Comments on German and American Culture and Society
#18 The Acid Test
In discussing culture, people sometimes get worked up about the use of "profiles" or "characteristics" in describing a people. For example, a high need for security is presented as a "German cultural characteristic," or a tendency to take quick action as an "American cultural characteristic." This then leads to a discussion of variance within a population and the dangers of stereotyping. Not all Germans wear green felt hats with feathers, not all Americans ride horses and shoot guns, and so on.
The misconception here is that we are somehow trying to distill a set of essential qualities that a group of people has, much as a chemist determines the properties of a compound. As if we were searching for the essence of, say, "German-ness."
I would like to suggest an alternative view. If I say, as in the last Letter, that Germans often have a greater need for orderliness, then that is not so much a "characteristic" that I have discovered, but more a characterization that I am telling you. Not an essence, but a story.
We are story-tellers by nature. We do not simply observe and relate what we observe, but we interpret, evaluate, analyze, explain, generalize, simplify, and so on - just as an author does in writing a story based on his or her experiences with people. These stories can then be helpful for the rest of us in dealing with life's challenges, or not.
Thus, in reading such cultural "profiles," "characteristics," "parameters," or "Transatlantic Letters," remember that, at best, expert opinion is opinion, and will only be of value to you when you test it. Here's the acid test: your own communication with such culturally-different people. So go out and test, and good luck to you in the great laboratory of life.
(http://www.howtogermany.com/transatlantic/transatlantic-18.php)
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