Orienting generalizations can help us remember how we are the same and how we are different across cultures. They can also guide us in making statements about what we know and what we don't about the other. Here are four.
1. We seek truth, beauty, and goodness--what can be observed or demonstrated as true (science), what attracts me and I find pleasing (art), and what we together feel or value (culture).
2. We can start from what we think culture is. "Everything characteristic of or produced by a group of people" is one definition.
What I find characteristic may be the same or different from my own culture. Intercultural understanding starts at home.
3. We need all knowledge perspectives--singular, plural, inside, outside, the I , the We, the It, and the Its (things plural)--to understand culture.
No one (perspective) has all the answers.
4. The knowledge we claim to have about a culture is determined by following a method for a given perspective, looking at the results the method produces, and confirming if others agree.
It is beer experts who best can tell us which beer is the best . . . after, of course, extensive tasting, I mean testing.
Final example. Eat what an American says is a "good hamburger." Then ask: Do I like it? This is the personal test. Do people who know hamburgers like it? The We test. Is it made of the right ingredients? The It test--for a true hamburger. Does it serve the nutritional or economic or other needs of the people who eat them? The Its test.
Knowledge claim. Different and not always compatible answers to the questions are the rule. You might not like the good hamburger, but it might serve key interests (e.g., economic, social) of the culture or country.
