Seeing past your cultural worldview

[LingEarth]

(Responding to a discussion that started in the Speculative Fiction Thread; this seemed different enough to warrant its own topic)

I've sometimes called this "the Ren Faire effect" and it annoys me no end. The trappings are all period, but the way people talk (not necessarily the precise words they use but the conceptional categories which underlie their utterances) and interact are exactly like contemporary folk with only a minimal veneer of otherness. No less an author than N.K. Jemisin (another lefty for you, malloc!) did this with her debut novel and it annoyed me so much I never bothered with the rest of the series.

I think Zompist has pimped this before, but I love The discarded image for just this reason. C.S. Lewis takes great pains to research and reconstruct the mediaeval worldview for modern readers so they can see the people of that time as fully-realised human beings who nevertheless made use of conceptional categories quite different to our own--not "more primitive" ones (whatever that's supposed to mean), just very different. Honestly, it would be useful reading even for authors of speculative fiction set in future space colonies just for how much it makes you think about how much your own worldview is a product of the time and place in which you've been acculturated. (I think reading anthropological studies is useful for much the same reason.)

I've often worried about this in my own writing, that my characters and concultures probably aren't different enough from what I've absorbed all my life from modern American culture, but that I don't know how to fix that since I wouldn't even be aware of what categories could be different.

I do think there a couple of areas where I have managed to see other possibilities, because of personal reasons... due to being trans, I've had plenty of reason to imagine how a culture could view gender very differently from ours; and there's some cultural things that have always felt non-obvious to me as a neurodivergent person. But I have to imagine that there's still a lot of cultural assumptions that it's never occurred to me to consider differently, at least not very deeply.

I'll try to read The Discarded Image sometime. Can anyone point to any other books that can help with this, or more broadly, ideas for how to even start thinking about what conceptional categories can differ between cultures?

[Raphael]

For two very closely related modern cultures that nevertheless have some differences, there's Brit-Think, Ameri-Think: A Transatlantic Survival Guide by Jane Walmsley. Partly inspired by that book, there's http://zompist.com/amercult.html by zompist himself.

[linguistcat]

I think, just like learning phoneme distinctions you didn't grow up with taking practice and study, so too does getting out of your cultural world view. Most people won't care to put in the time, others will fall back on it when it makes for a better story within their cultural context. Some will decide on a culture that they know a lot about besides their own and figure out a story that's enjoyable in the culture they were brought up in AND works in that cultural context.

In any case, in my personal opinion, all of these can be viable ways to write stories but I'd at least try to put in some effort in the case of existing cultures to understand how people there actually think. While it's annoying for the same incorrect assumptions to be written for supposedly Medieval characters through the lens of our modern ideas to be written over and over, it's not generally harmful. There are probably exceptions (like when writing historically oppressed groups), but if you're just throwing characters into a pseudo-"Medieval" world for the fun of it, go off.

[Linguoboy]

I actually got a lot of good insights out of a couple of old sociolinguistic texts called Languages and their speakers. These were collections of essays which were, in essence, short ethnographical sketches of particular societies viewed through a linguistic lens. One that particularly stuck with me was a description of Malagasy culture where communication can be indirect to a degree that would be considered absurd by North Americans (even North Americans like me raised in a bourgeois "guess" culture). In particular, direct requests are taboo because they could lead to direct refusals and, therefore, a loss of face. In one memorable incident, the author describes a local trying to convince him to come visit his village (thereby raising his prestige in the local community) by standing outside his house and saying desperately "This is the road that leads to my village!" because that represented the most direct way he could state the request.

I'm not sure if there are more recent works like this (these titles are long since out of print; I found them used) but that's why I recommend reading ethnographical works. Not long ago I read Gene Weltfish's classic work on the Pawnee, The lost universe, which--in spite of many flaws--is extremely interesting. (Although she attempts to describe some idealised past point in Pawnee history before they were herded onto the reservation, she does depict a society in transition and describes cultural changes which were in progress even before intense European contact.) I remember Mark also recommended a work by a Soviet ethnographer who went around trying to capture conceptual categories from peoples who hadn't been fully acculturated into mainstream Western education. Does anyone recall the name of it?

[zompist]

I enjoy this sort of thing... reading anthropologists will often give you a lot of material, especially their more informal works. Edward Hall's The Silent Language is a classic; I also loved a book called The Naked Anthropologist (ed. Philip DeVita). Isabel Fonseca's Bury Me Standing is outstanding, on the Romani. I re-read Alex Kerr's Lost Japan every couple of years. Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence is delightful and helps explain that exotic and sometimes maddening people, the French. Daniel Everett's Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes is a great book on the Pirahãs. Liza Dalby's participative anthropology in Geisha is wonderful.

Anna Wierzbicka has studied cultural differences on a linguistic level. Also from my bookshelf: Politeness, by Levinson & Brown. These are both far drier works though.

Travel narratives can be good for talking about superficial culture clashes, though a lot depends on how empathetic and adventuresome the writer is. I read some excellent books by Indian-Americans visiting India; also a couple strangely insensitive books by V.S. Naipaul. Sometimes it's pretty evident how far the writer is from really understanding the culture.

[Raphael]

I'm afraid I can't think of any additional resources, but I'll bring up one specific example of different cultural viewpoints that I heard about long ago:

Among well-mannered Germans, if you're a guest somewhere and there's food, it's traditionally seen as good behaviour to always empty your plate, to show that you appreciate your host's hospitality and won't let good food go to waste. Meanwhile, among well-mannered Egyptians, if you have guests and serve them food, it's traditionally seen as good behaviour to make sure that there's always some food on your guests' plates, so that your guests don't have to go hungry.

So if a well-mannered German is a guest at the home of a well-mannered Egyptian family, you've got all the ingredients for a neat little comedy of errors.

[Linguoboy]

Recently there was an absolute furore online when some non-Swede living in Sweden posted about how it was apparently common for native Swedes not to offer guests food in certain circumstances. There were even anecdotes of children coming over for playdates and being left in a room by themselves while their friends left to have dinner with their family. The reaction of pretty much the entire Internet was "EXPLAIN YOURSELVES!" (which some Swedes gamely attempted to do).

This points to another useful source of information which is simply talking to people. Folks like to criticise small talk but it's fascinating the cultural variations you can discover even within your own society by asking the most innocuous questions. I understand the worries some people might have about not making others feel self-conscious but I think if this is done respectfully--if you commit to listening non-judgmentally to the replies and paying attention to others' comfort level--it can be quite a positive thing.

[hwhatting]

Another way is to talk to older people - e.g., in my lifetime cultural norms in Germany on things like the use of formal and informal pronouns or whether it is appropriate to chide other people's children have changed considerably, not to speak about norms regarding marriage, divorce, homosexuality...

[Linguoboy]

Another way is to talk to older people - e.g., in my lifetime cultural norms in Germany on things like the use of formal and informal pronouns or whether it is appropriate to chide other people's children have changed considerably, not to speak about norms regarding marriage, divorce, homosexuality...

"The past is a foreign country."

Last year, I had the opportunity to talk a little with my (deeply closeted) gay uncle about my trans niece. The differences in our respective experiences are pretty huge, to say the least. If I'd been born even ten years earlier, the chances that I would have become a sexually-repressed priest rather than an openly gay man go up considerably.

[Ares Land]

I would have become a sexually-repressed priest rather than an openly gay man go up considerably.

I was really surprised at how common a background this is for Catholic priests.

[hwhatting]

I would have become a sexually-repressed priest rather than an openly gay man go up considerably.

I was really surprised at how common a background this is for Catholic priests.

Makes sense, though - if your culture makes it difficult to live your sexuality, you don't loose much in choosing a job that requires celibacy (and you'll get rid of all those relatives who constantly ask when you finally will settle down with a nice girl).

[Linguoboy]

I would have become a sexually-repressed priest rather than an openly gay man go up considerably.

I was really surprised at how common a background this is for Catholic priests.

I was literally told in grade school, "Some are called to marriage, some are called to priesthood." There was no third option presented.

In my early teens, my father joined something called the permanent diaconate. This was part of the RCC's response to the priest shortage. By the 20th century, the position of "deacon" had become a transitional step between "reader" and "priest". But while deacons had almost all the same faculties as priests (the main difference being that they couldn't preside over the transubstantiation of bread and wine), they weren't required to take a vow of celibacy. So by recruiting married Catholic men to become deacons, the RCC could vastly augment the supply of clergy. Every man in my father's class of at least 40 was married, with one sole exception--and he was considered odd, because, after all, if you were already celibate, why wouldn't you just become a priest?

I've always assumed that gay liberation was a big part of why there was a priest shortage in the first place. I think an even more important factor, however, may be the ongoing loss of prestige. My late husband was ordained in the 70s and he still experienced the reverence with which priests used to be treated in public. He told me it could be embarrassing at times, such as when an elderly man would insisted on offering his seat on a crowded bus. All that changed when the sexual abuse scandals began to break. He noticed fewer and fewer priests wearing cassocks in public. (As a child, I don't remember ever seeing a priest not wear one.) He often found people reacting suspiciously to him when he revealed that he used to be a priest, sometimes even after he'd explained that he was laïcised in good standing (i.e. he left of his own accord, not because he was asked to or expelled).

[Torco]

I was literally told in grade school, "Some are called to marriage, some are called to priesthood." There was no third option presented.

my gran (born 1913) used to say exactly the same thing.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I imagine "the gays" (or whatever we're meant to be calling ourselves these days) would otherwise make good priests, too. I'm a terrible public speaker myself, but I retained a taste for stained glass, incense, and liturgical music long after I'd lost any supernatural belief.

[Linguoboy]

I imagine "the gays" (or whatever we're meant to be calling ourselves these days) would otherwise make good priests, too. I'm a terrible public speaker myself, but I retained a taste for stained glass, incense, and liturgical music long after I'd lost any supernatural belief.

There are, of course, endless jokes along these lines. My favourite (from a satirical article in a local rag) is "an Episcopalian priest is an interior designer with a side interest in religion".

[Travis B.]

Somehow, though, I don't see being an Episcopalian priest as being quite as, well, gay as being a Catholic priest, simply because it does not require being celibate. E.g. someone I knew in high school and college became an Episcopalian priest and is married with a kid to another Episcopalian priest (they met at their seminary).

[Vardelm]

someone I knew in high school and college became an Episcopalian priest and is married with a kid to another Episcopalian priest (they met at their seminary).

I wish I had thought of this in my 20s. Hooking up would have been much easier.

[Travis B.]

One thing that will be weird for that kid is growing up with both of your parents being priests.

[Moose-tache]

Somehow, though, I don't see being an Episcopalian priest as being quite as, well, gay as being a Catholic priest, simply because it does not require being celibate. E.g. someone I knew in high school and college became an Episcopalian priest and is married with a kid to another Episcopalian priest (they met at their seminary).

Where I'm from, Episcopalianism is just "chill Catholicism." It had all the fun art and sit-stand-kneel and stuff, but with less guilt and intolerance.*

*the intolerance here being middle class America's homophobia and racism; I'm well aware that the Catholic church in some areas has the opposite reputation.

[Linguoboy]

Somehow, though, I don't see being an Episcopalian priest as being quite as, well, gay as being a Catholic priest, simply because it does not require being celibate.

Conversely, most Episcopalian congregations allow clergy to be openly gay, so it's an attractive option to both repressed gays and those who don't wish to hide their sexuality.

Trying to recall if I've slept with more Pisco priests than RC and I think it's a tie (and I've been around a lot more Catholic priests). Also, the one rabbi I've had sex with was in a heterosexual marriage, so keep in mind that "married to a woman" and "gay" are not mutually-exclusive categories.