Episode 72 - Human Nature: Radically Cultural

[00:00:00] Speaker A: I will never forget the day that I brought a ham sandwich to school on a Friday. The kids in my classroom reacted very negatively, saying things like, you mustn't do that. You're not allowed to eat meat on Friday. And that made me feel sad and anxious. I never took a ham sandwich to school on Friday again. [00:00:31] Speaker B: Hello, this is Joseph Scholz and welcome to the Deep Culture Experience where we explore the psychology of intercultural understanding. And I'm here with my fellow Deep Culture geek, Ishita Rai. [00:00:45] Speaker C: Hello, Joseph, and hello to our listeners. I love that fellow Deep Culture geek as we are kicking off season seven. [00:00:56] Speaker B: Amazing. Starting season seven, you know, this is not a huge social social media phenomenon, but we have a really solid base of listeners. Just the other day, Leo was talking about being at a conference and someone came up to her and said, I recognize your voice from the Deep Culture podcast. It is so great to meet people [00:01:17] Speaker C: and talking about social media. Lots of exciting stuff going on. You have started posting on the podcast's Instagram account. [00:01:27] Speaker B: We talk about things that are coming up. We give a behind the scenes look at the process of how we make the podcast. [00:01:35] Speaker C: So check out Instagram, it's JiiPodcast. You can also search for Deep Culture Podcast. [00:01:45] Speaker B: So starting season seven, we wanted to start off with a big topic. [00:01:51] Speaker C: And the title of this episode is Human Nature Radically Cultural. And we chose this topic because we wanted to explore the idea that human beings are cultural by nature. [00:02:07] Speaker B: And sometimes you hear people say, well, in the end, we're all human. But when they say that, I think that what people are really trying to say is that ultimately, at some deep level, people everywhere are the same. [00:02:22] Speaker C: But the question is, is that true? [00:02:26] Speaker B: So in this episode, we're going to explore this idea of human nature. We what do we all share as humans? And what do you get when you strip away all the layers of culture? [00:02:39] Speaker C: And we will argue that it is not possible to strip away culture and find a separate core human nature. In fact, it is the opposite. Culture is at the core of human nature. We'll hear stories from the podcast team. They remind us that the most powerful way to discover your cultural nature is foreign experiences. [00:03:06] Speaker B: And that brings us to part one, the problem with human nature. [00:03:25] Speaker C: So let's talk about a basic question. If you strip away culture, can you find some core human nature? [00:03:34] Speaker B: So first, let's look at what's right about this idea of a core human nature. For starters, this idea is a cornerstone of the notion of human rights. That each individual, simply by being born, possesses natural Rights due to their intrinsic human nature. Article 1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights says, all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. And this reflects an idea that you hear in other thought traditions in The New Testament, for example, Matthew 7:12, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. [00:04:16] Speaker C: And you hear this in everyday intercultural situations also. I will never forget when my French friend Yves said something like this. It was a cold, snowy evening in Molleuson, a small town in the center of France. He came to my house and said, it must be the first time you've seen snow. Come on over for some beef stew and a glass of wine. So there I was, a brown woman sitting in his living room with his wife and his sister. And he said to say, tu est francais, mais enfants, nous somme tous des etri un. You know, you are Indian and I'm French. But in the end, we are all just human beings. And it was a very comforting feeling on a snowy night in a foreign country to hear that. [00:05:17] Speaker B: And we do connect with people who are very different from us through these small gestures does give this sense of a shared core humanity. And let's call this intercultural lesson number one. [00:05:34] Speaker C: But we also have to look at what's wrong with this idea, or at least what it misses. First of all, the whole idea that humans, or even things in general, have some essential nature is particularly common in Western societies. [00:05:53] Speaker B: So you could say that the idea of a universal human nature is not itself universal. [00:06:00] Speaker C: Universalism and essentialism is a big part of the Western philosophical tradition. For example, Plato believed that under the changeable surface could be found an eternal form or essence. Like there are different kinds of dogs, big, small, furry, floppy eared, whatever. But there is an essence of dogness, the eternal form, [00:06:40] Speaker B: The essence of dogness. I love that. And this thinking has been applied to humans too. Rene Descartes said that if you strip away everything that can be doubted, including emotion, sensory experience, you reach an essential truth of humans as a rational, conscious subject. [00:07:01] Speaker C: And can I just point out here, the idea that emotion or sensory experience can be quote, doubted assumes a separation between the body and the mind, which again, is a very cultural assumption. [00:07:19] Speaker B: And that's just not the only way to see things. Thought traditions like Taoism, for example, see the world as something in flux, things in relation to each other. Many traditional cosmologies see the physical world not as a collection of essential objects, but as intimately connected to a spiritual realm. [00:07:40] Speaker C: So let's pull back a Little bit. The idea that human beings have a core human nature that's essentializing the tendency to look for a singular quality to define something. [00:07:55] Speaker B: Like when someone says, well, we're all basically animals. Or if a Christian says humans have a sinful nature. [00:08:03] Speaker C: Or when a mystic says that each of us is part of a larger consciousness. [00:08:09] Speaker B: So this is where the blind spot comes in. Each of these statements may be true in their own way, but they also reveal the particular perspective of the speaker. For example, Eve served you beef stew and a glass of wine, because for him, that's a comforting food on a cold night. But what if you don't eat beef? What if alcohol is sinful? [00:08:33] Speaker C: And there are many Indians who would not feel cozy being offered beef and alcohol. So this is also where this idea that we all share a core human nature can trip us up. Because Eve really meant well, but for him, the same means the same. Like him. [00:08:55] Speaker B: Okay, but I can also imagine someone saying it's the superficial things that are cultural. Maybe Eve would say, yeah, so maybe many Indians don't drink alcohol. But there's something deeper. Like people everywhere all have the same basic drives. People everywhere, everywhere love their families. Everyone has to eat and drink. [00:09:16] Speaker C: And there is no denying universal qualities. We all have bodies, we all use language. We care about status, we seek connection. But again, there's a blind spot. These universal qualities are all cultural. We all eat, but what and when and how we eat is cultural. There are families in every society, but what it means to be family is cultural. Ask an Indian to show you a photo of their family and then ask a Norwegian. [00:09:58] Speaker B: So when you look at what is universal in human nature, you find the what is universal, but the how is cultural and also the why is cultural. Why not drink alcohol? Is sex before marriage? Okay, Is a belief in God important? Should you follow your parents advice about who to marry? [00:10:19] Speaker C: Or more fundamentally, are men and women equal? These are very basic questions about the nature of human beings. And people's feelings about these things are literally all over the map. And this gets scary, because believing in a single, essential human nature can be used to bring people together. But it is also used to dehumanize those who are seen as not living up to our expectations about what it means to be human. [00:10:55] Speaker B: We see this in politics. We, the good normal people, are all united in our common humanity against those foreign hordes. They are all essentially the same. Do things that we would never do, and in wartime, they are the enemy. They must be defeated and killed. [00:11:13] Speaker C: So all this is getting a bit Heavy. But where does this leave us? [00:11:19] Speaker B: So lesson one is, yes, we do share a common human nature, but we can't forget lesson two, that cultural difference is in our nature, and it's in our nature to be blind to culture. But this brings us to a bigger if culture is so central to our humanity, then why can't we see it? [00:11:42] Speaker C: And that brings us to part two. Are you blind? Okay, so let's start with a thought experiment. Joseph, imagine that you were born in West Bengal, raised in a Hindu family, speaking Bengali. Would you be the same person you are now? [00:12:21] Speaker B: That is such a hard question. I suppose I would be more like you in some way, but I. I don't know. It's so hard to even conceive of such a thing. It's like trying to imagine that you don't speak your native language. [00:12:38] Speaker C: It's really weird that we don't feel that we are cultural, but it is impossible to imagine having been raised differently. It's a massive contradiction, right? [00:12:51] Speaker B: We don't normally think, oh, my culture has caused me to perceive this situation in this particular way. We just think, well, that's how things are. [00:13:01] Speaker C: In terms of evolutionary psychology, we survive much better if culture becomes automatic and embodied. Cognitively speaking, we are creators of habit. You could even say we evolved to be culturally blind. [00:13:18] Speaker B: And this sounds abstract, but it's something that cultural bridge people know firsthand. To discover your cultural blindness, you need to experience other cultures. You need to adapt in ways that are not easy. I never felt American until I went to live in Mexico. [00:13:37] Speaker C: And it can be life changing to discover this radical fact. [00:13:42] Speaker B: So to explore this a bit, we asked the podcast team what experiences have taught you about the radically cultural nature of being a human being. And the one thing that kept coming up was that foreign experiences make us question our own assumptions. [00:14:01] Speaker C: And that is something that podcast team member Vanessa Eisenberg discovered. [00:14:10] Speaker D: I get frustrated when friends ask me [00:14:12] Speaker A: for advice but don't see the solutions [00:14:15] Speaker D: which seem obvious to me. For example, I'll say, why not just do what makes you happy? And they say, but I need everyone to be happy. I think, how can you ever make everyone happy? But to them, I'm being unreasonable. They wonder how I could be so selfish. I grew up in Singapore, but in a British family, and my values tend to be more individualistic than some of my friends. Recently, I was talking to a friend about relationships. She said that before dating, she has to talk to a person about political alignment, religious beliefs, thoughts on gender roles, marriage, children, and so on. I was shocked. It sounded more like an interview than a date. I said, you are taking dating too seriously. Get to know them first. If you really like each other, the differences can be worked out. She said no, she can't, because she has a responsibility to choose the right person, not only for herself, but but for her family too. While I understand these differences intellectually, I still find it difficult to take them in at a deeper level. That's what's radical about culture. Things that are obvious and true to me may not be to you, and vice versa. [00:16:07] Speaker C: I love Vanessa's honesty. She admits that understanding these differences intellectually does not make it easy to accept [00:16:18] Speaker B: them at a deeper level, and that is very humbling. First of all, you have to admit that you may be wrong about things which seem very obvious and right because [00:16:30] Speaker C: it's how we grew up. When we are children, we absorb the worldview that surrounds us, and that is something that new podcast team member Jessica Janda discovered. [00:16:45] Speaker A: My radical cultural learning journey started in my childhood. I was eight when I moved from a big, diverse city in Germany to a small, homogenous village in Poland. The classroom in each country was very different. The German classroom was full of children with different ethnicities, beliefs, and values. They were used to others having different customs. In Poland, students had similar beliefs and practices. Everyone was expected to go along with the majority. Traditional Catholic households in Poland don't eat meat on Fridays. In my family, we weren't that religious, so if there was meat in the fridge on a Friday, we'd eat it anyways. I will never forget the day that I brought a ham sandwich to school on a Friday. The kids in my classroom reacted very negatively, saying things like, you mustn't do that. You're not allowed to eat meat on Friday. And that made me feel sad and anxious. I never took a ham sandwich to school on Friday again. Children embody their culture from a very young age, which is why the German and the Polish children reacted very differently to diversity. I learned quite early that when our reality is challenged, it's easy to have a strong emotional reaction, even for something as simple as a ham sandwich for lunch on Friday. [00:18:26] Speaker C: What a great story. I really feel for her not fitting in in class. I especially love how she says something as simple as a ham sandwich, because yes, maybe a ham sandwich is a simple thing, but for a believing Hindu or Muslim, eating a ham sandwich may be unthinkable. The thought could literally make someone sick. [00:18:53] Speaker B: And you cannot simply say, oh, feeling disgust with pork is cultural. It's a custom. It is Much deeper than that. It is deeply embodied. It is essential to who we are. This is what we mean when we say you cannot strip away culture. [00:19:12] Speaker C: And there's a ton of research in cognitive psychology and cultural neuroscience that identifies how culture shapes cognition, emotion, identity at a very deep level. And that's something that podcast team member Yuto Aki is very interested in. [00:19:32] Speaker B: Oh, and a big shout out to Yuto. He has just moved to the United States, to Houston, Texas, where he is starting a PhD program studying neuro linguistics. Super cool stuff. [00:19:44] Speaker C: So let's hear what he has to say. [00:19:49] Speaker E: Does culture affect perception? Does language affect thought? In the past, these basic questions about human nature were debated by philosophers. Today, research is finding answers that I find radical. Richard Nisbett has shown that when you ask Americans, which most go together, a cow and chicken or a cow and grass, Americans tend to say the cow and chicken because they are both animals. Chinese participants, on the other hand, more often say, the cow and grass go together. Why? Because the Americans perceived two objects belonging to a category while the Chinese saw a situation. Cows eat grass. Research like this teaches us that while we may think that we are simply seeing the world objectively, our perceptions are shaped by culture. Lera Boroditsky and colleagues explored the question, does grammatical gender actually mean anything to the speaker? Do Spanish speakers feel anything masculine in the word Sol or feminine in the word Manzana? Researchers gave names to Spanish words, names like Jessica or John, and participants were asked to remember them. In one condition, the gender of the Spanish word and the name were matched. For example, Sol and John, Manzana and Jessica. In another, they were unmatched. For example, Sol and Jessica, Mansana and John. It turns out people remembered the names significantly better when they were matched to the grammatical gender of the word. So indeed, grammatically masculine and feminine words are experienced as somehow associated with men and women. To my mind, research like this shows that our eyes are not cameras simply reporting facts. Our experience of the world is shaped at a deep level by language and culture. This is both fascinating and humbling. It reminds us how little we understand our own perceptions. [00:22:42] Speaker B: I love this idea that our eyes are not cameras simply reporting facts. [00:22:48] Speaker C: I'm the one who is seeing the world how it is, and all those other people don't really get it. [00:22:56] Speaker B: I was also really interested in the story that podcast co producer Sana Bosma shared, and I was remembering things that she said in episode 54, Love Across Cultures, where she and her partner Armen talk about the challenges of an intercultural [00:23:13] Speaker C: marriage and Here we get some backstory we hear about earlier in their relationship journey. Let's listen. [00:23:26] Speaker D: So in 2014, when I was working at the International Business School, our management decided that faculty should participate in intercultural competence workshops. Ah, that's interesting. I thought, I can learn about my foreign students and colleagues. Little did I know that the ground was about to shift under my feet. Not just at work, but in my personal life as well. First, some background. So at the time, my partner and I had been together for nine years. We met in high school. I was 17 and he was 19. But we had different backgrounds. He was born and raised in Armenia until he was 10, when he immigrated to the Netherlands with his family. So in the workshop, I learned about cultural dimensions, collectivism, description and achievement ideas that were new to me. At first they were simply interesting concepts, but then they started to click in place. Ah, so that's why he cares so much about his parents opinions. Something that had always felt a bit immature, and why his parents give unsolicited advice about our home and even about when to have children. Now what really shook me, though, was the parts of myself that called into question. Damn. That's why I always felt that age should not determine who gives advice and why independence from my family feels so important. So these workshops triggered a shift. Common sense ideas were called into question, which left me unsure where I stand and wondering, where do I go from here? [00:25:40] Speaker C: I was really struck by Sana's choice of words. The ground was about to shift under my feet. It left me unsure where to stand and where do I go from here? [00:25:52] Speaker B: And I found myself thinking, okay, so at this point, Sana and her partner have been together for nine years. That's a long time. But she was still discovering these cultural [00:26:03] Speaker C: patterns, and that made her aware of culture within herself, which is what really makes the ground shift beneath your feet. [00:26:13] Speaker B: And that can be another blind spot. If we go to live in a foreign culture, we may not realize how psychologically challenging it can be, because you may have to adapt yourself to very different ways of experiencing things. [00:26:29] Speaker C: And that's something podcast co producer Leah Thorhild Liana Harz Karnes experienced. Let's listen. [00:26:42] Speaker D: Living in the Philippines and learning Tagalog taught me a radical cultural lesson about emotion. As a Westerner, I have always experienced thoughts, actions, and emotions as separate. To be mature means navigating between thoughts and emotions. Maybe you feel anger, but choose not to raise your voice. No one can make you feel anything. If I reinterpret an event, I can change the emotional response to it. Cognitive therapy works for very much in this space. In the Philippines, I learned that this experience of emotion is not universal. In Tagalog, for example, emotions are not adjectives describing something you have, but verbs that describe something you do. They point to what causes the feeling. Like saya, which means happiness. It's coffee that makes me happy. I can also say that I made someone feel something. I remember struggling to understand the Tagalog word tampo. It can be translated as to pout or to sulk, but that doesn't begin to capture it. Tampo refers not just to a single state of hurt feelings. It also includes a kind of relational script. A person who is nagdatham po might should know why I'm hurt. I am withdrawing until you recognize what happened and give me affection to soothe me. And that soothing also has its own word, lambing. You might hear someone say, she's tampo. You need to give her some lambing. Living in the Philippines has opened my eyes to the variability of human nature. I thought of things like emotion as basic psychology, core aspects that would be the same everywhere, but they're more cultural than I realized. [00:29:08] Speaker C: I really relate to this feeling that people and thoughts and feelings and actions are all interconnected. In Bengali, the word obhiman is this complex experience. It is a kind of hurt pride. You are angry, hurt, jealous, all mixed together. And the interesting thing is that you can only have obhiman with someone you love. So my partner might do something that makes me feel obhiman, but if my colleague does the same thing, I don't care. [00:29:47] Speaker B: Wow. So let's regroup. Things that we think are universal, like emotion, can be experienced very differently, depending on language and culture. [00:29:58] Speaker C: And that brings us to another difficult reality. If how I experience things is simply human, then the way that other people experience things can be seen as inhuman. [00:30:13] Speaker B: And that's something that new podcast team member Graciela Harb has experience with. [00:30:21] Speaker F: I teach intercultural communication in Lebanon, a country with great diversity and great division. And I remember in one of my lectures on perception and the power of words, a discussion developed around the use of the term martyrs. I first explained that within one system of thought, the word has an almost sacred meaning, in a sense that some people understand those who die as having sacrificed themselves, defending their homes, their people, their land. And I could see reactions right away in my class. Some students nodded. A couple added something like yes, because they were defending their homes and their people. But other faces in the room, they went still colder looks or just silence. And Then I shifted to a different system of thought. Others look at the same deaths and use words like victims or casualties, or maybe see those involved in the fighting as acting against the country's interests. And here I saw the nodding shift. It was clearly a different set of faces responding this time. You know, we tend to think culture is the thing we encounter when we travel, the thing that's foreign elsewhere, other. But my students didn't have to leave the country or even the room to hit a gap that felt. Felt unbridgeable. That's what's radical about culture. I mean, these were not strangers from different countries. They were classmates. Same nationality, often the same city, sometimes even the same street. And yet death, something I would have assumed was about as universal as a human existence experience, gets turned out not to be shared ground at all. What I realized is that culture wasn't just giving my students different opinions about the word martyr. It was shaping what kind of death they believed they were looking at, what emotion that death called for, and even what more moral response felt natural. And most of that was happening before anyone said a word. [00:33:14] Speaker C: First of all, my heart goes out to everyone in Lebanon and beyond that has been affected by the terrible violence there. Our understanding is that Braziella is not under immediate threat, but we know that everyone is affected. You are in our thoughts. [00:33:36] Speaker B: The words that really stuck with me are culture wasn't just giving students different opinions. [00:33:45] Speaker C: I am from India, where even today there is routine dehumanizing of the other, including terrible violence. The trap is to believe that we alone understand human nature, what's normal and [00:34:02] Speaker B: what's right, because dividing between us and them is a deep part of human nature. And that brings us to part three, united by culture. So we've been saying that human nature is cultural. And one thing that's radical for me is that this is not such a common thread in many thought traditions. [00:34:43] Speaker C: And we are totally oversimplifying here. But broadly speaking, we can find two major approaches to understanding human nature. Let's call them the rational and the mystical. So the first one, the rationalist, essentialist perspective, we think of as Western. [00:35:07] Speaker B: Now, this goes way back, all the way to the Greeks. But let's go back to the 17th century, when the scientific revolution was just starting. And one of the key figures was Rene Descartes. He was born in 1596, and he was part of a big turn towards rationalism. In 1637, he published Discourse on the Method. And according to Descartes, what sets human beings apart from all other creatures is our Capacity for rational thought. He famously said, I think, therefore I am. And this approach contributed to an intellectual revolution, the Enlightenment, the idea that you should trust reason and empirical inquiry. [00:35:56] Speaker C: And to be clear, we owe a lot to Cartesian thinking. This podcast, for example, seeks to be logically sound, grounded in research. If that seems normal to you, it's thanks to the kind of searching for truths that Descartes valued. But what that also means is that truth has to be independent from anything subjective feelings, religion, culture. [00:36:25] Speaker B: On the other hand, there are more holistic or mystical perspectives. Taoism, Hinduism, shamanism. And these traditions see humans in relation to larger truths. For a mystic, human beings are fundamentally spiritual beings. For a religious believer, we may be all children of God. These are things which are seen as transcending culture. [00:36:50] Speaker C: But here's the thing. The idea of human nature being cultural does not fit so neatly into either of those traditions, and neither naturally lead us to insights into how central culture is to human nature. [00:37:18] Speaker B: And so, being the cultural nerds that we are, we wanted to track down this third way of looking at human nature as something cultural. And just as an aside, there is an argument made by some cognitive scientists that the way that Buddhist practice culture describes mental processes is in line with research in cognitive science. And that makes it a little bit hard to categorize here. But anyway, we'll give a reference for that at the end of the episode if you want to learn more. [00:37:49] Speaker C: So let's get back to the 17th century. Just at the time that rationalism was taking over European thought, there was an alternative to Cartesian thinking that was way ahead of its time. Ideas that put culture at the center of an understanding of human nature. [00:38:11] Speaker B: And we're talking about the work of Giambattista Vico. This is someone that I had never heard of before we started preparing for this episode. He was an Italian philosopher who was born in 1668, shortly after Descartes died. And Vico has a very appealing story. He came from a modest background. His father was a bookseller, his mother was the daughter of a carriage maker. The story goes that as a child, he fell headfirst from a ladder and was seriously injured. It took him out of school for three years. He was self taught, he was very widely read, his thinking was unconventional. Eventually he earned a doctorate in law and became a professor of rhetoric. [00:39:00] Speaker C: I hadn't heard about Vico either. But before we get into his thinking, I have to say his timing was terrible. He was not widely recognized in his lifetime, even though his ideas anticipated disciplines like anthropology, sociology, cultural theory. And that's because he was active just when Cartesian thinking was taking off among European intellectuals. But he rejected Cartesian thinking. [00:39:35] Speaker B: So what were his basic insights? And this does get pretty geeky, but bear with us. For Cartesian thinkers, feeling customs, tradition, these get in the way of rational understanding. But Vico rejected the idea that abstract rational analysis is the fundamental mode of human understanding. He claimed it was rather the reverse, that by studying the cultural worlds that humans have made, we gain insight into human nature. [00:40:16] Speaker C: He emphasized what he called ingenium, the human capacity to perceive relationships, similarities, metaphors and connections. A cognitive scientist today might talk about this as intuitive knowledge and pattern recognition, much of which happens out of conscious awareness, which the rational mind does not have access to. [00:40:45] Speaker B: And Vico also talked about what he called sensus communis, which could be translated as common sense. But he described this as judgment without reflection. He said that we inherit ways of understanding the world that feel like common sense, but are actually cultural knowledge. [00:41:07] Speaker C: So for Vico, human beings are cultural at a very deep level. [00:41:14] Speaker B: So let's get back to the question we started with. Does stripping away culture reveal an already existing human nature? [00:41:22] Speaker C: Descartes would say yes, but Vico says the opposite. He looks for what is universal by understanding how humans create cultural worlds. His view feels very modern. [00:41:38] Speaker B: And so let's trace this thread to others who have talked about the unconscious and cultural aspects of human nature. Fast forward to the 20th century. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. He used the term doxa to describe social realities that we take for granted and don't question. So he refers to the fact that a person does not have to consciously know the rules of their society. They can simply have a feeling for what is appropriate, respectable, embarrassing, desirable, ridiculous, whatever. [00:42:15] Speaker C: And then there is Edward hall, considered the father of intercultural communication. He says that culture shapes our everyday lives. It creates a world of meaning, and this is invisible to us. It is exactly like you said earlier, Joseph. We don't normally think my culture has caused me to perceive the situation in this way. We only think that this is just how things are. [00:42:46] Speaker B: And even more recently, the fundamental premise of the field of cultural psychology is that humans are fundamentally cultural beings. Researchers like Richard Nisbet, Shinobu Kitayama, Joseph Henrik. And for more on that, you should definitely check out episode 55, How Culture Made Us Human. And this season, we also plan on doing an episode telling the story of the field of cultural psychology. So much to look forward to. [00:43:17] Speaker C: So where does all of this leave us? Does stripping away culture reveal some basic human nature. [00:43:24] Speaker B: Well, it's an attractive idea and it can lead to real connection, but it can blind us to the fact that culture is part of our operating system. And you know, we've been pretty technical about all this. But people who live between cultures often discover how deep culture is firsthand. Like Leah in the Philippines, or Sane [00:43:49] Speaker C: discovering that her thinking is more cultural than she thought. And Graziela, who knows that telling her students that we all share a common human nature is not going to solve conflict and division. [00:44:03] Speaker B: So we have covered a lot of ground today. Ishita, what is your takeaway from all of this? [00:44:10] Speaker C: I find myself wondering about what it means for me as an educator. I don't want to make intercultural understanding sound easier than it really is. I want to dig deeper into what it really means to be human. How about you Joseph? [00:44:30] Speaker B: Well, I was really affected by Graciela's experience teaching intercultural communication in Lebanon for her students. These ideas are not abstractions. They are literally a matter of life and death. And recognizing that difference runs deep even as we share a common humanity is just not an easy thing to communicate. And that is about all we have time for today. So let's share some sources. To learn more about the cow, chicken and grass research and other ways in which culture shapes cognition, check out the work of Richard Nisbett and in particular his book the Geography of Thought. You should also check out episode 19, why do we Think Differently? If you're interested in the connection between Buddhism and cognitive science, check out the Embodied Cognitive Science and Human Experience by Varela, Thompson and Rosch. Years ago, this was my first introduction to cognitive science. It's a real landmark book. [00:45:33] Speaker C: Yuto mentioned research into language and thought. It was from Sex, Syntax and Semantics by Boroditsky, Schmidt and Phillips. That's in the book Language in Advances in the Study of Language and Thought. [00:45:49] Speaker B: The Deep Culture Experience podcast is sponsored by the Japan Intercultural Institute and npo, dedicated to intercultural education and research. I am the director of jii and if you like this topic, you've understood that the themes we cover are deep. If you are an educator or an intercultural professional, you should take the next step. Sign up for jii's Deep Culture Approach Masterclass series. It is facilitated by Ishita and me. You take part in a learning community with cultural bridge people and together we dive into the psychology of intercultural understanding. Look for more information on JI's website or get in touch at DC Podcast Japan Intercultural Also, follow us on Instagram. Look for JII podcast or search for the Japan Intercultural Institute Deep Culture Podcast. [00:46:45] Speaker C: And hey, A special welcome to the new members of the podcast team, Jessica Janda and Graziella Harb. So happy to be collaborating with you. Special thanks this month to co producers Sana Bosma and Leah Thorhild, Liana Hars Karnes team members Vanessa Eisenberg and Yuto Aki, sound engineer Robinson Fritz and JII's administrator Ikumi Fritz and everyone else at JII. [00:47:18] Speaker B: And thanks to you, Ishita, it's been great kicking off Season seven together. [00:47:22] Speaker C: Thank you, Joseph. I really had fun talking about human nature with you. Sam.