Month: September 2019

The first group of people that came to my mind when I thought of thinking of people as a group rather than as individuals were non-Americans. This is a pretty general group of people, but I think that culture plays a big role in the way people think about and view others. It is (relatively) easy for me to interact with Americans no matter where they’re from in the country, their religious or ethnic backgrounds, or political views because we share and understand the same culture. While interacting with someone who is not American, there tends to be more awkwardness and maybe more misunderstandings due to a difference of culture. But when you start actually interacting with individuals who belong to these groups, you begin to see them as individuals rather as a mysterious group.

If you don’t interact frequently with “outsider” groups, then you will not be able to understand their culture. This can lead to some animosity or perceptions of “weirdness” as people can see cultural differences as being rude or impolite. It also allows for people to see a group rather than a set of individuals because their defining characteristics to you may be their physical appearance or their different culture because you don’t know anything else about them. This may lead to a dehumanizing effect on that group of people if you treat them as a monolith.

The social practice of “othering” can lead to exclusion and misunderstandings between groups of people. This can lead to feelings of resentment in both the majority and minority groups as well as promoting a kind of social segregation between groups. It can also lead to the dismissal of people’s culture because it is not understood. Another effect might be poor decisions being made in relation to a group because they’re not properly understood. On a large scale, this can be seen in the American wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan where common complaints are/were that the local situation wasn’t properly understood before entering these areas, making the initial American goals in these areas very difficult to achieve.

 

I grew up in a suburban town in northern Virginia outside of Washington DC. Some environmental factors that are different between there and the Middle East would be the ethnic make-up of the population, majority religion, and the climate, among many others. Where I live grew up the majority of people are Caucasian, (of European descent) but also with large minority populations of Asian-Americans(mostly from east Asia) and Hispanics(mostly from central America).  In the Middle East there are probably a good amount of Caucasian people, but they would be in the minority, not the majority. It is doubtful that the Asian or Hispanic populations would be significant there. Another large difference is the majority religion. Where I grew up it is majority Christian, and the Middle East is majority Muslim. The climate in each place is very different, with the Middle East being hotter year round with little to no seasons and very arid, while in Virginia there are all four seasons and it is usually very humid. Another difference is that the buildings, cities, and settlements in the Middle East are much older than in the US. Also, the US is a democracy whereas many middle eastern countries are not. These are just a few of the many differences between these two places.

These differences would lead to a lot of differences in day to day life, and thus a lack of understanding between cultures. The huge differences in culture would reflect differences in the clothes people where, how people entertain themselves, what people eat, etc. The climate difference would also heavily impact these things. The worldviews of people in these two places would be different because of their different governmental systems, history, and culture.

Some resources to use to help increase understanding of the Middle East are the news (diversified sources, not just western), historical books about the Middle East and its culture, and meeting people who are from the Middle East (either visiting it physically or meeting people in the US who come from there).

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