05 Individualism vs Collectivism
Brother Ivers: Today we're going to start on group versus individual orientation. We talked about that a lot already we're going to finish it up today.
We already talked about how, in many parts of the world, including a few places in Latin America, that changing one's political party might be considered an act of disloyalty. It would be a betrayal to the group, which we would consider an individual choice here. An acceptable decision they allow you to make here in the United States. What is considered an acceptable choice to make in some cultures, might be considered a betrayal, possibly, in other cultures.
Again, know the turf while you're there. Try your best to learn this as quickly as possible. Remember, there's no way you can know everything, but you can at least ask some important questions on some important issues.
Now, remember in the home readings—home readings talked a lot about Japan and about some of the different orientations there. Group versus individual. Remember, Japan is probably the most group oriented country in the world. And remember how he talked about his hotel experiences. And I thought his hotel experiences were very interesting.
Remember how in one of his hotel experiences he talked about how people in that hotel were given certain shirts to wear, and they wore them throughout the day. And whenever they ran into other people with those same hotel shirts, they were supposed to smile and wave hi. And say, "Hi, how are you guys doing?" OK? Because, even for that short period of time, even for that short period of time in which they were staying in the hotel, they were members of the group. They belonged, and membership had it's privileges. And so, they had this camaraderie.
[Student sneezes.]
Bless you. This camaraderie with people who were just staying in the same hotel for that short period of time. They were a part of that family, a part of that group.
Another idea of the Japanese group orientation. This happened in the 1980s. I don't know if anyone would be quite the same today. The 1980s were a long time ago. But, this happened in the 1980s, and I don't think that it's that different today. There was a high school baseball team in Japan. Baseball is big in Japan. And they won a championship. They won some sort of championship. And they were out celebrating, and they ended up drinking.
In the end, some of the baseball players got in this car and drove drunk. The driver was drunk. Well, they had an automobile accident. It wasn't a bad one. It was just a little one. It was a fender bender. That's all, just a fender bender. Well, here's what happened. Every one of those high school baseball players, even the ones who were not driving, only one was driving, of course. Every one of the players in that car lost his license for life.
In Japan in the 1980s, if you were caught drunk driving, your license was revoked for life on the first offense. A group oriented society, again, they had a responsibility for everyone. In an individualistic oriented society they'd say, "Boy just got a little drunk. He isn’t going to do that no more. He just funning around. That's what he doing. Having fun."
[laughter]
But yeah, in an individualistic oriented society, they'll have tolerance for individual mistakes that may cause tragedy for the group and just hope it doesn't happen again. But, in a group oriented society, they might have a little less tolerance for things that could hurt other members of the group big time. So, those baseball players lost their license for life. That wasn't the end of it.
Their parents got on the local TV station. The equivalent of Idaho 8 here, you know, channel 8, channel 6, channel 3. You know, little Idaho call stations. And they apologized for the community, for what their baseball—what their sons did. Again, drunk driving. And that wasn't the end of it.
The coach of the baseball team got on a local television station and apologized to the community for the actions of his baseball players. And that wasn't the end of it. The principal of the high school got on the local television station and apologized to the community for the actions of his baseball players. Then the prime minister of Japan—no, I'm just kidding.
[laughter]
Anyway. It ended with the principal. But, you see, that's what a group orientation—it happens. Right now in the United States, if you drive—if you're caught driving drunk, first thing you do is you get a lawyer so you can get out of it. So, again, a very different view.
Now, remember, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. That's the Japanese expression. And those kids got hammered down in a sense.
Now, some other things on group orientation. Here. Remember how we talked a time or two ago about how American children, because of our individualistic living orientation—this is a positive thing about them. See? I'm saying some negative things about our individualistic orientation, but I'm an American and I dig individualism. OK? See, I would not want to be in a group oriented society. I enjoy being myself.
But, in all different culture orientations there are pluses and negatives. OK? And the more we see the negatives, the more we can maybe fix them a little bit. There's no way we'll ever reach perfection culturally. At least we can be aware of some issues, and address them—maybe only in our personal lives—but if everyone addresses them in their personal lives, then, oh, society would get better little by little.
Many things you do in life have infinite repercussions. And I'm not talking about the next life. I'm talking about here. OK? Especially the decisions you're making now, like who to marry, and stuff like that. It ought to be illegal for people in their 20s to make those kinds of decisions.
[laughter]
But it has to be. There's no choice in the matter. It has to be. So, make them wisely. Make them wisely my children. [laughter] Make it wisely. We talked about American children, something good. How American children—at least I think it's good, that's my cultural opinion. American children are known throughout the world for having extra rights than many other children because they can express themselves, they can express their opinions to adults, they can make their own choices very often, okay, and that sort of thing, but that's rare. It exists in other countries too, but in most countries probably not.
This filipino lady named Empada Uhedra wrote about filipino children vs American children and the different cultures there. She's an anthropologist in the Philippines. She said, "For instance, in the Philippines, as well as in many other Asian countries, children are rarely allowed, if at all, to do their own thing without the consent of their parents."
See the thing—the expression "do your own thing"—that's a very American sort of expression. It came out in the 60s, I believe, which was a very very individualistic era. In the 60s all the time you heard, "Do your own thing, baby, and you'll find, like, joy and happiness man. Yeah, you'll, like, be self-fulfilled, baby, when you do your own thing." Okay?
[laughter]
OK. And that would be shocking to many people. In America we think, "Man, that's cool. Yeah, I can dig this. It's Cool." But in other countries, some other countries would be shocked by that, especially in parts of Asia.
Consultat- [inaudible] . Children are rarely allowed, if at all, to do their own thing without consent of their parents. Consultation with parents, older siblings, aunts and uncles, or grandparents is always sought. Now again, there is some wisdom to that. You know what I mean? But, again, you have to balance freedom with, you know, so it's a tough, tough balance.
"America, I found out," this is the anthropologist talking. She does this in America. "In America I found out from an early age, a person is encouraged to be independent, to make up his or her mind, and to stand up for his or her rights. Individualism is encouraged among the American youth. Whereas among Asians," and again, not among all Asians, but generally. “Whereas among Asians, including Filipinos, group unity, togetherness, and harmony are valued."
OK. Group unity, togetherness, and harmony are valued. So anyway, there's some good things and maybe some negative things about group orientation, sometimes called collectivism. Collectivistic cultural orientation and individualistic orientation. What I want to do now, before we get into—we're going to talk about—for all you business people, we’re going to talk about some good business pointers when you do cross-cultural business here.
But anyway, before we get into that, I’ll let you get into your groups, I want you to talk about this. You know the other day I mentioned that Mormons are. We're individualistic because, well, let's say American Mormons. American Mormons are individualistic, but American Mormons are also a little bit group oriented too. We're kind of, just, we're more on the group oriented side for individualistic- [inaudible] in America [Inaudible] . So, umm, in your groups, I want to know if you can get together and just chat about that for a while. Love, serve, and teach each other on these principles about how are we individualistically oriented, and how are we group oriented. American Mormons.
Most of you are American Mormons. Some of you are not American Mormons, and you might see things that the American Mormons don't see. OK? One of the cardinal rules of anthropology is that outsiders sometimes see things more clearly than insiders. Because for the insiders, everything is just axiomatic, or in other words, that's just the way it is. I mean, no questions, it's obvious. Many of our unquestioned obvious things are psycho things to people in other cultures. They think we're crazy! They think we're nuts! So anyway, sometimes the outsiders can see things better than the insiders can. That is some of the cardinal rules of anthropology.