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Video blog

Hi, First I would like to thank you for following my blog, I have had a lot of fun writing it and I’ve had several interesting revelations concerning intercultural communication. Today, I would like to share some of these with you to sort of sum up what I have learned this past semester.

In my first blog, I philosophized a bit about cultural imperialism, which is basically the phenomenon where you force your culture upon others. I wrote that I found it be a very pejorative phenomenon, people always seemed to see it as a threat because they couldn’t let go of their culture, but in essence, I believe almost all forms of cultural imperialism have been exerted with very good purposes. People believed their culture was somehow superior and wanted the rest of the world to join it because they though they could make the rest of the world happy too. However, since they felt so threatened by it, it almost always ended in violence, for instance the second World War, the Vietnam war and so on. This was a very interesting introduction to the course and I’m glad I chose this to philosophize about on my very first blog.

In the second blog, I wrote about high and low context cultures, which I also find very fascinating. Specifically in this part, I learned a lot about the way I look at communication. It’s true that there is always more formal and informal communication, but it was very interesting learning where formal actually became informal and the other way around. It’s quite fascinating to learn about human behaviour and the rules we have set for ourselves. We act completely different when we are in the presence of friends and family than we are in class or church or city hall for example. However, as I always think very hard about all these things, I was recently thinking about how we actually behave different inside our circle of friends, depending on which friend we are talking to. There are friends, for instance, with whom I mostly talk about music and bands and festivals and such, and there are friends with whom I talk about sports or school. And I enjoy this difference in conversational topics because these topics are based on the similar interests you have with a certain friend. However, if you really think about it, you are always taking on a certain role when you are talking to someone. If I don’t agree with something for instance, I wouldn’t really go into this besides just saying that I have a different opinion. So in that sense, can we really be ourselves when we are near friends? Or are we really only ourselves when we are alone? These are all very cool thoughts and theories that have popped into my head.

Then I would like to close this video blog by talking a bit about my latest and probably final blog. As you have probably read, I focus on Albert Hoffman’s communicational model, and I already knew Mr. Hoffman and I knew about his scientific discoveries after having watched several documentaries about him but I never knew he was also active in the field of communication. He has created a very basic communicational model which he based on the earlier models made by Pinto and Hofstede. And this model basically states that, when engaging in conversation with someone, you must first acknowledge each other’s equalities and secondly you must acknowledge each other’s differences. And to me, it just doesn’t get any more simple than that and I believe that is what we need right now. We don’t need very complicated plans on how to deal with other, we just need to think about we are doing and maybe have a very easy 1 or 2 step plan to point us in the right direction.

I am very impressed by him and what he has achieved. I mean, how many people can say they invented methods of dealing with and possibly curing strange illnesses such as schizophrenia and cluster headaches but have also made such an incredible contribution to the field of communication. Right, thanks for watching and reading, see you next time!

Hoffman and arts: the mystery unraveled?

I have recently come in contact with Mr. Albert Hoffman's theories on intercultural communication and I must say I am pretty impressed by his vision. I have already come in contact with some of his scientific discoveries a few months ago after having watched some of his documentaries.

As most of you know, Mr. Hoffman became famous with the discovery of a certain psychedelic phenomenon, but he has also done so much for intercultural purposes. He set up a special kind of model with a fellow scientist/anthropologist by the name of Mr. Arts which is based on the similarities between the earlier models but with a fresh outlook on everything. Since they felt that society was over-generalizing cultures too much, he first stated that: "a meeting between an educator and a parent is not primarily a meeting between two cultures, but a meeting between two individuals." This immediately struck me as very interesting, and after reading his model, I was convinced:

1. Acknowledge equalness
2. Acknowledge difference

I dare you to make it any more simpel than that! While other psychologists focus on so many less relevant things, Hoffman and Arts go back to the basics. However, we mustn't forget that there are a few more complications that need to be taken into account; Hoffman integrated Paul Watzlawick's five axioms into his model, which basically sum up the most important qualities and characteristics of human interaction. In order to understand the next paragraphs, its adviced to read these axioms first, which can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Watzlawick

The axiom that intrigued me the most was Axiom 3 (punctuation): Mr. Watzlawick states that every message can be interpreted differently according to the person that is interpreting it. I think this can be visualized with an example of Creationism vs Evolution (or alternate theories, obviously): As long as we have lived on this planet, there have been certain questions that cannot seem to be answered, such as: "how did we arrive on this planet?" Because there are so many theories based rather on interpretation than on evidence, I feel this is a decent example of Mr. Watzlawick's third axiom.

It seems that I have found my psychologist/anthroplogist/scientist of preference. I have since long admired Mr. Hoffman's scientific breakthroughs and therefore know he was a very wise man. His theory on intercultural communication seems to fill in the blanks much more than David Pinto's or Geert Hofstede's theories.