When the war in Iraq started, I was doing a presentation in Gothenburg for a group of Swedes, who worked extensively with Americans. Wishing to quickly identify some of the cultural differences between Swedes and Americans, I wrote on a flip chart the headings, “Blix” and “Bush,” then asked the audience to name specific personal traits they felt described these two gentlemen. It was an interesting exercise. Hans Blix was described as patient, thorough, calm and cautious and George W. Bush as impatient, power hungry, nationalistic, and theatrical. I then asked them which list they preferred; not surprisingly just about everyone said they preferred the Blix list!
I then told them that if the audience been American, I was sure the response would have been different. Chances are that many Americans would have found the characteristics listed under Bush preferable to those listed under Blix.
Let’s look at this a little closer. An American, describing Blix might see him as indecisive rather than patient, too picky instead of thorough, dull rather than calm and lacking nerve rather than cautious.
On the other hand an American might describe Bush not as impatient, but daring to take a stand, as a strong leader rather than power hungry, patriotic and proud rather than nationalistic, and inspiring rather than theatrical.
The point is that most of us don’t realize how the way we act and what we do may look from other perspectives. Underlying values and beliefs color our actions, as well as our interpretation of what others do and how they do it. Because of this, we are often surprised to find out that someone from another culture completely misunderstands us.
In the current political climate, where the dirt is flying in every direction and the division between Europe and the U.S. has been growing, it would be helpful for all of us to take a deep breath and try to understand what the other side sees. If we are willing to look and listen we can probably find that many explanations can be found in our cultural differences. And it certainly would behoove politicians around the world to brush up in this area as well.