Cross-cultural Communication for a Better World

[adilyoussef]

Hi!
I hope that everyone is alright. So I just want to share your humble point of view about the role that cross-cultural communication can play to solve conflicts between nations. There is luck of communication between the members of the same family let alone between people from different cultures and backgrounds.

Speaking different languages involves different views on the subject discussed. Coming from different countries and carrying with that the knowledge and the culture of that country is worth being shared. So let us share our points of view and the culture that it is in our veins. Let us open up and talk to each other without complexities and barriers. Let us try to make the world better than it is, at least in that small space provided for us to share our knowledge – this humble forum.

What I’d ask you to do in this thread, if you like so of course, is to give your point of view on the subject in view and to end up by a question if you like. You can answer any question asked by people posting here or just favor us with your opinion if it is possible.

Thanks in advance

To beggin, I'd ask a question: can cross-cultural communication solve the conflicts between nations?

[EAP]

Cross-cultural communciation can certainly 'thaw' the hatred but never melt it completely. When two groups of different idealogies vie for dominance, things never settle down till one of the groups is devoured by the other or both fight eachother to extinction.

[adilyoussef]

Yes that for sure. What I whant to understand is why people don't want to understand each other? Arogance, fealing of superiority, hatred, prejudices make them so. More pain than joy in the life of a misirable creature neglected by its family mumber. We came from the same father and mother: Addam and Ev. We live and addapt acording to the place where we are as other animals do. So better explain who we are and make the others know the kind of people we are than to fight them for, as usual, a nonsensical reason.

What makes of you a different person, gives the others an urgent need to know you more. So why people don't want to know each other? Why do we always close the door behind us and never care of our naibours?

[Nightshade]

I started with a long and complex answer to this and now have change my mind. Here for what its worth is my opinion. No, I dont it will solve conflicts, conflicts are not made by communication break down it simply the international face and fact of humanity. Fighting, hating greed jealousy, competivness and pure being-a-bully-ness(sorry mind blanked on wghat its called) are all parts of human nature and there is nothing that will stop that to my mind.
People dont really want true cross cultural communication because people need enemys they need monsters and if they understood the people they were hating it would make it harder, it might just mean that they might be wrong.

I suppose I have this opinion as a cross culture child ( which is a fancy handle I use to mean I am a hal western half eastern person.) One of my Grandads Bombed the other and that is a fact to life. Cross culture communication is not whats needed people just needed to remember there is at least 2 sides to every story and there is seldom any really right or wrong in international conflicts or Wars.

[mono]

I certainly agree with you, adilyoussef, that a very overwhelming inequality exists, and, from this, frequently stems war, anger, greed, power, but, on a brighter note, generous service to those with lesser abilities, health, and skills. I also agree that a considerable contributor to this problem arises out of miscommunication, lack of understanding, and lack of empathy.
Hypothetically, if the earth had a universal language, dialect, and expression, however, some citizens will strive and remain in success, as others lie dwelling in poverty; this, itself, I think, could also contribute to unpeacefulness.
Henry Murray, a motivational psychologist, worked for much of his life discovering the three base motives in life, and found them as a motive for achievement, power, and intimacy. Centuries earlier, Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher, more cynically, labeled the same three base motives in life as greed, envy, and fear. Which ever one makes sense more, I cannot judge, but obviously we all own these natural drives, and they persist in different immeasurable levels in each being.
With these motives and drives, and however much elements of truth they contain, I have no doubt that virtues of understanding, empathy, and better communication would help, but I fear that these motives would eventually rule, depending on either the independency or interdependency a person and/or nation has.

[Scheherazade]

I agree with Night that cultural differences is part of 'human reality'. If it were not for visible cultural differences, it would be something else... which is why there are North/South divides, gender conflicts, generation gaps, fights between football fans, competition between highschools or classes within the same school...

In short there will always be 'Big-endians' and 'Little-endians' (Liliput vs Blefuscu) because it is in our nature to try to feel and prove ourselves superior to those who are different from us. And we hardly want to give this feeling up however false or misplaced it is.

[Monica]

It's true that cultural differences are sometimes incredibly big and maybe even impossible to overcome but still, I think, people are people in the sense that there are more similarities between us than differences. Everyone wants to achieve happiness but we sometimes forget that there are others around and we seem not to take inrto consideration their way of seeing things. But if we try to understand that despite differences we're one (well, "we're one but we're not the same") and we live in the same world with the same laws then, I think, no cultural differences will hinder us from communicating with each other and live in harmony.

[Koa]

I can't imagine the world without different languages and cultures... it would be so boring! It hurts me sometimes to think how much a different language can imply a different vision of thing, the impossibility to translate some concepts, the different concepts that a same word can imply in 2 different cultures. But it's part of the human life and nature. I belive that human beings are basically doomed to loneliness, because a perfect comprehension is never possible - even when speaking the same language and having the same cultural background. But trying to explain to each other the differences and trying to share them can make us feel somehow closer, and is somehow a richness that can make life so interesting and full.

I love when I happen to spend hours talking with some 'foreigner' about cultural differences, about languages etc... it's jsut so interesting. That's why I believe differences must not be erased. Conflicts come from other reasons mainly, that is power and money...