How right is right?

This post deviates a bit from funny and auto world posts that my blog otherwise is full of. I was reading through the blog of my friend Maharaj and read something on religion and stuff and I was impressed. This post has nothing to do with that, but that did motivate me to put in words something about which I have been thinking for sometime now.

A disclaimer before I go ahead - this is nothing more than just a thought. The real world might appear to be far from this, but nevertheless, it's just another way to look at things.

I have sometimes looked at statements like "Country X is a highly cultured country" and wondered does it mean that rest of the world is not cultured? I thought about many ways of defining culture, but finally bought the one that wikipedia says - "theoretical bases for understanding, or criteria for evaluating, human activity" - in a very broad way, it is the value system of population in general. Now, the definition of culture is not that important to rest of thoughts I have in here.

Let me start with an example. I went on a short 10 day training trip to US in Oct. 2005. As excited I was about being first time in US, I was a bit perplexed as well. Right from immigration counter to taxi to people in general whom I met, appeared to be a fraction arrogant to me. My immediate conclusion was Americans are arrogant and highly extrovert! - based purely on the following observations: 1) People spoke in a tone not considered 'courteous' in India 2) The language used was direct as opposed to some inherent 'respect' that is possibly found in India 3) People communicate every possible feeling and they go on and on and on! Too extrovert for my liking!

Yeah, having seen this, the easy immediate conclusion I could draw was people in general are arrogant and extrovert!

Days passed by, I actually didn't think about it while at training. On my return journey, I had good 20 hours on flight and I was running through the entire experience. And I again said, well it was nice being here, but I found people arrogant and extrovert.

But is that really true? Or is it all my perception? Since then, I have been trying to solve this conundrum and have had little success at this. The interesting aspect comes in when I think 'who would my American friends call arrogant and extrovert?' - That then got me thinking that probably people there too would have this relative comparison among themselves? So, are all these things relative? Or is there an absolute measure to this? Stretching the argument a bit further, is there an absolute good or bad? Or what is good in one society would be totally bad in the other? And if this is true, what is the driving factor to all this?

By no way, have I understood this to any level of comfort, but my take on this is:

1. Our 'perception' and 'judgement' of 'good' vs. 'bad' is probably based on the way we look at the world
2. The way we look the world is driven a lot by what we consider as the values that we stand by
3. Our core values are a direct function of the way we have seen things around us and in some ways what we therefore accept as good or bad based on repeated experiences
4. Now this is where culture steps in - or in very simple terms, the values, beliefs and representative common thoughts of entire population.
5. The implication is that 'culture' in one part of the world could be totally different from 'culture' in another part - driven by circumstances, history and a bit based on how leaders and heroes of the land have lived.

Well, this is some ways helped me answer why I thought my American friends were arrogant. I am a big believer of 'law of large numbers' - in a qualitative way though - and the version that I present is that 'given all factors equal one large sample of population should be exactly identical to the other large sample'

However this doesn't seem to be true with my experience - so should I possibly visit again and meet a lot more people? I can, but my guess is that I will come back with a similar conclusion. And this is where the first part of the law steps in - 'given all factors equal'.

To me this is what defines culture. The way we think, our beliefs, our sense of right and wrong is possibly driven by 'culture' or 'cumulative experience of the society that we live in'

Ofcourse, as individuals, we are all different. And these observations are nothing but deviation from the mean or trend in any sample. Qualitative statements somehow don't convey the meaning in an appropriate way. Let me get put in a bit of flavour with some numbers being pumped in.

Let's take "Good" Vs. "Bad" and see how to apply it numerically on different cultures. I can't seem to think of a decent example... hmmm... okay, recently there was a survey conducted by Readers Digest in which Mumbai was rated the 'rudest' city in the world (http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/jun/20mum.htm). Interestingly enough, one of the 3 factors taken into consideration was - how often shop assistants said 'thankyou'. I am not trying to defend Mumbai or India here, but one clear obvious reason is that in India, saying 'thankyou' is not considered a must - there are other ways in which courtesy is recognised, while cities that ranked high probably did have the general 'culture' of saying thankyou.

Now let us say that out of 10 observation points, people in Mumabi said 'Thanks' 3 times while in the 'city A' that topped the list on an average out of 10 observations was say, '8 times'.

So a person in Mumbai who never says thanks is considered rude, may be. Someone who says 'thanks' 3 out of 10 times is average and someone who says it 5 times on 10, is like 'wow! there comes Mr. or Ms. Courteous'

In 'City A', someone who says 'thanks' 6 times on 10 is like considered 'rude', 8 is average and 10 is the 'Mr. or Ms. Courteous'

Now our Mr. or Ms. Courteous from Mumbai happens to visit 'City A'. What reaction would he face there? With 5 thanks every 10 times, he or she would have been 'amazing' here in Mumbai but would be considered 'rude' in City B!

I believe, this is true across every dimension of human behaviour and values. To stretch it further, in some ways the basic sense of 'right' and 'wrong' can also differ on 'culture' that we have imbibed. Well, the implications resulting from this, in my view, are:

1. 'Right' or 'Wrong' is a subjective issue - it depends a lot on the world we have seen around us
2. The above difference in perception can result in conflicts between individuals from different cultures or backgrounds
3. It is therefore important to adjust for these 'cultural shocks' while dealing with different people
4. The challenge is in doing these adjustments 'dynamically' while interacting with different individuals - would be very tough to implement, 'coz in a split second, we need to consider the world and view of the other person and then respond accordingly.

However, there is a flip side to this. It in some ways implies that we should accept anything and everything? How do we distinguish between the 'perceived bad' from 'absolute bad' is a major challenge that I have been thinking about for sometime. I would welcome and appreciate comments, suggestions and thoughts on this. Please reply to this post or mail me with your views.