04 Cultural Paradigms
[On screen: Cultural Paradigms]
Professor: One of the reasons I emphasize enjoying this class is—another reason I have the obligation to be in a good mood and make this a positive experience even if I am in a bad mood is that right now education is a wash in the sea of boredom. It's true. Education today is a wash in the sea of boredom and professors need to do everything they can to make the material interesting and engaging and professors need to have an interesting delivery of the material. The reason we have to do that, and very few do, but the reason we have to do that is that most professors are unaware that after every class period you're going to be one hour closer to death.
[Class laughing.]
That's true! After every single class period you're going to be one hour closer to death. And so, you are never going to get that hour back, never. And it is my responsibility to make that hour useful, to make that hour engaging, to make that hour enjoyable because that's an hour you are never going to have back.
The great Mexican intellectual Carlos Fuentes said, "We shall know each other or we shall exterminate each other." Latin America produces a lot of great intellectuals that are virtually unknown and unappreciated and we are going to talk about some of those great Latin American intellectuals in here. "We shall know each other or we shall exterminate each other." Carlos Fuentes was talking about we don't understand each other's paradigms—cultural differences.
Let’s talk about what a paradigm is because that’s a word you’re definitely going to have to need to know that we will mention every day in this class. [Professor draws a tree on the whiteboard.] Okay, you guys are taking notes very good, very good.
[Class laughing.]
Now, what is this?
Student: A tree.
Professor: A tree! You’re right.
[Class laughing.]
That is what I meant it to be. But since I am a terrible artist, actually I am a great artist. This is modern art, this is modern art.
[Class laughing.]
But anyway, that’s right it's a tree. Now have you ever seen a tree that looked exactly like that? Probably no. Probably not. But what happened is you have these paradigms in your head, paradigm is spelled like this by the way. [Professor spells paradigm on the board.] Definitely know how to spell this word.
[Class laughing.]
I get all kinds of weird spellings. Paradigm. You have all this weird, well not weird, but you have some weird paradigms in your head. But you have all these paradigms in your head. You have a paradigm for what is a rock, what is a tree, and all these more complex paradigms we will talk about in a minute. In a split second the supercomputer that is your brain interpreted—your eyes sent messages to your brain about the formation of that figure and the brain and the supercomputer that is your brain it ran hundreds of thousands maybe millions of paradigms through your head in a split second and it mashed it up. It mashed it up with your paradigm of a tree and therefore you interpreted it as a tree. Interpretation is what this class is all about and how our paradigms cause us to interpret the world around us. And of course most people in this world, and no matter what culture you're in, most people will interpret this as a tree. Okay? However, there are more complex paradigms.
There are simple paradigms like clouds, cars, rocks, houses, okay? And there are complex paradigms like hypocrisy. What is hypocrisy? What is beauty? What is graciousness? What is pride? What is humility? What is laziness? What is funny? What's flirtatious? What's loyal? What's polite? And you know something, those paradigms differ immensely from culture to culture. Immensely from culture to culture, okay? And so two different people from two different cultures can witness the very same event and their supercomputers that are their brains--by the way I am going to pass the roll around. I spaced it. There will be a few times I will space the roll and you will just be lucky on those days if you are absent.
But anyhow, the supercomputers that their brains consist of are going to run those actions by and they are going to match them up with different paradigms with different interpretations. And so the very same-- the two people can see the very same event and if they are from different cultures they can interpret it very differently. One will interpret it as very noble behavior the other one may interpret it as hypocritical behavior because their complex paradigms are vastly different. Let me just give you some other examples here. One time I did a study where I asked and you might want to just do the same when you do your papers. I asked, "What are some of the weird things Americans do?" I interviewed a bunch of foreigners: "What are some of the weird things Americans do?" And here's some of the answers I got. These are based on their paradigms.
"American students will put their feet on the book racks of the desks in front of them." That is considered very inappropriate. Their paradigms inform them that was rude behavior where as my students are putting their feet on the book racks of the desks in front of them doesn't bother me at all. I don't interpret it as rude at all because I have different paradigms.
"American women sometimes swear."
[Phone rings.]
That was cool, I dig that.
[Class laughing.]
Anyways, keep those cell phones ringing occasionally when people get bored I like that. And then, "American women sometimes swear." You know their paradigms say only men swear, don't they know that is a manly thing to do, women shouldn't do that. Interesting.
"Americans wear tennis shoes without participating in sporting events."
[Class laughing.]
In some cultures tennis shoes are only for sporting events they are not for walking around town going shopping in-- that sort of thing. Most cultures consider us to be extreme-- too casually dressed. You know I'm from the 60's. I think I'm overdressed right now, you know? But anyway I have to have my white shirt on today because I have a meeting with President Clarke. Sometimes I will be wearing these cool bright colored shirts when you know I don't have a meeting with President Clark on those days.
[Class laughing.]
"American women wear shorts in public where men can see their legs." See, modesty varies immensely from culture to culture okay? There are some cultures that would consider Americans to be very immodest and there are some cultures that would consider Americans to be very, very modest. Here's another one to. You know what? Paradigms, they will veil your eyes from seeing certain things or they will open your eyes to see things that other people from other cultures never would see. Here's another example:
"American women's purses often do not match their shoes." See I would have been born, lived, and died without ever noticing that.
[Class laughing.]
You see the paradigms in the other cultures may have brought that to their awareness. Another thing too, there are deeper issues.
"In America friends find humor in insulting each other."
[Class laughing.]
"In America friends find humor in insulting each other." It’s a strange anthropological rite of passage in America. You're not part of the group until they start insulting you and laughing at everything cool. If you're roommates haven't started insulting you and laughing about it you're not quite a member of the group yet. It's a strange American thing. Whereas it doesn't work in all cultures. You have to be real careful of things like that.
Now. Okay so some things you need to also keep in mind. Definitely write this down. This will be on the test. Some other stuff we will talk about will be on the test too but this will definitely be on the test. It will have to be worded exactly the way I word it now so write this down and don't forget this. Review this as soon as class is over, especially before the test.
Culture creates-- [professor speaking Spanish]. Here we go. OK, I'm also a Spanish-- I used to teach Spanish a lot here before I became dean so if I speak Spanish occasionally, well anyway. False needs and false problems. Culture creates false needs and false problems. And in this class we will talk a lot about those false needs it's creating in you right now and the false problems it's creating in you right now. Most of what embarrasses you is a culturally created false problem. Most embarrassment is done in a cultural context. It is based on paradigms that may not exist in the other cultural. Let me give you some examples.
Let me give you an example of how paradigms can be so vastly different. That things would be humiliating in one culture may be considered normal in another.
Another example. Is the roll here? Thank you. In ancient Hawaii, the king of ancient Hawaii was fed up with some perverted sexual behavior on the part of the men. That's a cultural universal that almost all the perverts in the world are males it's in every cultural. It's not a cultural thing, it’s a universal thing. But anyway, there were some men in ancient Hawaii that were peeping toms. They were trying to see the women in situations where the men would get turned on sexually. And the king of Hawaii was so sick and tired of his lovely women being humiliated and embarrassed by this that he enacted the death penalty for any man caught doing that. Wasn't going to put up with that anymore.
The terrible act they were doing: they were peeping through windows, they were trying to watch the women eat. In ancient Hawaii the opposite sex was not supposed to see each other eat. It was a sexual turn on. If any women ate in front of a man it was scandalous, scandalous. She was sexually promiscuous. It was considered to be sexually promiscuous. And the king of Hawaii said that he was going to have no more of that and enacted the death penalty. Obviously in Hawaii they have different paradigms. In ancient Hawaii they had different paradigms than we do now. And how would they, if they were to bring men here to BYU-Idaho campus, a religious school, we believe in morals, in 2013 and we were to take them to the Crossroads? What would be their interpretation of crossroads? Sodom and Gomorrah!
[Class laughing.]
The ultimate orgy would be outback steakhouse!
[Class laughing.]
Okay so again your paradigms force you to interpret realty in a different way. Even what determines what turns you on sexually in some ways. Maybe not in all ways, but some ways. And so it’s just the power of these paradigms is immense, but in every culture there is a lot of irrationality in things that causes embarrassment and things like that. In America there is a lot of irrationality. There is a lot of cultural problems in America if you don't believe that just turn on the TV. There is a lot of things that are bugging you and embarrassing you now that are culturally created false problems. Another thing too is you need to challenge some of your paradigms, for example, and think of things you never thought before. For example, what is-- I’m borrowing this from a former professor in my program-- what is the number one school in America?
Student: Harvard?
Professor: Harvard. And according to all the polls, most the polls not all of them, in most of the studies Harvard is number one. You can get a better education at Harvard than you can anywhere else. The knowledge of the professors, the accomplishment of the professors, they have a lot of money to spend on a lot of materials, and a lot of experiences for their students. You can get a better education at Harvard than anywhere else in this nation. Harvard is usually number one, number two its Yale, number three is Princeton, number four is BYU-Idaho.
[Class laughing.]
Anyway, BYU is like eighth I think.
[Class laughing.]
But anyway you know you can get a better education at Harvard than anywhere else in the country so I assume we send our dumbest students there don't we? If you can get better educated-- even learn more at Harvard than anywhere else I assume we send our dumbest students there right? We don't? We don't. Hmm, okay. We send our smartest students there.
The smartest students they get by going to some average institution they will do fine. It's the dumb ones that need all the help. The reason you've never thought about that is because you live in a culture that has meritocracy paradigms and most cultures do actually, but we live in a meritocracy and a meritocracy says things need to be earned. You need to deserve what you get. If you get something good it needs to be deserved. You need to stand out to deserve it. Most cultures are that way, but sometimes it doesn't hurt to challenge your thinking a little bit. In this class, hopefully, I'm going to stretch your thinking a lot in different ways.
[End]