WEEKEND FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Handling Cultures 8 June 2025
What is taken for granted for some is not easy for others. There is a great amount of stress that relates to understanding, handling and confronting cultures. In every country, however small, there are many cultures and possibly languages which people handle at their own domestic level and possibly without much domestic stress. In any large country with various languages and diversity, the best language that is non-controversial and gets the work done is – sign language.
Kofi Annan once said “We may have different religions, different languages, different coloured skin, but we all belong to one human race”. The majority of human beings consider themselves non-judgemental, non-racist, non-sexist and strive to be ‘tolerant’ of everything and everyone. There are however many international citizens that I come across, who carry their traditions, thought processes and their belief around the world with them and judge the world based on their values. The human disparity between their own truth and the perception of others leads to expectations. The main reason for disappointment is this expectation. All humans carry their pre-conceived notions about other cultures and other generations. The Bhagavat Gita mentions how every player’s action in history will be judged later but on the basis of people’s own “values of that day”.
The elder generation today stresses about the way the younger generation thinks. Many ‘modern’ thinkers find themselves stressing on the concepts of Woke-ism. Western values tend to lead way to change in societies that would have otherwise not accepted many ideas in their previous generations. The flamboyance of western influence in Persia was judged when it happened and then their eventual retraction into a conservative mindset is also judged by many using their ‘values of that day’. Ladies being ‘allowed’ to drive a car in Saudi Arabia is news in the media when many cultures ‘expect’ that is should have been aa norm by their standards/ value of the day; possibly 2-3 generations ago it was not an accepted norm in their own culture as well.
When you are driving on a highway or motorway, every driver slower than you is an uncouth moron and every driver faster than you is an irresponsible idiot. The judgement and disappointment out of these expectations leads to ridiculing, abusing, brewing venom and ultimately to mindless road rage.
Capt Pappu Sastry
CEO – ASL & RMAC
