Reference Points & Culture

Culture is just as much about reference points as it is about differences in values. I would even argue that it is sometimes because the reference points are different and present the dilemma or the mythos behind the value differently that we sometimes see nuances in values. Even when we agree very much with another person and identical values with near identical prioritization, we will ultimately express these things differently and engage with the world with a different attitude because of the influences we have received from different reference points...

The reference points can be so different that almost no common ground exists. I very much learned this when sitting in a class in Korea and the professor wanted to come up with a neutral reference point to stage an example... Obviously, no major politicians were used, and so he started naming some local celebrities which myself and other foreigners hadn't heard of... He then even named a few famous American singers and movie stars which, surprising to me, some of the other foreigners and locals had not heard of. 

Konan

He finally came down to referencing a character I later found out was the star of a Japanese animated series who played a detective - Konan from a show called Case Closed. He asked if everyone knew who he was, and many of the non-Korean Asians knew, and I remember after describing the scenario, I raised my hand and said,

"Wait, are we talking about Conan... the... Barbarian?" 

I remember someone acted shocked for a moment, like I had just implied that this random Japanese detective character was a barbarian... They had zero reference point for Conan the Barbarian. The professor then acted exasperated... naming even an internationally famous animation character that was beloved in the minds of both Japanese and Koreans was not enough because there was a Westerner and an Uzbek who had no idea what he was talking about, and this confusion even brought about a clumsy exchange of words that came off wrong and made someone even wonder if I was saying something racist because they had no idea about the larger-than-life Robert E. Howard character in the Western world. 

I remember thinking about how my negative and skeptical attitude towards certain things could be confusing. For instance, I found that when I talked about the industrial revolution and WWII being catalysts for feminism because it changed the labor market, people were shocked, some even offended, that I would suggest that the changing workplace was a major factor and not idealistic women revolutionaries. Even conservatives talked about how the newly found roles of women were something that were fought for. However, "women filling in for men who were at war" is a very common trope for explaining the rise of second wave feminism in America. 

I also remember that every reference to multiculturalism in Korea would quickly come back to international marriages, the bulk of which were disproportionately mail order brides, and the discussion was also influenced by the number of women who married soldiers and ran off to America in the decades previously. Slavery wasn't a topic, and there were no ethnic minorities to be found at all 50 years ago in South Korea barring a limited amount of well-off Chinese & Japanese merchants, few of whom were integrated or even necessarily interested in integrating. 

But while these differences exist, I've also learned to realize that Koreans and other non-Westerners have very similar values to us. The prioritization can be different, but I have found that it would be no more radical a difference than you would find between a conservative Dakotan and a liberal New Yorker. What is often incredibly different is the references that they have that affirm these values. 

And it is these cultural differences boil down greatly to the way that we refer back to a thing, whether it is through pop TV, literature, or the local history. It is because of these very reference points that we end up with some very different ideas of how problems should be solved and values should be asserted. A Korean who is against alcoholism would immediately see the problem not just in terms of drunks at bars and drunk driving, but also of people being forced to consume alcohol at social functions through work and family, and also in the overall price of the product. Norwegians would likely not see either of these issues in their society, and the way that they would conceptualize the problem would be more about the individual's relationship with alcohol.

It's hard to come up even with specific examples of 'what an American refers to when they think of X versus what a Korean thinks of,' because so much of what we believe, as Westerners or as Koreans, is actually quite personal. What amount of Americans are strong Christians anymore, and what amount of them are going to come at it from a Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, or Mormon angle, that emphasize different aspects of the Biblical teachings of Christ, or maybe not even the Bible at all..? What amount of Americans are patriots, and how many of them are into the 1776 style of patriotism and folk libertarianism that comes with it, or what amount of them are more into the romanticization of 20th century events more than those of the deep history? Such a difference may appear to be subtle, but an Alabaman with roots to the Confederacy and the American revolution may look at these questions of American patriotism very differently than a black American from New York whose grandfather was a Tuskegee airman. 

But what is actually important about American culture in this context is that the black New Yorker and the white Alabaman both are aware of each other's references, while the average Korean could be excused for not knowing much at all about the Tuskegee Airman and 20th century American war (because so much of patriotism in America is located in the framework of military service), the Confederacy, or the American revolution. 

There are, no doubt, easy to find examples of two sets of Koreans & Americans where it is actually the Koreans & Americans having more in common in belief and values than they do with their fellow country men, yet simply not having the same reference points. 

A Brazilian Catholic, a French Catholic, a Korean Catholic, and an American Catholic, all conservatives sympathetic to traditional values and rigid morals, will have infinitely more in common with each other than their countrymen who are opposites, and a lot more in common with each other than even tepid cultural Catholics with one foot in the door of the secular world who are compatriots. They will also have plenty of reference points to draw on from the Bible and Catholic history and characters... 

But the second that a political or social issue comes up, even when they believe the same things, the way they express it and the images and ideas kicking around in their mind will be ultimately different. Even if the Brazilian and the American both support gun ownership, they draw upon different legal principles and histories. Even if the Korean and the Mexican are both against alcoholism and drug use, the contexts in each country are going to be radically different. 

Being of the same culture does not mean being of the same values, but it means being of the same network of ideas and references. Globalism can chip away at this, but the differences are ultimately immutable simply because nobody is surrendering their language nor are they going to spend 15 years watching Brazilian TV and reading pulp fiction novels just because. 

Some shows will be vectors for spreading a nebulous global culture, but we also know that a comedy skit about how terrible your boss is or how funny science geeks are is not actually going to inculcate people with culture. Moreover, Korean Netflix is filled with local content that is generally much more popular than foreign content -- the foreign content is something consumed more individually and in a more niche fashion. Cultural differences will not go away, and thus our reference points will not go away.