Platt, if you're interested in the differences in the way people think
in Eastern and Western cultures, I would refer you to the work of Edward
T. Hall.
Hall is a cultural anthropologist who writes books that are quite
compelling and profound for nonanthropologists, like me. He argues,
among other things, that societies can be divided between "low context"
and "high context" cultures. In the former, people "spell everything
out", assuming that others have little common experience on which to
rely. In the latter, people communicate with more subtlety and take for
granted that others share a common "context" that need not be made
explicit.
For me, this distinction between "low context" and "high context"
cultures is an incredibly useful lens through which to understand the
world -- sort of like Pirsig's "classic/romantic" and "static/dynamic"
dualities. It helps explains differences between Americans (who tend to
be relatively "low context") and people from other, more "high context"
cultures. It also is helpful in understanding the differences between
the ways that men and women tend to communicate.
I can't do Hall's work justice in a note like this, but would highly
recommend his book "Beyond Culture" -- it's one of those eye-opening
books, like Pirsig's, that can really affect your life in important
ways. To get a small taste of Hall's work, you can also read an article
about him that I just found on the web (apparently written for the
neurolinguistic programming community, but without much jargon):
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Brianvanderhorst/edward_t_hall_great_.htm
Bruce
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:00:46 BST