[Music] when we compare culture to an iceberg who can begin to understand a very important quality that all cultures have in common the most significant feature of an iceberg is that most of it is under the water and you can only see about ten to fifteen percent above the surface from above the rest of it is a bit of a mystery we know it's there we just can't observe it easily when we look at a culture we find the exact same characteristic when you visit another country for the first time you will notice lots of
small differences in how people dress the food they eat the music they listen to and generally how they behave and how they do things these are the aspects of a culture that we can observe and experience easily using our five main physical senses let's look at some examples of the types of things we find above the surface first of all there will be the language you might not understand it but you can hear it and see it so it is obviously there next come all the different forms of art including music dance cinema painting sculpture
theater and architecture cultures are maintained through their traditions customs and rituals closely linked to these are the different religions which are associated with particular cultures food is more often than not central to our region's identity and what people eat and how they eat it and who they eat it with can give us an insight into their ways of life how people from other places dressed differently is also very noticeable at first although maybe less now than in previous eras above the surface we can also see a cultures institutions which include its organizations and societies and
its laws and practices lastly on this iceberg we can see Manus which basically refers to the ways in which people can be polite and show respect to the people around us tourists on their holidays interact with foreign cultures at this level which is perfectly fine but for a deeper understanding of a culture then we must take the plunge and find out what's going on down below language is a fundamental part of culture and in this situation is the link between above and below the surface as we begin to descend we find the things that people
think about and can probably describe or explain using the words of their language we have five examples on our iceberg which are beliefs ideals norms roles and concepts when we talk about beliefs we aren't just talking about religion religion is the institution that we can experience above the surface the belief systems of a culture are fundamental to how it views such things as education science history politics and all its other institutions in general a coach's ideals are they generally agreed upon understanding of what is best for the individual and for the society as a whole
a good example of this is the American Dream which is a somewhat vague yet very compelling idea about working hard and taking social responsibility in order to achieve financial political and social freedom for the individual and the family the norms of a culture are basically the behaviors and actions of people which are considered by the society as normal and not unusual human beings are naturally conservative in many ways and throughout our history anything unusual or out of the ordinary have likely to mean danger everybody within their lifetime will take on many different roles for example
every man will play the role of a son many will go on to become husbands fathers and then grandfather's society offers countless roles that individuals work towards and take on as part of their identity our gender ethnicity economic status job or career and personality determine which kinds of roles we will take on the concepts of culture are its ideas and general ways in which people think about things it is an endless list but includes concepts about the importance of family what it means to be a good friend the importance of individuality and privacy and how
to be happy along with more abstract ideas about innovation time and life itself lastly we come to myths in many context these days the word myth has come to mean stories that are probably not true but real myths are much much more than this a myth is a very old story that wealth may not be 100% physically true contains a meta truth this is a truth that is vital to our reality but on a level beyond descriptive factual language myths provide us with a link to the deepest depths of the iceberg because down here language
is not capable of completely describing the abstract nature of what we find at the deepest levels of the cultural iceberg are the emotions and feelings that people generally have because of the limitations of language here cultures must rely on the Arts to give us insights and clues to help us understand what is going on and to help us explore the meaning of such things as values desires assumptions tastes and attitudes let's begin with the core values of the culture by values we mean the feelings people have towards the most important aspects of humanity so how
valuable is friendship is it worth more than family or loyalty to your employer is success and wealth more important than generosity the values of a culture include evaluations of honesty courage integrity humility and many other qualities what do people want at a superficial level we would all probably want to win the lottery so does this mean all we desire is money of course not we desire the things that money can bring such as safety power convenience and let's be honest the hot sexy girl or guy of our dreams but there are also the things that
money can't always help us with like friendship respect health and peace of mind most intercultural and communication courses warned us that we shouldn't assume anything but in reality this is impossible we all make countless assumptions every minute of every day we assume the light will come on when we flick the switch that the bus will come not too late that a good performance will be rewarded or that our kindness will be returned maybe it is how we react to situations when our assumptions are not met that is really important here our attitude toward something is
how we have decided to think and feel about it it can be positive or negative and influenced by our emotions having a bad attitude having an attitude out of step with other people within the culture can make life very uncomfortable for the individual concerned and for everyone else that comes into contact with them the word taste is mostly associated with food but in the broader sense it simply means the things that people like and dislike so people can have different tastes in almost everything including stories fashion music movies and even other people finally there are
the things that influence the culture from the outside these are the things over which the culture has no control to appreciate how much climate and geography influence a culture just imagine a cold mountainous village somewhere in the middle of a vast continent then compare it to a coastal city in the tropics and think about the differences in the challenges their populations face every day demographics is concerned with the details of a population including how many people there are the percentages of each gender the amount of people in each age group and the location of each
of these right now in the early part of the 21st century the world has never seen such powerful mediums of communication undoubtedly there is fierce competition to control the flow of information which in turn has a huge impact on the direction and development of our cultures certainly in the modern world and perhaps throughout history most cultures have had little control over the economics that affect them it is fair to say that richer more powerful cultures have always exerted influence over the others whether by accident or design the export of American culture over the last 100
years or so is a good example since the very first human beings began using stone tools the rate of human innovation has gathered pace exponentially it is reasonable to suppose that the dizzying rate of technological advances so far this century will continue to develop ever more quickly into the future so it is also reasonable to wonder how human cultures will cope with such rapid changes to summarize an iceberg makes for a very useful metaphor because of its hidden depths in relation to culture the top of the iceberg that we can observe easily is all about
the things people do their behaviors and their practices but we find that most of a culture is below the surface and that these are the things that we can't observe so clearly these are the parts of a culture that come from people's thoughts and feelings and are therefore much more difficult to identify and understand [Music] [Music]
