Week 8 – Crossing Inner and Outer Borders – Learning and Embracing Other Cultures:

The Book Empireland changed my life.

It taught me that I didn’t know anything about cultural diversity.

I was merely holding onto the culture that I had grown up around.

The premise is that the British Empire changed all of its colonies’ cultures forever.

I am born British. I am ethnically Indian. I am part Kenyan. I come from a cultured family from ex-colonies.

I love all three cultures.

But I won’t lie, I tend to stick to these cultures and the beliefs they’ve taught me. When actually, I could be learning about many other cultural practices and norms in the world.

For example, most of my friends are either from the Oshwal community or within the Hindu community through my charity.

But this has changed since I got into the workplace.

Interacting with colleagues from a global firm like mine has forced me to open up to new ideas. In turn, I have embraced new perspectives.

I am so glad this has happened.

Learning and embracing other cultures make you a better, educated, and understanding person.

This week, I aim to focus on a core tenet of mental and spiritual progress. I want to widen your horizon with regards to other cultures.

‘No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.’ – Nelson Mandela

So, why does cultural learning matter?

Simply put, it helps us recognise and appreciate others’ values, customs, and beliefs. We begin to understand others without judgment or prejudice.

Let’s unpack this further.

Cultural learning has two key elements:

1. Transparency. You have to be honest regarding the fact that you don’t know everything about every culture in the world. When approaching a problem, you only know the solutions due to your education (cultural and intellectual).
2. Openness. You need to be open to new ideas that challenge your core assumptions regarding how the world works. You have to want to learn new and different ideas.

Embracing these elemnts is paramount for learning without judgment.

Learning without judgment leads to greater retention and understanding. This, in turn, leads to you being a better, more well-rounded person.

I like to think I’ve grown in this area. My approach can be seen through my research project I did alongside my A Levels:

1. The Question – Social Destructive or Politically Beneficial? To what extent is Hip Hop a positive form of political engagement?
2. My Assumption – To only look at the USA or the UK.
3. My Learning – Looking at Hip Hop’s origins and understanding the impact it had in its original form.
4. The Outcome – An ability to critically analyse changes in the genre temporally and spatially.

So, we can see the effect of cultural learning.

But why are people hesitant towards it? Why are they hesitant towards challenging their cultural assumptions?

I think it comes from the comfort of knowing that you’ve had this belief for a long time, and that others share it.

Ask yourself?

• Has something that a senior member of your community said to you stuck? A view/belief?
• Have you held onto this belief because other people agree?

I know countless examples of this ringing true. Maybe it was true to them because of an experience they had, but ask yourself again- is this true for you?

This argument can be applied to our views of other cultures.

I challenge you to question your cultural stereotypes.

Ask the question: ‘What events must be present for this to be true?’

If there are quite a few things that need to be in place, then maybe this assumption isn’t wholly accurate.

Sometimes, our experiences lead to approaching cultural diversity with a sense of superiority.

We will listen, but again, as mentioned last week, only to prove them wrong using our culture’s views.

I certainly have been guilty of this. During my A Levels, I used to often discuss the contentious topic of identity politics. I equipped my arguments with my own cultural experience. So, when engaging in debate, I often used my experience to ‘prove’ my argument to be true.

While sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn’t, this wasn’t the right approach.

Instead, what I should’ve been doing is openly listening to others’ cultural beliefs.

Then I could find some common ground.

As such, we could work together to solve the issue collaboratively.

This is cultural humility.

Approaching the unknown view with curiosity, not superiority. Listening to understand, not to respond.

We’ve discussed how cultural learning is important, and the necessity to approach it with humility, but how do we action this?

Empathy.

In its truest form, empathy is about placing oneself in another’s shoes to understand their view.

In this way, we can connect with other cultural views. Often, our cultural views come from stories that were told to us, e.g., novels, traditions, or films.

In these, we placed ourselves in the shoes of whoever we wanted. For me, half of my cultural beliefs come from the story of Mahavir. I placed myself in his shoes and realised I wanted to become like him as much as possible.

So, all we need to do is apply this to other cultures.

I did this when reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. In the early chapters, he explains some experiences of populations that are not commonly known.

Have you ever heard of the experience of the Tasmanian people, stretching to 2000 BC?

Challenging my assumptions and absorbing myself into the story had immense benefits.

I understood their story and struggle much better. As such, when I read about their rituals now, I don’t seek to judge but merely learn.

I genuinely think that’s the key.

Find someone or something to learn from. Shut up and listen. Absorb yourself in the series. Verify the information.

It then becomes ingrained in you and a part of your arsenal to develop your original thought.

Here is an example of a diverse cultural practice that could be of use to help you develop:

1. My problem – being too addicted to my phone.
2. My research – I found a website that talked about a Christian view of welcoming boredom. This is because it encourages creativity.
3. The impact – Sometimes, after I’ve finished work and I’m on the train, I don’t go on my phone and I just stare out of my window. I look at the nature I am passing by and find enjoyment in that. It’s simple, but actually, I enjoy it, having a break from the screen.

You can see that cultural learning is key to developing yourself and your worldview.

So here is my weekly challenge:

1. Find one problem you can’t seem to figure out perfectly.
2. Spend 20 minutes looking at another culture’s approach to it.
3. When you next encounter the problem, try it.
4. Write down if it worked.
   1. If yes, learn it.
   2. If no, find another.

Have a great week 🙂

Dylan