Dance(s) of Difference – 2 - Civic level

Dance(s) of Difference – 2 - Civic level
Torrey Orton
Feb. 13, 2009

I noticed that my voice in the first of my difference blogs (Feb.5, 2009) was confused. Sometimes I was me, sometimes we, sometimes other, sometimes us, sometimes you… which reflects the mixture of histories in the envelope of myself. I literally can’t draw a clear picture of being a member of Anglo Australia, which I certainly am from any non-Anglo’s viewpoint, and largely from my own, except that I have a host of missing formative experience memories. Their place is occupied by formative American experiences – small town, default protestant, private schooling from year 8 on, ice hockey for fun and definition, liberal arts undergraduate education, graduate school in two disciplines, commune living, experimental high school founder…etc. It’s been 38 years since the last of these.

Not all of these are shareable with any one person; only chunks with some varying with their respective personal histories. In this sense, the pathetic assertion a few years ago by Hugh Morgan, the ex-MD of now dead Western Mining, that immigrants weren’t to be trusted as Australians because they are always split, is true in its basis but not its conclusion. That he could not imagine anyone could sustain a split life is also apparently true. That no one from the dominant culture criticised either truth shows how far we have to go in our understanding of these matters. A second generation Greek did in a letter to TheAGE about qualification matches for the last world cup. This is, perhaps still, our civic culture.

It was only 10 months ago that Anglo media were alight with Obama’s radical pastor story. Commentators of all persuasions had things to say because race was explicitly in play for the first time in the US presidential campaign. Obama’s speech about his relationship with and views of the minister (March 18, 2008 in Philadelphia) opened with the assertion that slavery was America’s “original sin”. The framers of the Constitution left it to later generations to address. No one I could find (I looked through four major US papers and a couple of British) pointed out that certainly the original US sin was the arrival of armed Europeans on various North (and South) American shores well before slavery was introduced.

Perspective is much in matters of culture. Focussing on the second sin allows the first to drift into the hinterlands of awareness and the shallows of public memory. And it is the first original sin in America which is still alive in the same way ours is (think reservations whose present inhabitants as still trying to get the relevant government department to fulfil its treaty obligations to their tribe(s) from 130 years ago).

Here in Oz we have been treated to a long “culture war” to assess how many indigenous or ‘settler’ people were intentionally killed, wounded and displaced during the generations of conflict. It is a war which keeps the original, and undoubted, sin of European invasion out of the picture of our present understanding of the relations between surviving indigenous peoples and the invaders’ ‘children’. That is was germs and not guns which did the bulk of the killing, as in South America, changes little except the weaponry. No invasion, no measles or flu, or small pox, etc. Aborigines, and other First peoples in the world, do not forget such things in their national experience. People just won’t ‘move on’ from major injustices. The perpetrators cannot either, hence the energy of the culture wars.

These examples are the other side of the intercultural experience - histories which emerged from uninvited domination (a part of all human history as far as I can see, perhaps back to the assumption of the mantle of human from our predecessors, the Neanderthal). Perspective (and so, knowledge) is what allows us to balance our perceptions of cultural rightness, superiority, inferiority. The civic level of relationship is the one where we can negotiate such differences, and set the conditions for negotiation.

We normally experience the civic level in workplaces, the settings where we have differences in their most publicly engaged forms. For instance, a friend, originally from a village in Africa and 20+ years resident here, told me of feeling disrespected by his work colleagues here because they did not recognise his undisputable seniority – a seniority of age, professional experience, qualifications, organisational longevity and cultural diversity. They did not even know they were doing so, but that did not change his feeling.

This is how these things work. Ignorance of others’ world views is a fact but does not excuse us from the pain we cause unknowingly. In our legal system the requirement of knowing the laws is assumed. Ignorance is not an excuse. We don’t make the same assumption for matters of culture. Maybe we should. And our increasingly turbulent times may push that ‘should’ into a ‘must’.

Leadership in these times may often require cultural changes while attempting to retain cultural integrity. Things like the citizenship tests, Aussie values programs in schools and such are our current experience of this at the civic level. And leadership is not just for nominated leaders. Many are called to lead because immediate situations require many actions and actors.

Stressful workplace events draw out our most culturally preferred approaches to life – the Westerner will be talking about the problem and the non-Westerner about who it affects and how. Each may see the other’s focus as irrelevant / inappropriate, and be irritated by it. This pattern is a well-known one in business relations between cultures. For either person to lead in such circumstances requires work to interrupt the natural reactions to such different approaches.

Three things provide the basis for success – real knowledge of cultural differences (acknowledging the reality of the differences, not universalising them out of existence), respect for the fact these differences exist (which does not mean accepting or approving of all differences), and courage to appropriately engage differences when they interrupt relationships. Respect is the most important. Without it, neither relevant knowledge can be found nor courage appropriately employed. Perceived disrespect is felt as attack.

What could it look like to engage someone about an emerging problem? Maybe something like this: (1) Notice that a potential high conflict situation is near. (2) Acknowledge that you are likely to have a problem which will push each of you back to your preferred approaches – relationships vs. problem-solving. (3) Propose that you try a new way this time – which ensures equal time to both perspectives. (4) Invite the other to talk about how / why their concern for relationships works in this situation and offer your needs for problem solving (not to justify but to inform). And, (5) propose you develop a joint process for working on the relationship(s) and the problem task.

Of course, to do this some prior bridging of the differences is required. Who should take the first step(s) and how? In principle, it should be the dominant culture person (or most positionally powerful, or other culturally appropriate authority factor) because they have least to lose from the negotiation of the difference(s). This principle applies in everyday life within cultures, too. However, the dominant often do not see that they are dominant (members of a dominant group and therefore seen by non-members (‘others’) as dominant though they do not experience themselves as such). Now we slide towards the intimate, but don’t necessarily arrive there. The next post explore will how to direct this slide usefully.


Neighbouring* subjects & issues: social policy, intercultural communication, sustainability and culture(s), difference and learning, power and groups.
*neighbouring = historical and conceptual factors which give perspective to the blog topic