HALF A PAGE:A Persian Letter on Cultural Patterns / Media / biweekly.pl

“How can someone be Persian?” asked Montesquieu, expressing the state of mind of astonished Parisians confronted with the strangeness of others. That was precisely my state of mind upon arrival in America. In order to survive, I took part in orientations organised by my university’s Human Resource Department. Orientations can cover any number of subjects: the price of food, bus tickets, and cars, elementary and high schools, insurance, and taxes. The session I was most interested in was the one on Americans.

Everyone is familiar with the phrase “This is America”, an exclamation usually tossed at disoriented foreigners in movies. At the orientation, we were given blue handouts that contained a succinct explanation of what “This is America” actually meant. Not only did they manage to agree upon a single answer, they even succeeded in fitting it onto a single sheet of paper! I have included the table below.

Why do Americans behave the way they do? The values Americans live by.

Value	Explanation	Impact on behaviour
1. Personal control over the environment	People can and should control nature, their environments, and their fates; the future must not be left to fate	An energetic, goal-oriented society; the belief that society controls its own fate
2. Change and mobility	Change is considered positive and good, and is synonymous with growth and progress	A geographically, economically, and socially mobile society
3. Time and its control	Time is of the utmost importance; Americans accomplish more by making productive use of their time	Productivity depends on punctuality
4. Equality/ egalitarianism	People are given equal opportunities; what matters is who they are, regardless of status or background	Americans treat everyone equally, regardless of rank or status, and respect racial and ethnic diversity
5. Individualism, independence, and privacy	People consider themselves individuals with individual needs, not members of a particular group; privacy is highly valued	Americans are regarded as self-centered, somewhat isolated, and rather lonesome
6. Self-help	Americans pride themselves on their accomplishments; they aren’t born into their place on the social ladder	Americans respect others for their accomplishments, rather than for their backgrounds
7. Competition and free enterprise	Americans believe that competition brings out the best in people, and that free enterprise fosters progress and prosperity	Americans prefer competition to cooperation; this applies to the individual as well as the group
8. Future orientation /optimism	Americans believe the future will be better and happier, regardless of the past or present	Americans tend to devalue the past, focusing instead on the tasks at hand and looking forward to the future
9. Action /work orientation	Americans believe that work, as opposed to idleness, is morally good; action is superior to inaction	Americans emphasise “doing” rather than “being”; their schedules are filled with work and deadlines
10. Informality	Americans regard excessive formality in relations as “un-American” and a mark of arrogance and superiority	Informal relations between people regardless of their status; people call each other by their first names
11. Directness, openness, and honesty	You can only trust those who look you straight in the eye and tell it like it is; the truth is highly valued, no matter what it is	Americans tend to tell others the truth to their faces, even if they fear embarrassment or dishonour
12. Practicality and efficiency	Practicality and logic are the main factors that influence decision making	Decisions are made pragmatically and realistically, with logical considerations being more important that emotional ones
13. Materialism /acquisitiveness	Material objects are considered a just reward for hard work; they place a higher priority on obtaining material objects than other types of goods	Americans are often regarded as materialists who care more for material objects than personal relationships

What does a European do when confronted with such a table? She contemplates. She doubts. She applies it to her own experience. Then she inquires about the source, which is exactly what a fellow German and I did. We quickly determined the source of the handout. The table is based on an essay by Robert L. Kohls, an entrepreneurial cultural anthropologist who turned his thirteen-point list The Values Americans Live By (1984) into a private institution. It is a rough equivalent of what the National Centre for Culture does with taxpayer money in Poland. The studies on which the list is based remain a mystery. We open up the website run by Kohl’s institution, which has profited off the ideas of its founder for the past thirty years. There’s no doubt about it: in America, anthropology can be the subject of aggressive historical politics, just as it is in Poland.

translated by Arthur Barys

Tekst dostępny na licencji Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL.