses the word (though it seems that many others cannot possibly be using the same definition).
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You are most welcome. Yes, many people use the word stupidly, with no understanding or analysis of how such family systems even work. It is as if the entire world literature weren’t there to demonstrate how the concept works (for those who haven’t experienced it in person.)
Those who insist that this is a system of men oppressing women have probably never had a chance to observe how viciously and relentlessly women in a patriarchal society tear to shreds any woman or man who tries to step away from this model.
Life is so much more complicated than “bad guys vs good gals.”
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Interesting post! The trouble with cultural differences is also that if we don’t expect them, we tend to blame communication problems on personal traits.
For some examples of cultural differences, check out my blog at http://culturebumps.blogspot.co.uk/
Thanks! 🙂
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