Running Head: Acculturation
ACCULTURATION
by Larissa Natarelli, Ph.D. student
Graduate School of Education and Professional Development
Capella University, Minneapolis, MN
December 2003
Abstract
Culture is the newest fad sweeping the literature on international relations, security studies,
and international economics. The idea that culture affects human behavior is, of course,
hardly new. Long ago, it has been noticed that racial, ethnic, and organizational-cultural
differences among people play a critical role in the events. Hostile or friendly attitudes and
factual relations between individuals or cultures can be explained in terms of differences in
socio-economic, ethnic, religious, or family backgrounds. Similarly, human behavior is a
complex outcome of psycho-physiological, socio-economic, and political processes, which
are identifiable by birth heritage, educational upbringing, and environmental adaptation.
Thus, an infinite variety of behaviors results from dynamic interplay of complex genotypes,
responsive to cultural and physical influences. Molded by personal motives and frustrations,
successes and failures, environmental assimilation and maladjustment, etc., personal
experiences fuel social dynamics. And as always, the quest for the truth and justice, the
warfare, or the chase for revitalizing energy stems from uncertainty, residing in the heart of
human anxiety, of a conflict of interests or a willpower contest, and rouses waves of—violent
or hidden—domestication: acculturation.
Table of Contents
Table of Figures
iii-vii
Introduction: Globalization as Cultural Expansion
1-4
Part 1: The Theory of Everything
4-7
Part 2: Call of the Nature
7-19
Part 3: Culture Is Politics
19-27
Part 4: Culture Is Communication
27-36
Conclusion: Civilization Belongs to Civilized Man
36-38
References
39
ii
Table of Figures
Figure 1: James Clark Maxwell (1831-1879)
Figure 2: Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
iii
(a) Competition
(b) Cooperation
(c) Collaboration
(d) Confrontation
(e) Disintegration
(f) Net “zero”
Figure 3: Communication Velocity
iv
Figure 4: The Mentalese—the Matrix of Culture and the Language of Concepts
v
Figure 5: The Culture Compass
vi
Figure 6: Signal Protein Bundles
Stimulus Sender Filter Message Medium Filter Destination
Feedback
Figure 7: The Components of Human Communication
vii
Introduction: Globalization as Cultural Expansion
Almost from the time when human consciousness arose, messengers between
societies and cultures began their journey all over the world. They were searching for
new lands, selling their merchandises, or propagating their religions. Those encounters
were relatively seldom in early times. Today, they are almost part of everyday life:
technological advances have facilitated communications and made easier the trafficking
of people. At the same time, interchange among cultures has jeopardized ethnic
distinctiveness and even put under threat the very existence of many cultures—a
phenomenon often referred to as globalization. Local and national cultures have been
enticed by global forces to the power of which they have to succumb to and to adapt.
As markets go global, the need for standardization in organizational design,
systems, and procedures increases. “Yet managers are [also] under pressure to adapt their
organization to the local characteristics of the market, [the] legislation, the fiscal regime,
the socio-political system and the cultural system” (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner,
1998, p.3). Finding a reasonable balance between consistency and adaptation to local
conditions has become essential for corporate success.
The post-modern geographic divide and the neo-liberal economic order have
given rise to a new form of identity: the global identity. Western European states
particularly celebrate the transnational feeling and appreciation for globalization of their
citizens: the borders are open. Nevertheless, even though industrial, commercial, and
trade markets have escaped the boundaries of eroding national frontiers and have become
global, governing arrangements have not. National boundaries have grown to be too
porous to hold the economy in, but remain sufficiently rigid to prevent democracy from
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getting out and civilizing the larger world. This has created a perilous asymmetry,
because global economics operate in an anarchic realm without significant regulation and
without the humanizing civic institutions that within national societies rescue it from raw
social Darwinism. Unfortunately for the entire human civilization, globalization is a foil
for economic vices: crimes, drugs, terror, hate, pornography, human trafficking into sex
slavery, and financial speculations—but not civic virtues. The result has been a growing
tension between the beneficiaries of globalization and just about everyone else. In the
unfettered high-tech global market, crucial democratic and humanistic values become
relics, but mistrust among people is routinely accepted: the witch-hunt continues—in a
global scale.
Since time began, inquisitive thinkers have been searching for the truth in solving
the puzzles of human soul, the mysteries of creation, and the laws of arrangement of the
world. Fearless explorations, firm but vain endeavors in building an ultimate social
model, heroic campaigning for justice, or being simply different from “civilized” citizens
was and is punishable—by law and beyond: Gentlemen and folks in different parts of the
globe are not always willing to show appreciation for pluralism of opinions. General
compliance and “appropriateness” of thoughts and feelings are usually scrutinized and
often challenged by contemporaries—sometimes, with an axe, a blaze, a poison, or a
prison—and always “in public interests”. Spartacus and more than a hundred thousand of
his rebellion comrades—slaves and gladiators—lost their two-year battle against the
mighty Roman Empire and ended on the cross in 71 B.C. for their love for freedom.
Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), an Italian professor, philosopher, and astronomer, found a
horrible death in a blaze of fire for his scientific “heresy”, which turned later the truth.
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The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), a devoted AfricanAmerican civil rights activist, woke up the minority population in America and stirred up
a huge wave of protest. Through the entire human history, peasant riots, revolutions, or
civil wars were offering a harsh display of public disobedience, blind cruelty, or
intolerance for diversity. Nevertheless, afterward, a global witch-hunt continues.
Curiosity kills, and not only the cat; love for freedom and independence grows
hazardous; nonconformity with scientific, religious, ethnic, or political establishment
becomes perilous… Through all the ordeals accompanying the human life, one common
pattern comes out: originality, diversity, incongruity, deviation from the mainstream
provokes antagonism and fury. “Common sense assumes values [to be] like coins, jewels,
or rocks” (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1998, p. 213). But despite an impressive
historic panorama of human misery and tribulations, the daring human spirit persists in
searching for justice, harmony, and explanation to everything: the human ego, a sense of
life, mysteries of the world’s creation and of the way it works. Because the systemseeking universe has, indeed, a meaningful and fascinating pattern inside.
This research paper aims at providing an overview of trends that have had a deep
impact on cultures and intercultural encounters in an era of accelerated globalization,
facilitated by communication technology. While investigating the emergence of a
cosmopolitan culture, Part 1 embodies an interdisciplinary exploration of contemporary
scientific achievements to be used for building a new cultural paradigm. Part 2 targets
various constructs of culture based on socio-anthropological interpretations. Part 3 gives
emphasis to a socio-political aspect of culture by examining the nature of paradoxes and
contradictions, which fuel intra-cultural and inter-cultural dynamics. It also attaches
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particular attention to the emotional aspect of culture. Part 4 focuses on communication
phenomena as core content and a vehicle of culture. The Conclusion addresses
globalization issues and multiculturalism as a critical factor for solving social dilemmas.
Part 1: The Theory of Everything
“Thus, the task is not so much to see what
no one yet has seen, but to think what
nobody yet has thought about that what
everybody sees.”
― Schopenhauer
It happened that apples fallen from the trees accidentally hit somebody on the
head. Apparently, Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), British mathematician, physician,
astronomer, and philosopher, the only person of those misfortunate ones was able to infer
the General Gravitation Rule from this unpleasant event, which happened to him in1687.
Although Newton formulated the gravity law, he had no idea how gravity actually
worked.
Three generations later, James Clark Maxwell (1831-1879; see Figure 1, p.iii), a
distinguished Scottish scientist, explained the connection between electricity and
magnetism in a unified theory of electromagnetism. Maxwell’s unification took science
one step closer to cracking the code of the universe.
In the beginning of twentieth century, Albert Einstein (1879-1955; see Figure 2,
p.iii), an unknown German-born twenty-six years old clerk at a Swiss patent bureau
challenged the Newton’s conception of gravity when he was pondering about the
behavior of light that helped him to solve the mystery of gravity, Isaac Newton.
According to Einstein, the velocity of light is a kind of cosmic speed limit, namely, the
speed that nothing can exceed. This idea squared him with the father of gravity. Einstein
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came to think of three-dimensional space and single dimension of time as bound together
in a single fabric of space and time—four-dimensional space-time that is warped and
stretched by heavy objects like stars and planets; and this curving of space-time creates
gravity. Likewise the hydraulic effect, gravitational disturbance would cause a wave
traveling across the space-time fabric that would set off a huge cosmic catastrophe.
Einstein calculated that these ripples of gravity travel exactly the speed of light. He called
this new picture of gravity General Relativity. Thus, Newton unified the heavens and the
earth in the theory of gravity; Maxwell had unified electricity and magnetism; Einstein
gave the world a new picture of what the force of gravity actually is and he embarked on
a new quest for a single theory that would encompass all the laws of the universe by
merging the theory of gravity and electromagnetism.
Meanwhile, led by Danish physicist Niels Bohr (1885-1962), a group of
researchers uncovered an entirely new realm of reality. They found out that the atom,
long-thought to be the smallest constituent of nature, was found to consist of even smaller
particles: the nucleus of protons and neutrons orbited by electrons. The new theory,
called Quantum Mechanics, was able to describe the microscopic realm with a great
success. Bohr and his colleagues proclaimed that at the sub-atomic—or quantum—level,
uncertainty rules, that is, at the scale of particles, the world is a game of chance. For
example, there is a chance that particles can pass right through walls and barriers that
seem impenetrable to an observer.
According to quantum mechanics, the best one can do is to predict the chance, or
probability, of one outcome or another. This bizarre idea opened the door to a new,
unsettling interpretation of reality and changed the picture of the universe, which, as
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maintained by Einstein, was orderly and predictable. At this point, the theories of
Einstein and Maxwell seemed to be useless, because they could not explain the bizarre
way these tiny bits of matter interact with each other inside the atom.
Einstein, however, never lost faith that universe behaves in a certain, predictable
way. Despite all great achievements of the scientific thought, Einstein was not completely
satisfied. He was thinking about an ultimate, single theory, so powerful it would describe
the entire mechanism of the universe. But in 1955, he died on a verge of creation of the
most important theory in history of science—the theory of everything.
Almost 50 years later, Einstein’s goal of unification combining all the laws of the
Universe in an all-encompassing theory has become the Holy Grail of modern physics.
Probing the structure of the atom, scientists discovered two more forces: one, which acts
like a nuclear “superglue” holding the particles of every atom together, was called strong
nuclear force; the other one, called weak nuclear force is responsible for radioactive
decay and allows neutrons to turn into protons while giving off radiation in the process.
At the quantum level, gravity was entirely outdone by electromagnetism and these two
new forces.
That has been a puzzling phenomenon that suggested that general relativity works
well for big things (planets, stars, and galaxies), but small things (atomic and sub-atomic
infrastructures) are subjected to the rule of quantum mechanics. These two sets of laws of
physics simply won’t agree. Even Einstein could not solve this controversy. But because
galaxies and atoms are parts of the same universe, the laws of nature are supposed to
have power everywhere: The same laws of nature that govern the big-scale matter and its
motion govern the rest of the world.
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After two decades of brainstorming research and self-sacrifices, scientists have
succeeded in uniting all four acting forces—gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear
force, and weak nuclear force—in an all-encompassing concept, a radical set of ideas,
called String Theory. The basic concept of the ST is surprisingly simple: Indefinitely tiny
bits of energy, vibrant strands, called strings, make up all the constituents of nature.
Vibrating like strings in a multitude of different ways, they create the magnificent
symphony at the heart of entire reality. Every event in the universe – from the splitting of
an atom to the birth of a star – is nothing more than the aforementioned four forces
interacting with matter. The String Theory is indeed a way of describing every force and
all matter in a single theory—the theory of everything, which suggests that the Universe
may be much stranger that anyone can imagine. Thus, theoretical astrophysics has made
available a framework that helps better understand the outside world, as well as human
nature, culture, and social paradigms.
Part 2: Call of the Nature
The truth always lies in the eye of the beholder.
― The popular saying.
Since ages, people observed that many behavior patterns, insights, and abilities
were considered appropriate in some societies but ridiculed in the others. However, no
one could remain culturally “neutral” while comparing cultural patterns and making
conclusions, because all observations and definitions are being filtered through the sociopsychological and cultural background of the observer. “Culture is like gravity: you [do
not] experience it until you jump [six] feet into the air,” have stated Fons Trompenaars
and Charles Hampden-Turner in their most comprehensive book on culture (Trompenaars
& Hampden-Turner, 1998, p.5).
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The word culture stems from the Latin colere, translatable as to cultivate, to build
on, to foster. In the early stages of the philosophical debate about what is culture, the
term often refers to the opposite of nature, whereas “culture” was referring to “something
constructed willingly by men”, while “nature” was “given in itself”. However, the
individual can never be considered as a completely independent “cultural architect”,
whose creative spirit is resourcefully unconstrained by environmental pressure:
Purposeful inventiveness is always necessitated and determined by the environmental
context and previous human experience. Moreover, the event—including any cultural
occurrence—gets a specific spot and duration in space-time, i.e., is positioned within a
concrete historic-geopolitical period resulting from a complex and versatile combination
of countless situational variables.
Since the 18th century, the word “culture” emerged as a synonym of classiness,
fine quality, and sophistication—more in the sense of “something praiseworthy” with
regards to the high society, edification, and the values of the arts, somewhat reduced to
Michelangelo, Goethe, and Beethoven. The term was used to describe an elitist approach
in definition of high-culture concepts, particularly in continental Europe. This definition
of high-texture culture is still vivid.
Equally, during the mid-nineteenth century, the concept of mass culture and
popular culture surfaced to denote both means and values, which arise among distinctive
social groups and classes that create numerous secular paradigms. Realities of daily life
and survival struggle through which low-texture cultures “handle” their existence bring
about groundwork for their values and traditions.
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According to the Edward T. Hall’s anthropological concept, built on a thorough
comparative analysis of different ethnic groups, culture is qualified as a system, which is:
A. Rooted in a biological activity widely shared with other advanced living
forms. It was essential that there be no breaks with the past.
B. Capable of analysis in its own terms without reference to the other systems
and so organized that it contained isolated components that could be built up
into more complex units, and paradoxically—
C. So constituted that it reflected all the rest of culture and was reflected in the
rest of culture (Hall, 1990, p.38).
This renowned author identifies ten kinds of human activity—labeled the Primary
Message Systems (PMS)—dating back to the very beginning of life survival-adaptive
mechanism of the living matter. He also points out the limited involvement of language
in human interaction with the environment: “Only [the] first PMS involves language. All
the other PMS are non-linguistic forms [of] the communication process” (p.38). Although
Dr. Hall was primary preoccupied with comparative inter-ethnic analysis of the core
content of culture, the following characteristics can be attributed to any organizational
archetype and, thus, they apply to numerous social domains:

Interaction with the environment that “has [its] basis in the underlying irritability of
[all] living substance” (p.38). In other words, the always-perception-based interaction
with the ambiance constructs the survival apparatus of the living matter. In highly
elaborated philogenetic forms (the humans), it is developed in a system of verbal and
non-verbal codification—a language: speech, voice modulations, and gestures,
reinforced by linguistic codification in writing.

Association that means, “the bodies of complex organisms are [in] reality societies of
cells, most of which [have] highly specified functions” (p.39). Scientists have noticed
an amazing organizational-behavioral pattern within the colonies of mammals: an
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orderly-compliant assemblage conforming to distribution of power inside the flock,
herd, etc.: each animal had a function associated with its role in the throng. Other
forms of association can be seen in paired relationships of some cooperating species.
Also, “the interrelation of the PMS of association and language [is] exemplified in the
varieties of [dialects] of social classes” (p.41), whereas the social status or the work
rank “prescribes” a particular way of communication, expressed with the body
language and “patronizing” or “subservient” tone of voice.

Subsistence includes everything from individual food habits to the economy of a
country. What is highly appreciated in one culture may be ranked very low in the
next. For example, “not only [are] people classified and dealt with in terms of diet,
but each society has [its] own characteristic economy” (p.41) that determines the
special vocabulary and the language behavior at meals. Besides, some cultures
“attach no stigma to work with the hands, but [in] many other cultures manual labor is
considered [to be] undignified, a sign of low status” (p.42).

Bisexuality comprises sexual reproduction and differentiation of both form and
function along sex lines. “Its primary function [can] best be explained in terms of a
need to supply [a] variety of combinations of genetic background as a means of
meeting changes [in] the environment… It is great a mistake to assume that [the]
behavior which is observed in man [is] linked to physiology… Behavior [that] is
exhibited by men in one culture may be classed [as] feminine in another” (p.42-43).
Moreover, speech and gender are also related in obvious ways: the women’s talk
fluctuates from the men’s conversation. Gender is also interrelated with territoriality
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given that “there are places [where] the behavior of the sexes toward each [other] is
prescribe, like the parlor or the bedroom” (p.44-45).

Territoriality is understood as “the taking possession, use, [and] defense of a territory
on the part of living organisms.” The balance of life in the use of space is one of the
most delicate of nature. Intercultural collisions and predatory wars are largely an
account of efforts “to wrest space from others and [to] defend space from outsiders”
(p.45). A quick review of the global map reflects this fact: some states have been
created, the other have passed into oblivion. Another territoriality issue meshes with
professional, vocational, or daily concerns:

Temporality is tied into life as cycles and rhythms, some of which are directly related
to nature (seasons, respiration, heartbeat, etc.); the other ones merge into megacycles
that profile the historic timeline (the past, present, and future). In the world of
business, temporality is usually associated to punctuality, timing, or the time
framework. The attitude toward time is at significant variance among ethnicities as
well as among business cultures: It depends on how much people are appreciative for
both time and efforts—theirs and of the others.

Learning tremendously enhances the survival value, because it is, indeed, a natural
adaptive device that helps coping with the continuously changing environment.
Learning can be extended in time and space by means of educational communication
that involves utilization of language and ability to symbolically store learning
information against future needs. What complicates matters, however, is that persons
grown up in different cultures learn to learn differently. To be able to make his or her
work more productive and to help enhance the domestic education system,
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The educator has much to learn about his own systems of learning by
immersing himself in those that are so different that they raise questions
that have never been raised before. Americans in particular have too long
assumed that the U.S. educational system represents the ultimate in
evolution and that other systems are less advanced than our own. Even the
highly elaborated and beautifully adapted educational techniques of Japan
have been looked down upon. Just why we feel so complacent and smug
can be explained only by the blindness that culture imposes on its
members. Certainly, there is very little reason for complacency when one
looks, not at others, but at ourselves. The fact that so many of our children
dislike school or finish their schooling uneducated suggests that we still
have much to learn about learning as a process (p.49).

Play and “its role as an adaptive mechanism is [yet] to be pinned down. However,
one can say that [it] is interwoven into all of the other PMS,” Dr. Hall asserts. “Play
and learning [are] intimately intertwined, and it is not [too] difficult to demonstrate a
relationship between intelligence and play” (p.52). Play is also closely related to the
defense function. Sometimes, play and humor are used to cover up vulnerability.
Another arena of utilization of play is military maneuvering (“war games”). Besides,
role-play, or simulative game, has revolutionized some educational fields: it has
become an indispensable didactic engine of suggestopedic methodology of foreign
language intensive teaching and is currently breaking through in corporate training.

Defense is “a specialized activity [of] tremendous importance,” Dr. Hall avers. The
Mother Nature is extremely inventive in continuous efforts to protect the life… or to
bring on Earth devastation and sufferings. The world abounds in defensive devices
that sometimes turn into deadly weapons. An amazing detail: body language (gesture,
mimics, etc.), or an “innocent” rumor, or an idea can be as much effective in human
relationships in “civilized” cultures, as fangs and poison in a jungle or a gun in a Wild
West landscape. “Man [has] elaborated his defensive techniques [with] astounding
ingenuity not only in warfare, but [also] in religion, medicine, and law enforcement.
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He has to defend himself not [only] against potentially hostile forces in nature [but]
against those within human society” (p.53).

Exploitation comprises trading with the nature by use of materials and revolving
influence of the noosphere1 through which these transformations become possible.
Another view of culture puts an emphasis on organizational culture as a set of
values, beliefs, and behaviors attributed to the group. According to Drs. Fons
Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner, “culture is [the] way in which a group of
people solves problems [and] reconciles dilemmas… Culture is [the] context in which
things happen…” (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1998, p. 6 and 8). A group can
thereby apply to any socially constructed form: it is not merely a nation, but also any
supranational unit (a family, a team, or a gang, etc.) and international entity (an
intercontinental corporation or the entire global society), distinguishable in any segment
of social archetype. The organizational concept deals with relationship between the
individual and the group as well as with acquisition of organizational ethics and
behaviors that involves teaching and learning of a shared, conventional sociopsychological pattern, established and maintained within a given social body. It also
alludes to collective programming of the mind, or creating a group mindset, which
systematizes the way people do things to coordinate their efforts. This group mindset—as
well as behavior—is regulated by sanctions, rewards, and punishments for those who
make part of the group what suggests anticipation of compliance with the legalized or
tacit code d’honneur imposed by leadership. “In practice, though, [beneath] the surface,
the silent forces [of] culture operate a destructive process, biting at the [roots] of centrally
The noosphere concept was developed by the “great trio”: Russian Academician Vladimir Vernadsky and
his former students at the Sorbonne University in Paris (later, the prominent scientists) Teillard de Chardin
and Edouard le Roy.
1
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developed methods which do [not] ‘fit’ locally,” assert Drs. Trompenaars and HampdenTurner (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1998, p.5).
In addition to meticulous and comprehensive investigation of culture, these
authors differentiate three major headings under which problems are considered: “those
which arise [from] our relationships with other people; those [which] come from the
passage of time; [and] those which relate to the environment” (p.8). Trompenaars and
Hampden-Turner also identify seven fundamental dimensions of culture; five of these
come from the first category:

Social relationships that cover the ways in which human beings deal with each other:

Universalism versus particularism variance consists in how much attention is
given to abstract societal codes. The universalistic reasoning assumes that one
good way must be always followed—no exceptions; the particularistic logic
resides in obligations of particular relationships and unique circumstances.

Individualism versus communitarianism clashes over the focus on individual
or community priorities.

Emotional versus neutral category is based on the approval/disapproval of the
assumptions that “the brain checks emotions because these [are] believed to
confuse [the] issues” and that “we should resemble [our] machines in order to
operate [them] more efficiently” (p.9).

Specific versus diffuse approach distinguishes what comes first: business or
personal.

Achievement-oriented versus ascription-oriented means that the individual is
judged on what is on her/his record of recent accomplishments or that social
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stratification (i.e., status attributed by birth, kinship, gender, age, personal
affiliations, etc.) prevails. “In the achievement culture, [the] first question is
likely to be ‘What did you study?’ while in [a] more ascriptive culture the
question will [more] likely be ‘Where did you study?” (p.10).

Time concept points toward how time is perceived, i.e., how closely a society
correlates the past, present, and future. It also reflects an emphasis given to ether
individual achievements or plans. In addition, the timing is considered as a part of
doing business and, thus, is associated with punctuality.

Attitude toward the environment is a sign of amalgamated wisdom and benevolence.
“Some cultures see [the] major focus affecting their lives and the origins of vice [and]
virtue as residing within the person. Here, motivations and values [are] derived from
within. Other cultures see [the] world as more powerful than individuals. They [see]
nature as something to be feared or emulated,” Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner—
almost always—succeed in coming to bias-free conclusions (p.10).
The revolutionary discoveries in quantum physics, chaos theory, and biology have
overturned the models of science that have dominated for centuries. The emergence of
the String theory—the theory of everything—has radically altered the modern
understanding of all the processes in space-time of the universe and gave rise to a
remarkably new conceptualization of human society, culture, and cultural dynamics. The
paradigm-shaking discoveries of “wave functions, probabilities, quantum tunneling, [the]
ceaseless roiling energy fluctuations [of] the vacuum, the smearing together of the space
[and] time, the relative nature of simultaneity, the warping [of] the space-time fabric,
black holes, [the] big bang” have involved radically new ways of seeing reality. “… there
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was a whole new mind-boggling world lying [just] beneath the surface of things as they
[are] ordinary expected… But [even] these paradigm-shaking discoveries are only part of
[a] larger, all-encompassing story” (Greene, B., 1999, p.386).
By now, it is an established case from quantum mechanics: At a social
“corpuscular” scale (i.e., the individuals), uncertainty rules that makes the world a game
of chance. Meanwhile, the historic timer sketches an established itinerary for the person,
the family, the culture, the global society, and the entire universe. In addition, the
universal laws suggest that S-force2 and W-force3 (the major inward- and outward
balancing forces) must be nearly balanced: when self-preservation, i.e., egotistic
propensity of the system per se overrides its altruistic efforts, it leads the entire system to
a state of crisis and collapse, because it cannot withstand its own inner pressure, usually
combined with system’s rigidity. Conversely, when energy pulling outward prevails over
inward gravitation, it results in a system’s failure and dispersion.
Creative imagination of the reader can now put the last touch on an amazing
picture of the humans, acting like rushing cells inside the social membranes: orbiting,
colliding, blending in, and breaking free… However, the velocity of vibrating human
“particles” is by far chaotic. The string concept, applied to the social domain, helps draw
an amazing picture of culture—as a live, dynamic, wave-based energy field, extended and
warped in space-time and capable of mutations. A culture-mutant is a product of
interaction of two or more cultures; in other words, intercultural dynamics set off
acculturation, which may come to play in a peaceful, seamless way or, very often, as
brutal confrontation and wrestling between biological energy fields. The non-violent
2
3
Strong nuclear force acting like molecular glue
Weak nuclear force emitting radiation
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cultural inter-exchange comes about as a natural consequence of successful
communication and collaboration between interacting forces; the offensive is a result of
dysfunctional communicative behavior, i.e., inability to coordinate actions: nasty
competition, word fight, physical assault, or warfare (see Figure 3, p.IV).
Although multiple scientific realizations in the field are most valuable
achievements in the development of scientific thought, the author of this research paper
argues that investigating the cause-effect correlation is a crucial starting point for
understanding the cross-cultural dynamics while analyzing cultural phenomena. In
accordance with the author’s concept of culture as a wave-based, meandering field of live
energy, extended and warped in the fabric of space-time, the assessment of a concrete
culture should be anchored in the following fourteen factors the interplay of which brings
about a particular cultural composition (See Figure 4, p.V):

Physical appearance—with regard to physiological parameters: race, ethnicity, age,
gender, etc.

Language—as symbolic system or sub-system: (a) natural (ethnic) and artificial
(Esperanto, computer language, professional or criminal jargon, etc.), (b) modern
(currently in use) or archaic (Latin, cryptography, etc.).

Communication that includes the following: (a) verbal/linguistic and non-verbal/paralinguistic means (body language, mimics, etc.); (b) conscious or para-conscious
(inadvertent) psychological activity (attention, feedback-expectancy); (c) media
devices; (d) velocity and frequency of diffusion/reception.

Education comprises teaching and learning that both primarily depend not on
specificity of ethnic perceptiveness but on the availability of effective methods of
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18
transfer and assimilation of information that mirrors an actual status of an academic
system.

Emotionality stands for dynamism of psychological reactions, vivacity of feelings,
and external expressiveness.

Spirituality incorporates religion, arts, folklore, traditions, appreciation for
edification.

Sexuality comprises psycho-physiologically motivated behaviors ascending from the
pre-historic saga on human—basic and some secondary—reflexes, which sanction
sexual orientation and mannerism.

Socialization is understood as belongingness to commonality (community,
nationhood, friendship, etc.) and related to it.

Stratification indicate preconceived judgments, biases, and socially constructed (with
regard to upward mobility) barriers—strata—that create “glass ceiling” syndrome for
some social classes, groups, races, or ethnos.

Self-Awareness is an identical twin of self-confidence and love for freedom that
evolve from self-identification of an individual or a nation.

Territoriality has a multifaceted meaning that ranges from psychological tolerability
(at home, at work, etc.) and socially acceptable distance (for example, between two
interacting individuals) to shielding the Motherland from the intruders.

Temporality encompasses conceptualization of the historic streamline (the pastpresent-future) and the timing (age-, season-, or business-related concepts).

Technology is a comprehensive layer of the noosphere that transforms the
environments and human relations.
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
19
Finances, a “blood system” of culture, create multiple ways that allow—through
production and exchange of goods and services, or monetary manipulations of
corporate dealership—to store energy for the present and future needs.
Along these lines, the inquisitive mind of the reader, striving to penetrate the
causality of occurrences and events, can notice one common issue: Uncertainty,
insecurity resides in the heart of all human activities. Uncertainty in the present and in
the future triggers the necessity to adapt to the social-geopolitical and environmental
context, encourages exploration, and stimulates development and change. Uncertainty
prompts people’s actions in an eternal search for security. Security means the energy
balance (in the veins of culture―likewise in the human body) must be continuously
maintained at a certain level. However, replenishment of power may go on in a variety of
ways. Like a blood-thirsty giant vampire, the culture-predator rummages for a prey—
silent, submissive, manageable, compliant. The necessity to comply with the mainstream
culture (or the majority of population) prompts cultural assimilation, homogeneity, and
death of less-aggressive cultures and irrevocably leads to scarcity of choice,
homogeneity, and stagnation because of unsufficient dynamism4 within the system. Noncompliance with the established paradigms means multiplicity of choice, realized
opportunities, and progress, because the diversity encourages the further life dynamics.
Part 3: Culture Is Politics
A socio-geopolitical standpoint allows classification of culture as a category,
which has both political and social consequences. The difficulty nation-states have with
globalization comes not just from the force of what is happening in the international
4
This is a characteristic trait of the socialist social order that led to collapse of the Soviet Union and its
allies.
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20
arena but from ideological developments within nation-states. The concept of
ethnocentrism, introduced early in this century, refers to a tendency that most people see
their own culture as the “center of the world”. Often this phenomenon has been seen as a
result of “naïve” thinking, following from the assumption of the world in itself being like
it appears to the individual: a set of “self-evident” rules, roles, categories and
relationships, seen as “natural”. The concept of ethnocentrism is often displayed in a
form of nationalism that always rallies with chauvinism, xenophobia, and racism.
National sovereignty is said to be a “dying concept” and, consequently, a boost must be
given to redirecting national priorities in favor of the “genuinely natives”. The next
“protective-purifying” step comprises issuing a definition of “genuineness” by specific
parameters, which are defined by the ruling elite. When the national consolidation idea
reaches its extremity, it turns into fascist hysteria or it leads to a political coup d’état,
followed by dogmatic pressure and physical extermination of those who “do not fit”
certain standards or ideological parameters, those who are distinct. Torn between local
and global socio-political controversies, the living system carelessly engages in a neverending war for survival: fighting for change, fighting against the change… and losing the
battle in both case scenarios because of tremendous stresses, human losses, and
sufferings.
As it has been mentioned before, culture can be understood—in organizational
context—as association, or a collectively held set of moral attributes of the group that is
vibrant and changing over time. “It is easy to forget that [the] bodies of complex
organisms are in reality societies of cells, most of which have highly specialized
functions, [and] that the first associations [along] this line were between cells that banded
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21
together in colonies. …As it happens, all living things arrange their lives in [some] sort of
recognizable pattern of association,” asserted Edward T. Hall. “In some cases [a] rigidly
ordered hierarchy is replaced by [another] form of association. …Associational patterns
persist over [long] period of time, and if they change at all it is because [of] very strong
pressure from the environment” (Hall, 1990, p.p.39, 40).
The individual and the culture in which he lives is a complex set of relationships.
On the one side, culture shapes the individual; on the other side, the individual has
bearing on culture. By contributing to the culture around him or her, the individual also
gets involved in the cultural change. In any given historic period, velocity5 of change
considerably varies in different cultures depending on environmental and socio-economic
conditions as well as on availability and cumulative potency of catalyzing factors.
Survival in ecological variations impinges on moral issues, scientific thought, and
technical progress aggravating disproportional evolution and the global dynamics.
Particularly in the last few decades, the velocity of communication (including educational
communication), which determines the effectiveness of information exchange, has
become a key-factor that controls all noospheric occurrences and, thus, the entire global
evolution.
The asymmetries resulting from the rapid globalization of markets in the absence
of any commensurable globalization of political and civic institutions are largely ignored
by elected officials, even those of the center-left. Ripped from the box of the nation-state,
which traditionally acted as its regulator and civilizer, capitalism turns mean and
anarchic. The market sector is privileged; the political sector is largely eclipsed (when not
subordinated to the purposes of the market); the private is elevated above the public,
5
The rate of motion in which direction as well as speed is considered.
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22
which is subjected to ruthless privatization at every turn. Liberty itself is redefined as the
absence of governmental authority and hence an exclusively market phenomenon, while
coercion and dependency are associated with government even when (especially when)
government is democratic.
Any form of social organization has to deal with balance of power. Delegating a
central authority and responsibilities to one person is important—in order to avoid chaos
and anarchy, but keeping a reasonable balance of power within the system is no less
important. However, the problem remains: How much of personal power should be
entrusted to the leader of the group, because success of an entire culture depends, to a
great extent, on psychological factors.
In a truly democratic society, the barriers between social strata are not much
evident and the developed communication pattern is being continuously protected from
possible reactionary attacks. This includes free and autonomous information (guaranteed
by the independent existence of collectively owned media), social and political diversity
(guaranteed by genuine pluralism in society), and full participation by citizens in
deciding public policies and securing public goods (guaranteed by a robust public
domain). It uninterruptedly preserves a given culture from social entropy, while pooled
together social energy is used for constructive, humanistic purposes.
On the contrary, dictatorship controls and, sometimes, completely ceases free
surge of spiritual energy by obstructing exchange of opinions. Hopelessness of multiple
attempts to effectively and justly distribute the social goods increases inner tension and
deepens cultural divides between social strata. By creating more favorable life conditions
for a particular stratum, the authority consequently puts a stronger pressure on the others.
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23
Social stratification6; gender, ethnic, and racial discrimination; lifelong economic
deprivation of ones alongside unjustifiable wealth of others; lack of effective social care
for impaired persons, etc. erect the most insurmountable obstacles on the way of the
development of societal potential, because these factors define the relationship among
environment, opportunities, and individual wherewithal, combination of which
preordains the design and the quality of human life. The cost of social biases is fantastic
in addition to the psychological damage they do to the person, culture, and the entire
global society.
In general, functionality of the individual and of the cultural system implies to
freedom to speak, to relocate, to choose, to participate in decision-making, to derive
maximum intellectual and spiritual satisfaction, and to benefit economically from all
those experiences. To progress, the individual – like organization – must be challenged,
participate in conflict, and seek to grow with the rest of the world. Therefore, to be able
to develop in pursuit of self-adjustment to continuing environmental and social change,
the whole (i.e., the system) must be sufficiently unstable to permit diversity, variations of
the elements (i.e., the individuals).
On the other hand, disproportionate diversity of elements, ambiguity, and
conflicts may indeed be destructive and regressive, because people need something
fundamental, a kind of frames of reference to hold onto. Excessively variegated human
substance may bring about a hydraulic syndrome7: anarchy, social disorders, or even a
war that almost certainly downgrade human aptitude, except those for self-defense. Thus,
pathological reference to either extremity equally leads to atrophying of both human
6
7
Inequality in birth, i.e., existence of casts, classes, and other innate social divides
Different pressure in water layers creates instability: waves.
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24
nature and cultural epitome. To secure effectiveness of involvement in shared activities,
organizational/system politics should impart flexible distribution of power, personal
responsibilities, and wise collaboration—not reckless competition. Openness of the mind,
respect, and mutual trust facilitate understanding among individuals and cultures.
Effective communication promotes intellectual, spiritual, and commercial inter-exchange;
idle (“no-feedback”) or harmful communication complicates human interaction, puzzles
coordination of actions, and proceeds as a destructive odic force8.
Unfortunately for the entire human civilization, it happens hardly ever.
Accelerating headlong rush to global laissez-faire, corporate mergers present a challenge
to not just economic competition in the domain of goods, labor, and capital, but to
democracy and its defining virtues. The push toward privatization is bipartisan. This is
not decentralization9 but de-democratization, the shifting of concentrated power at the
highest levels from public to private hands. Power shifted from authorities that were
hierarchical but also public, transparent, and accountable, to authorities that remain
hierarchical but are private, opaque, and undemocratic. Indeed, since globalization is
correctly associated with new telecommunication technologies, the globalized and
privatized information economy is constructed as an inevitable concomitant of postsovereign, postmodern society.
8
The odic force is an all-penetrating force that was reputedly discovered by Baron Reichenbach. He
reported the strongest emanations came from the mouth, hands, and forehead. They diminished with hunger
and increased after a meal. He stated this peculiar force also was presents in rays of the sun and moon, and
can be conducted great distances by all solids or liquids substances, bodies being charged or discharged by
contact or proximity. It is believed to be the underlying principle behind the physical forces of electricity
and magnetism (as well as light and heat). In metaphysical terms, it is the very fabric of the universe and is
present in all things to varying degrees. The Odic Force concept comes across with the String Theory.
9
Decentralization of power is understood as devolution of power down the democratic public ladder—to
provinces, municipalities, and neighborhoods.
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25
In what sociologists call low-trust societies, everyone who is not a relative or
friend is necessarily considered a contender. Immoral “familism” promotes cooperation
within families, but undermines cooperation between families. It thereby perpetuates the
very cultures of extreme wealth and poverty by increasing economic gaps between the
layers of the “social pie”. Nevertheless, despite the overwhelming evidence that nepotism
is associated with distrust, backwardness, violent rules of personal, familial, or
organizational “honor” among Mafiosi in neo-feudal societies, the contempt for law and
fair play may be found in industrialized, technocratic “democracies” as well. Many
dangerous socially constructed side effects in both industrialized and neo-feudal
societies—such as racism, fascism, xenophobia, ethnocentrism, favoritism, to name the
few—are enrooted in the nepotistic, self-preservative propensity that is due to the
superceding power of homogeneity, or the S-force pooling inward. “Cultures that
[embody] closed visions [and] self-sealing values tend to die,” asserts Canadian professor
Gareth Morgan (Morgan, 1997, p.102). Conversely, societies where people have learned
to suspend their distrust of outsiders and to cooperate with strangers are the ones in
which civil society and liberal political institutions flourish.
A comprehensive analysis of cultural horizontal and vertical constructs—with
regard to both national and corporate culture—can be found in the seminal literary work
by Trompenaars and Hampden-Turners “Riding the Waves of Culture”. According to
these scientific authorities, three features of organizational structure are crucially
important in determining organizational culture:

The general relationship between employees and their organization
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
26
The vertical—or hierarchical—system of authority defining superiors and
subordinates

The general views of employees about the future, purpose, and goals of organization,
and their statuses within organizational infrastructure.
There is more. “In looking at organizations, we need [to] think in two dimensions,
generating [four] quadrants. The dimensions [we] use to distinguish different corporate
cultures are equality—hierarchy [and] orientation to the person—orientation to task. This
enable [us] to define four types of corporate culture, [which] vary considerably in how
they think and learn, how they change and how they motivate, reward [and] resolve
conflicts” (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turners, 1998, p.162). The metaphoric
description of four types (see Figure 5, p.VI) is as follows:

The family: person-oriented, “with close face-to-face relationships, [but] also
hierarchical in the sense that the ‘father’ of the family has experience [and] authority
greatly exceeding those [of] his ‘children’, especially where these are young. The
result [is] a power-oriented corporate culture in which the leader is regarded [as] a
caring father who knows better than his subordinates [what] should be done and what
is good for them” (p.162-163).

The Eiffel Tower: role-oriented, task-oriented, “steep, symmetrical, narrow at the top
[and] broad at the base, stable, rigid, and robust. Like [the] formal bureaucracy for
which it stands, it is very much [a] symbol of the machine age. Its structure, too, [is]
more important [than] its function” (p.170-171) and has a rationale of means.
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
27
The guided missile: task-oriented, egalitarian, and impersonal, that is, has a rationale
of ends. “Everything must be [done] to persevere in your strategic intent [and] reach
your target” (p.177).

The incubator: self-fulfilment-oriented, targeting self-expression, i.e., inherently
existential, egotistic, idiosyncratic, libertarian. “However, the logic of business [and]
cultural incubators is [quite] similar. In both cases, the purpose is [to] free individuals
from routine to [more] creative activities and to minimize time [spent] on selfmaintenance. The incubator is both personal [and] egalitarian. Indeed, it has [almost]
no structure at all and what and what structure it does provide is [merely] for personal
convenience: heat, [word] processing, coffee, and so on” (p.180).
Although widely divergent, “people everywhere are [as] one in having to face up
[to] the same challenges of existence” (p.186). Almost all problems and their solutions
are recognizable all over the world. Thus, the understanding of survival value of
coexistence comes with appreciation for diversities and sympathy for those who have
been unfortunate from the start or suddenly broken. It is to celebrate the human spirit that
calls for reason—if not compassion:
It is critical to give status to achievers, but equally crucial to back strategies,
projects, and new initiatives from people who have not yet achieved anything, in
other words, to ascribe status to them in hope of facilitating success. Everyone
should be equal in their rights and opportunities, yet any contest will produce a
hierarchy of relative standings. Respect for age and experience can both nurture
and discourage the young and inexperienced. Hierarchy and equality are finely
interwoven in every culture. …In the final analysis culture is the manner in which
these dilemmas are reconciled, since every nation seeks a different and winding
path to its own ideals of integrity. It is our position that businesses will succeed to
the extent that this reconciliation occurs, so we have everything tom learn from
discovering how others have traveled to their own position (p.187).
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Part 4: Culture Is Communication
The Universe has intrinsic capabilities and limitations of the processing of
information circulating inside the cultural “membranes” and crossways. There is an
opinion that human intelligence, as distinct from the intelligence of non-humans, resulted
from a system transition that has made available psychological operations of a higher
order, different from simple perceptions. However, there is no unanimity among
anthropologists and psycholinguists in determination of psycho-physiological reactions
including thinking styles in the series of natural and cultural phenomena.
As it has been found by Russian physiologist and Academician Ivan Pavlov
(1849-1936) in his fundamental investigation on conditioned reflexes, the animal is not
free to control associations: It grasps only those, which the environment imposes on it. To
control associations, the brain must elaborate intellectual mechanism that makes it
possible to associate any two or several mental representations that have no tendency at
all to be encountered together in experience that means arbitrary associations are not
imposed by the environment. Thus, the human cerebral apparatus gains control over
imagination, formation of associative links and mental representations, related to
language, goal setting, humor, arts, sciences, etc.
The appearance of the thinking beings, which marks the beginning of a new
evolutionary stage—an era of reasoning, which occurs in accordance with the formula:
associating = thinking. And this is an area where anthropologies, psychologists, and
sociologists, until now, cross their swords while debating cultural differences. To throw
light upon this dilemma, it is necessary to allude to a fastening link between associating,
thinking, and learning that somehow has escaped to attract educators’ attention. Some
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29
cultures offer the learning “by rote”, while the other ones emphasize lecturing and
demonstration but without student’s substantial involvement in learning action; some
make reference to “logic” by generously generating esoteric recommendations on how to
learn and striving to envision a “philosophical stone” of learning. In any case scenario,
the failure to involve the learner’s emotional sphere in educational process suggests the
learner to be considered as a “half-brained”, non-emotional biological automaton that is
good enough for information processing. The neglect to pay attention at a huge, untapped
potential of the human sub-consciousness renders the learning more stressful and less
effective. In addition, an overwhelming emphasis on formal-logistic mental operations
does not bring a harmonizing solution to academic problems. It is needless to say that
learner’s aversion for education is predictable due to existing academic conditions.
In 1977, Russian-born renowned biochemist Ilya Prigogine became a Nobel
laureate for his discovery in biotechnology. He has discovered that elegant protein
bundles (see Figure 6, p.VI) do not remain “silent” but communicate through their
membranes with each other and with their environments. Assisted by chemical
messengers, the chemical elements featuring the corpuscular structures are able to
interact (as they do) through their membranes. Healthy corpuscular membranes facilitate
communication between cells that helps keeping the entire system in a good, working
condition. It means that microcosm, too, conforms to the universal laws and operates via
information exchange – communication. It classifies communication as a genuine
controller, catalyst, and vehicle of the processes that happen in the universe.
Chemical reactions in the human body show an amazing functional diversity; but
one thing is in common: the use of energy. To survive, every living or non-living system
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30
must be capable of acquiring, converting, and re-arranging the energy that empowers the
composites of tapestry of life. Energy comes primarily from food that is stored in human
bodies as potential energy. As the reaction proceeds, the molecules release stored energy
for behavior or work. This kind of energy is known as kinetic energy. A stimulus that
triggers off a reaction is really one that transforms potential energy into kinetic energy. It
is as if this stored energy is waiting to be released and that it only takes the right event to
do so. Either environmental pressure or internal stimuli (such as scarcity of energy supply
leading to system’s malfunctioning) can prompt the release of energy through metabolic
reactions. Metabolism is a delicate balancing of chemical elements—inside and outside
the cells. Scientists have also uncovered the ATP and ADP enzymes, which are actually
responsible for re-arranging the chemical elements organized in molecules and, thus, they
are the “energy currency” of life. By re-arranging the molecular structure, the metabolic
agents “unlock” energy keeping the cells and the entire system alive. Metabolism is,
indeed, enzymatic reaction of the system defying the death. Since the individual and the
culture are rudimentary constructs of the nature and, thus, they are subjected to the same
universal laws as the other segments of the natural world, effectively coordinated
communication inside and outside the social membranes (that is, “corpuscular
metabolism” among individuals and cultures) would facilitate re-distribution of synergy10
to create healthy and wealthy families that would strengthen the entire global community.
Any life piece is a delicate part of nature. Human society is no exception. The
individual, as well as the culture, is motivated (i.e., stimulated, forced, or “invited” to
react), firstly, by external, environmental stimuli inbuilt in situational context and,
secondly, by internal, psycho-physiological motives promising incentives. These stimuli
10
Abraham Maslow’s term
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31
release the energy necessary to command and regulate the velocity11 of human behavior.
They also can operate as foundation for manipulations with human consciousness,
because, at any time, individual or social consciousness is being exposed to straight or,
more often, to veiled influences from other persons.
According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, accretion denotes “accumulation of
the matter”, “the process of growth or enlargement by a gradual buildup as by adhesion
of external parts or particles”. In cosmological terms, accretion refers to accumulation of
dust and gas onto larger bodies such as stars, planets, and moons. For the human society,
accretion has a specific meaning, which applies to the relation between the leader and the
society/group. The accretive power of leadership magnetizes the social “matter”, which
accumulates around the organizational “nucleus”. The effect of manipulating with social
consciousness largely depends on the velocity of organizational leadership.
Group consciousness—the group mindset—from which the individuals operate
within organization and which colors their decisions and interactions, generates a specific
communicative orderliness: a system of signal codes—language. Each verbal and nonverbal signal code enfolds a certain amount of energy—quantum—that empowers
people’s reactions, but only when the information signal from the environment is
perceived by the censors and information seems valuable to the addressee. Quanta
transcending via communicative activity generate vibrant and erratic wave-based energy
fields, or cultural ether, analogous to electromagnetic field. Cultural ether shapes an
internal structural-functional pattern of the core contents and the way the cultural field
interacts with the rest of locale. Deeply and broadly infiltrated in human consciousness,
11
Speed and direction
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32
a new communicative module of leadership, like a billiards ball, is capable of changing
the velocity of events.
Unfortunately for the human civilization, technological advances combined with
the intensive brainwashing make it easy to entice a large population into the ideological
trap of a power-hungry group. The latter always strives to trigger social uncertainty in
order to achieve the desirable goals. The history has proven it can happen at any time and
in any society. Adolph Hitler (1889-1945) was swept into power in a democratic way—
by general election. In the beginning, the national-socialist (Nazi) doctrine was strong but
non-aggressive. However, shortly after having got on top of the state apparatus, the Nazis
intensified political propaganda and cultural apartheid. The majority of general populace
of Germany of 1930s was simply swept away by the swastika spirit and was going
hysterical each time when the Führer was making his public appearance: the idea of
national supremacy was promising wealth to a large body of voters. The state machine of
Nazi leadership was skillfully manipulating with the national consciousness, which, like
yeast, grew domineering, arrogant, and aggressive. The “natural” superiority of the
Arians over the other ethnicities started as local “cleansing” and oppression of minorities,
and then, it reached its apotheosis when World War II was unleashed. Nevertheless, the
Third Reich— in the same way as the Roman Empire, or the Genghis-Khan Horde, or the
invasion of the Europe by Napoleon Bonaparte—has found its disgraceful logical end.
Besides, like any process, the wave of culture is conceived inside the matrix, then it
develops (typically and unfortunately, into a monster), and undergoes later the next
transformation of energy: Culture is a never-ending process of transformations of
energy—from one state into another. And the group leadership, an organizing and re-
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33
distributing force at the steering wheel of the society, is—more often than not—
responsible for “ship wreckage” and, thus, the first one to be blamed for, because it
controls velocity of communication.
Very often, the Presidents of the countries, as well as ordinary citizens, forget
about a simple rule that business persons skillfully apply at any time they enter into
contact: negotiation is the simplest way to finding the middle ground. Mutual
accommodation—not confrontation—makes a lucky day of the businesspersons.
Negotiation comprises communication. “Communication is [of] course essentially the
exchange of information, be it words, ideas, [or] emotions. Information, in turn, is [the]
carrier of meaning,” Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner underline. “Communication is
possible [only] between people who, to some extent, share a system [of] meanings, so
here we return to [our] basic definition of culture” (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner,
1998, p.75).
Communication is primarily supported by verbal acts that compose a dialogue.
Western societies predominantly prefer verbal communication, to mention that wordprocessing and graphics were developed to facilitate verbal communication. Some
cultures were ingenious in developing a variety of codification systems that allow
conveying, assimilating, intercepting, codifying, and decoding information.
Oral conversation is a bilateral (dialogical) process, which involves at least two
participants and goes on as undulation. Thus, listening to the partner is no less important
than speaking: a pause in conversation—silent conversation—can convey as much
information as it does a well developed verbal expression. The pattern of silent
communication, accepted in many cultures, frightens the Westerner, because in the West,
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the moment of silence is interpreted as a failure to communicate. Adversely, exaggerated
talkativeness, when another person is not given time to finish his or her sentence or
“inappropriate” modulations of voice may be “read” by the Non-Westerner as a sign of
disrespect and rudeness. For that reason, feedback must be anticipated; communication
fails when feedback is not expected nor is welcome (see Figure 7, p.VII).
Communicative effectiveness also depends on the status of the filters through
which communicative process goes on: on the one hand, the personal-cultural filters of
communicants and, on the other hand, the transitional filters—interpreter, analyst, mass
media, etc.—delivering the message to its destination. Additionally to verbal interaction,
non-verbal communication (gesture, mimics, body positioning, eye contact, etc.), which
is more difficult to put under conscious control, reveals sometimes more than the person
would like to say.
Edward T. Hall identifies “out-of-awareness” aspect of communication: “We
must never assume that [we] are fully aware of what we communicate to someone else.
There exists in [the] world today tremendous distortion in meaning as men try to
communicate [with] one another” (Hall, 1990, p.29). Indeed, the meaning of the message
sent is filtered two-three times before it reaches its destination: First, it is “encoded”
through personal and cultural “lenses” of the sender. Then, like a ray of light passing
through water, it is altered by additional filters (such as mass media or another mediatorinterpreter). Finally, it is always being “decoded” through personal and cultural filters of
the receiver. Like a ball crashing into the billiards knot, the word12 is able to re-direct
creative (or destructive) energy to control the velocity of events. A passionate and
eloquent leader or a motivational speaker is capable to activate or to “clog” the human
12
In this context: the informational nucleus, successfully arrived at its destination
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35
mental receptors: the Mentalese of culture will outburst with extreme excitement or will
rest, somnambulated by the sweetness of the words.
The current globalization era has made even more obvious that the new
fundamental reality—communication—is a power commanding the world. Facilitated
communication assists understanding among the individuals: improved connections of
“cells”—humans—makes smoother the progress of intellectual, spiritual, and commercial
interchange among cultures. But that, in turn, leads to jeopardizing the very existence of
cultures and accelerates the emergence of a cosmopolitan culture—the global mind.
notions as information and communication, on one hand, and acceleration and
intensification, on the other, refer to globalization and noosphere. The characteristics of
information content and velocity of information dissemination are the vital factors that
catalyze (accelerate or decelerate) all local and global events.
There are good reasons for thinking that diversity of information content and
cultural pluralism are integral virtues of a democratic, multicultural society. Now this
may all represent a new and powerful logic of information economy that dictates its own
imperatives. But almost no one has spent much time trying to think about how the new
economic logic in which private monopoly is a public good affects the traditional logic of
the democratic society, which holds that private monopoly is a public bad.
The impact of globalization—which can be understood as industrial-commercial
integration alongside cultural homogenization—on diversity is misleading, because the
sources of content and information delivery appear to be multiplying. Analysts argue that
entertainment and media trends are superficially pluralist and empowering, because they
cover different consumer bases. However, to suggest there is no real overlap and there is
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other than one information market is to misunderstand how the technology and
commercial monopolization affect the real issues of globalization.
While monopolies of the nineteenth century were in durable goods and natural
resources, and exercised control over the goods for the body, the new information-age
monopolies of the twenty-first century are insidious and exercise control over news,
entertainment, and knowledge that affect the goods of the mind and spirit. When
governments control information and news, it is called totalitarianism; when
monopolistic corporations control media, it is called free market strategy. In fact, in the
new information society, the whole point of “convergence” of informational means and
networks is to eliminate the features that separate hardware and software, the carriers and
the content, until there is a seamless stream of information and entertainment entering
one’s home: one medium, one subject matter, one audience. Telephones, computers,
televisions, VCRs, DVDs, video stores, and content companies are the segmented way of
the past. The new media company controls them all; in an economy that demands
integration and convergence, this means they must control (i.e., own) one another. In this
way, the owners of telecommunications that carry the contents do become monopoly
gatekeepers. Monopoly is not an accidental outcome but a necessary condition of doing
business in a new world. Thus, convergence means monopoly and vertical synergy
integration; capitalism is no longer defined by real diversity, genuine competition,
differential markets, and multiple firms: these are anachronistic practices of the
industrial past that have no place in the postindustrial information-economy future. To
avoid humble variegation and uniformity, the global society faces the challenge to find
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new social paradigms that would encourage variegation and collaboration among
species and harmony with the local and global environments.
Conclusion: Civilization Belongs to Civilized Man
Public turmoil arises from uncertainty and frustration. The protectionist backlash
bespeaks a deep insecurity in the face of a world out of control. Until recently, one could
look in vain for a global “we, the people” to be represented. Yet, the democratic world
really is out of control because the instruments of benign control—democratic governing
institutions—simply do not exist in the international setting, where markets in currency,
labor, and goods run like engines without drivers.
Happily, that is now changing. The rising internationalism of transnational civic
institutions and social movements promises a measure of countervailing power in the
international arena and serves as an alternative to the reactionary politics. The new
millennium has brought new efforts at overcoming the obvious global imbalance of
power and at humanizing the meaning of human life. Assembling umbrella groups and
intellectuals, committed to strengthening global civil society, demand a serious hearing
on the global scene. This powerful global “wake-up call” reminds to the world oligarchy
that there are new forces seeking to be heard in the global dialogue, progressive forces
looking for a broader consensus for a democratic concert of nations, those that want to
internationalize, democratize, strategize, and acquire legitimacy rather than withdraw
from the new world order. All this activity suggests human civilization is entering a new
era in which global markets and servile governments will no longer be completely alone
in planning the world’s fate.
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38
Although it has not yet attracted the attention of the media, inured to good news
and preferring to celebrate globalization uncritically by treating resistance to it as social
turmoil or worse and effectively ceding the modern information economy to the private
forces that control global markets, there is another kind of globalization—a crystal of
internationalism forming around the world. Effective global governance to temper the
excesses of the global market does not exist yet; however, international activism by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) has made some surprising gains. People who care
about public goods are working to recreate—in a global scale—the normal civic balance
that must exist within democratic cultures, organizations, and ordinary persons, because
democracy is impossible without social justice.
It seems, sometimes, humanity is about to lose the final battle between the good
and the evil. To be able to reduce social entropy within the person or within the system,
creative radiation of human communication and deeds must prevail over egotistic, selfcentered trends. There is no “win-lose” antagonism: only availability of polarities
promotes life dynamics. Energy strings, vibrating in different ways, are that perpetual
mobile, which generates all life sequences. Multiple issues concerning the eventuality,
mobility, and quality of human relationships as well as the future of the world suggest a
simple truth: Although civilized man may be easy to conquer, civilization belongs to
civilized man.
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39
References
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