Chapter 7

Cultural Perspectives

 "Why do the people of this culture do the things in the way they do?"

Practices, products, persons and communities embody cultural perspectives and vice versa. Perspectives are the explicit and implicit meanings shared by members of the culture manifested in products and practices.

These meanings reflect the member’s: perceptions of the world, beliefs, values they hold; norms, expectations and attitudes that they bring to practices.

Perspectives may be classified according to the person that makes the judgement in emic and etic; by their nature, in tacit or explicit and by different viewpoints in functional, interpretative and conflict. That is shown in the picture below.

Explicit and tacit perspectives

Perceptions, beliefs, values and attitudes can be explicitly stated in oral or written form. They can be expressed through sayings, proverbs, creeds, proclamations, myths, mottoes, principles, guidelines… or other explicit forms of expression. They guide practices.

Many explicit perspectives are found in the history of a culture and in social and cultural studies and commentaries. The histories of political, economic, religious, educational and other formal institutions both reflect and propagate cultural perspectives.

In the case of tacit perspectives, they are outside of awareness. The members of a culture cannot specify why they engage in these practices when they are asked to explain them. That’s just the way it is”, “we’ve always done it that way”.

People take them for granted. But tacit perspectives can be brought to the surface and made explicit. Though, some are beyond the reach of language hidden in our brain.   

Cultures can clash because of differences in their perspectives. This video shows a group of boys from Sudan that move in to the United States. For them it is a complete cultural shock because everything is soooo different!!!

Worldview: it is the perceptions of all that surrounds us. It is also varyingly defined as a belief system, a fundamental cognitive orientation, a reality set, and an orientation towards philosophical issues and others concerned with being shared by the members of the culture. 

Emic and ethic perspectives

Emic perspectives are those articulated by members of the culture to explain themselves and their culture. Emic explanations are perspectives that members of the culture use to describe or explain their own way of life.  They do not necessarily respond to categories, not does the terminology that the members use for their explanations. In some cases, they may easily express the reasons for cultural products and practices. In others, they may have difficulty finding the words to fully explain them.

Etic perspectives are those of outsiders to the culture, who use their own criteria to explain other’s culture. Cross cultural descriptions, are basic descriptions or explanations from one’s own cultural background.

Explaining phenomena in terms of similarities or differences according to one’s own culture = ethnocentrism. They can also be categories used to describe any and all cultures; some of them are drawn from notions of cultural universals and read like a table of contents, they reflect cultural practices and products. Other etic classifications  come from theories of cultural  perspectives like value orientations.

They provide a framework to describe a culture from outside. An etic category carries assumptions about the nature of the culture and it is important to bring out these assumptions.

Etic perspectives: perceptions

Models for the interpretation of etic perspectives are a finite set of realities that all cultures must address. The way in which they are addressed depend on the way the different cultures perceive these realities. This in turn, leads to beliefs, values, attitudes and practices, in a word, to different overviews.

The interplay between emic and etic perspectives is crucial to cultural comparisons and to cultural understanding. The central challenge of this process is to make tacit perspectives explicit.

Cultural viewpoints

Cultural perspectives depend on your viewpoint. That in terms of how you choose to view cultural perspectives. 

The functionalist point of view takes the broad view of culture, most often at a national level, taking the nation as the focal point. The Interpretative, assumes that cultural meanings or perspectives are defined by the members of the culture in the circumstances in which they find themselves, either as individuals or as members of communities. And the conflict point of view puts emphasis on the communities that make up the culture, particularly on their interactions with the core culture and its institutions and among themselves.

 The advantage of these three perspectives is that each offers a distinct point of view on cultural phenomena. When we view our culture from different viewpoints, our understanding is increased, and one can begin grasping it’s complexity. There are many possible explanations, not just one right answer.  

What do people see? who is right? It all depends on the viewpoint and perspective.

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 Ethics and culture... how important is their interaction?

Ethics is a group of perceptions, values, rules and beliefs that are translated into actions or behaviors in every sphere of life. A person’s ethics define their character and their principles. They also will be united to what offends or makes someone angry or feel indignation. It also allows people to classify, and judge their actions (and other’s people’s actions) as morally right or wrong. Ethics are what make you do the right things, at the right time, even when nobody is looking. They are what make you be considerate and arrive on time, say “thank you” and “you're welcome”. This philosophies make you be respectful what you own, and of what you don’t. Ethics also influence your actions in your workplace, at school and even at home; they make it foolish to even think about wasting time, or using your company’s resources excessively. Ethics are a very important component of culture because they guide all the practices, but one must take into account, that ethical standards are not the same in every culture.

The measuring stick of ethics varies between cultures. Most of them agree with the fact that respect, tolerance, honesty, empathy and other values are necessary for a peaceful living, but the definition of these values, and the ways they are taken into practice are the things that change. This happens because different cultures possess different perspectives  of  what is good, right, logic, acceptable, desirable, respectful, beautiful, clean, or not in a society. 

For example, the language and geographical location may influence on the ethics of cultures. The CAL Learning Blog classifies cultures as "particularists" and "universalists". Some typical styles of each are:

Universalists (Germanic language countries)
• Speak in absolutes
• Prefer direct communication with clear details of agreement
• Get down to business attitude
• Particularists may find their behavior rude and abrupt

Particularists(Latin, African, and Asian cultures)
• Speak vaguely
• Prefer indirect communication
• Often digress or go off topic
• Avoid absolutes

Other examples about how perspectives affect the ethical behavior of a community inside a culture are described next:

Elderly people are greatly respected in Asian cultures.

Perspective in many Asian countries are different than the ones we have here in Western cultures. Even though stereotypes don’t always apply to everyone, their culture greatly values humility and respect. For them, age is also a very important characteristic, which shows not only in your white hair, but in all the wisdom gathered with the years. Elderly people are praised and respected. On the contrary, in many western cultures being better and overshadowing others is the main goal. And elders are not very respected and usually set aside because they “already had their chance”, and they are considered to be “stealing air” just by breathing.

Ethics on giving and making gifts

That perspective in Asian countries makes it polite because it shows humility to refuse a gift several times before finally accepting it. Also, when you offer them a compliment, they won’t take it reluctantly. For example, if you tell someone “that meal was delicious”, they’ll probably answer “Oh no it was horrible”.

Because of the importance that they give to age differences, one  can only call someone friend if he or she is the same age. In Western culture, people keep in mind the age difference and give respect where it is due, but nevertheless they are free to befriend anyone they please.

In the article published by The Korea Times by the Korean attorney Jung Bong Soo it is stated that Koreans are extremely kind and helpful with people they know, but if they don’t, they’ll treat you as if you didn’t exist. He seems very surprised that westerners are friendly even with people that they don’t know and  greet and have conversations with complete strangers. 

I believe religion and politics are a very important part of a culture. For example, here in Costa Rica, we live in a democracy, we are free to vote for our political leaders and even though some things aren’t taken care of as fast as one would like, at least the majorities’ opinion is heard. Our political system, and actions like the abolition of the armed forces,  have made it possible to  invest in education and health. I think in the field of politics, we need leaders that will make people believe again. The people need actions, short term results and fulfilled promises, not only words.

Religion is also a fundamental pillar of society. It is a way of carrying and teaching moral and ethics to people. These institutions also create different communities that people become a part of and feel like they belong to a family. They also carry out important charity work and keep people boosted in difficult times of their lives by giving them spiritual support. They become a “problem” when the people of the religion stop being tolerant and respectful of other religion’s perspectives, because conflicts generated around faith cannot be easily solved because dogmas cannot be questioned.

Every August, thousands of people visit "La Negrita" to pray and to give thanks. They walk, in some cases for days, moved by faith and love.

In isolated cases, people can live without religion (atheists) or politics (anarchists), but for the majority of us, they are necessary to keep a certain order, the “status quo”. If we didn’t abide by the rules of these institutions, everybody would act as they please, and communication and getting things done would be almost impossible.