But What about Me?    (Part 2)                     Sally Campbell

When I took my initial training as a mediator in 1986, I had no idea how culture-blind I was.

I swam obliviously in the waters of my post-sixties women’s lib, white-privileged, western individualistic, Eurocentric, middle class, “But what about me?” universe. Born and raised in Vancouver, I knew nothing of the indigenous cultures all around me. I had so much to learn. I was, as they say, overdeveloped on the outside and underdeveloped on the inside.

Thankfully, mediation is a great and humbling teacher. So is working with indigenous communities and faith communities like Ismaili Muslim. So is a gifted T’ai Chi Ch’uan teacher like the late Doreen Hynd. So is therapy. And the writers, the poets, voices of the heart and soul – on loss, grief, inequality, racism. I especially enjoy reading and learning from those with different backgrounds from my own. Conflict is a terrific lens because it’s a hard human experience, a universal one, and one of life’s most powerful teachers. As tough as it is, we need to ask what it is teaching us right now. And take the learning!

At a very deep level, our values drive how we respond in conflict situations. Yet they are something we rarely examine or even question. Interestingly, people world-wide share most of the same values, but they play out in distinctly differing ways.

What seems logical, sensible, important and reasonable to a person in one culture may seem irrational and unimportant to one of another culture. Stella Ting-Toomey* has written a great deal about culture. She says that when people talk about other cultures, they tend to describe the differences and not the similarities. And that differences between cultures are often seen as threatening, so they’re described in negative terms. And yet it is very valuable to understand the differences, to look into them, and see where these judgments lie, particularly our own. For instance, the more ego-centred life style of individualists is considered utterly selfish and immature by more collectivist orientations, while the group allegiance valued in collectivist cultures is considered by individualists to be sheep-like adherence, blind conformity to the dictates of the group.

 Freedom – a highly valued and vaunted aspect of western culture, is a not a value you hear expressed by most of the world’s population. (No one likes the idea of incarceration. Ironically, the freedom-loving US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world.) Maintaining harmony and belonging are much more highly valued in a collectivist worldview. My freedom is only as important as the freedom of my entire group in collectivist perspective. 

As well, with collectivism, separate interests are inextricably tied to the interests of the group. I experienced this orientation when working in the Northwest Territories, as a facilitator with the 7 indigenous nations of that region. It was a 3 day gathering exploring impacts and benefits of a proposed gas pipeline. When asking representatives of their respective nations to identify their own specific interests (what mattered to them), they never once separated out their interests as individuals from those of their group; the idea itself was foreign to them. I remember thinking how utterly different a response this was from that of folks at a negotiating table of non-indigenous people. They would speak of the interests of those they represented and also from their own perspective, without hesitation. Sometimes the latter would come first. 

These ideas are intended not to stereotype people but rather to provide a general framework for understanding deeply-rooted ways of being. 

Here’s a few more ways these cultural value frameworks play out:

1.  Individualism emphasizes personal goals; collectivism, in-group goals.

2.  Individualism expects horizontal relational primacy (loyalty to spouse or partner); collective worldviews expect vertical relational primacy (obedience and respect for elders, and for those in authority).

3. Individualism anticipates competition in conflict; collectivism expects avoidance of conflict.

4. Individualism values free & frank disclosure and expects personal face-saving; collectivism teaches mutual and other face-saving.

5. Individualism has a resolution focus (“get the job done”); collectivism has a harmony focus

 (build relationship first).

6. Individualism values enforcement of legal rights (self-face-saving); collectivism values forbearance and non-interference (mutual- and other-face saving).

7. Individualism seeks formalized agreement (task focus); collectivism offers ceremonial closure (relationship focus).

It’s worth remembering that we all show aspects of individualism and collectivism in differing contexts. Nonetheless, we have each been taught certain values by the primary culture in which we were raised, and these values run deep.

*Many of these ideas are from Ting-Toomey & John Oetzel’s scholarly book: Managing Intercultural Conflict Effectively. Sage Publications: California, 2001.

BUT WHAT ABOUT ME? Sally Campbell

A favourite cartoon of ours shows a woman in her recliner, on the phone declaring: “I’m trying to look at it from my point of view”. Such a good reminder of how we actually see the world. When I commented recently to a friend that “individualism in our culture has run amok”, she informed me I needed to write about it. This is a huge topic, so here are a few starting points to consider.

Differences in cultural values lead to differing beliefs about how to orient ourselves in the world, how to deal with conflict, how to be a full person. Intercultural researchers have consistently identified several “value frameworks” that can help us understand cultural difference without judging those different from us. One of these value frameworks is: individualism-collectivism.

The cultural pattern of collectivism is found in approximately 2/3 of the world’s population: it is common in Asia, Africa, the Middle East (West Asia), Latin America, the Pacific Islands and amongst the world’s indigenous peoples. Collectivism emphasizes group values and identity over those of the individual. There is a focus on interdependence and maintaining group harmony.

There are also religious groups that have a strong orientation to collectivism, such as Mennonites.

The cultural pattern of individualism is found in the other 1/3 of the population: it is common in what is generally called the “West”, which includes northern & western Europe, Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand (not including these nations’ indigenous populations). The value patterns in individualistic cultures emphasize personal goals and identity rather than group identity; there is a focus on independence and individual rights over group responsibilities.

It’s important to remember that within-culture variations exist within all cultural groups. There are people who behave like individualists within collectivist cultures and vice versa. As well, personal attributes, conflict norms in the larger community, and situational factors such as recency of immigration, affect how people will act. We are all “ethnocentric” to a certain extent, meaning that we interpret the behaviour of others (of different cultures) using our own cultural standards.

Individualism can show up in our struggles with our identity, our desire to “get ahead”, all the many influences encouraging us to realize ourselves. These are not bad things in themselves. This value pattern expects a child to become more and more independent with the years.

Autonomy is considered a sign of maturity. Moving out is a good thing. People from more collectivist worldviews generally don’t strive for or promote independence; they recognize and value their interdependence. They may sometimes complain about the pressure for conformity, expectations from their families and communities, even the lack of privacy, but their sense of belonging is intact. They are not expected to grow up and leave. They are expected to grow up and contribute to the well-being of the whole.

Mediators encourage people to recognize the value of relationship and the inescapable fact of our interdependence. We need to connect with others for our well-being. So many people struggle with loneliness, a sense of isolation or even alienation, yet remain extremely reluctant to acknowledge they need others. After all, a “mature” person is autonomous, right? They have what it takes to go it alone. The song “My way” is telling in its tone of pride and dramatic braggadocio. A loss of face for the individualist is personal. It’s not about others, it’s all about me. For the collectivist culture, a loss of face is much broader. One person’s bad action reflects on the whole community; that accounts for the protocols, the hierarchical nature and the deeply ingrained expectations of many such communities.

I see individualism as driving the difficulty people in our general culture seem to have in imagining the larger human community as our community. We have great loyalty and willingness to serve those close to us – in our family, in our neighbourhood, in our community even, but somehow those who are “different” from us don’t matter as much. Mostly this is kept quiet; it is simply understood.

Some of the work of aging into true elderhood involves expanding that sense of who our community is. And yet, many older people do just the reverse – they close off from the world, narrow their vision, and retreat to the imagined safety of their small universe. Yes, we are in deeply troubling times, but maybe older people have always thought the world was easier and simpler “before”. Things do become more complicated as we age! And yet, it seems to me the challenge is to expand our hearts, not close or harden them. We can learn from the collectivist orientation that each and all of us matter, and we matter equally. We really aren’t separate from others; we are one part of a living, breathing whole organism and we all belong to each other. That’s what indigenous people mean by “All my relations”.

(next time: Part 2)