22 - Enculturated Point of View

The contrasting perspectives I discussed in my last posting brings us to an important and complex issue.

The reason US commentators felt the way they did about Jean Chrétien’s remarks in 2001 was because–quite naturally–they viewed them from a particular national and cultural perspective or point of view. In a similar way, both Palestinians and Israelis view events in the Middle East from perspectives not only different from one another but often from those of people in other countries as well.

Although we may think we do, none of us looks at the world objectively. We view the world from a particular perspective. And that’s a very visceral thing. It affects not only how we interpret current affairs, it affects things as basic as what we feel comfortable or uncomfortable eating.

In the Congo some thirty different species of caterpillars are eaten. In Botswana, caterpillars are so popular they are processed and canned. Certain tribes in the Amazon also eat caterpillar grubs. Termites are another popular food in Africa. Grasshoppers, crickets, and locust have been eaten in many countries; in Japan, candied grasshoppers are served as hors d’oeuvres. In Belize, a large local rat–the gibnut–is considered a delicacy and, because it was once served to the Queen of England, is known as the “Royal Gibnut.”

The average North American, however, presented with a plate of white worms would in all likelihood lose their appetite. But there is nothing natural in that squeamishness. It is only the result of conditioning. People in all regions are trained and conditioned by local custom to see certain foods as desirable or others as not.

This is a pretty basic example of an enculturated point view. And this perspective–this point of view–is such an intimate part of each us that, usually, we are not even aware of it. It is simply the way we see things, the way we look at the world. And people inevitably come to believe that their particular point of view is the normal or correct way of viewing things. One considers all other points of view, insofar as they differ from one’s own, to be either wrong or at least inadequate.

And yet no one is born with a particular set of tastes or a particular point of view; these are things people acquire. They are the product of conditioning, of training, the product of a series of factors over which we have no control–our culture, heritage, family, the education system we've passed through, the contemporary popular culture surrounding us, the television programs and movies we watch, the books we read, the music, the lyrics of the songs, we listen to. Had any of these–or a multitude of other experiences or influences–been different, then one’s “normal” way of seeing things would also be very different. Had one been raised somewhere else, one might seek out canned caterpillars.

Cultures and nations have points of view as well. That is partly what distinguishes them from one another. This should be fairly obvious in Canada; all one has to do is compare the Quebec point of view on certain issues with the point of view of most English Canadians and one has a pretty clear example of the differences which can exist between cultural perspectives.

But the situation becomes even more extreme when we leave Canada. Clearly, there are often differences between the Anglophone and the Francophone points of view. But those differences are minor compared to the differences between either of them and the points of view of a wide variety of cultures existing in different parts of the world. Compare, for example, the point of view of either an English or a French Canadian with that of a fundamentalist Muslim living in Iran or a Communist Party member living in North Korea.