WHEN first asked to collaborate on a project which involves a rethinking of cultural relations, I must admit that the proposition struck me as both worthwhile and very daunting – and I just want to mention very briefly some of my thoughts on what such an undertaking involves. Clearly, cultural relations are as central to our dealings with each other today as they have ever been – in a sense, they are a basic part of the realities we inhabit. For one, issues of cultural identity are often in forefront of political discourse, and sometimes conflict. But also, we live in a world in which various kinds of cross-national contacts and movements – migrations, travel, various kinds of both enforced and voluntary nomadism – are on the rise, and in which flows of communication are multi-directional and constant. If we are to meet with each other on the basis of trust rather than tension or misunderstanding, we need to have ways of getting acquainted with each other which are more than cursory, or purely instrumental. But how can this be accomplished? What kinds of knowledge do we need to conduct cultural relations at a meaningful rather than surface level?

In considering such matters, we started from the premise that within this intermingled and simultaneously multi-centred globe, it is no longer possible to think of cultural relations in terms of promoting ‘our culture’ abroad, or exporting culture from a few privileged centres to the putative peripheries. Rather, we need to envision cultural exchange as a two-way – or perhaps even a multi-directional – process, which happens through dialogue and mutual participation, and which hopefully leads to reciprocal and fertile forms of engagement.

 

But for me at least, the project also started from an awareness, a sense that such dialogue is a demanding and complicated process, and that it requires a kind of insight and understanding of other cultures which does not come automatically or easily. These days, we do not lack for information about other societies and countries – although that information often comes in sound-bytes, and confines itself to the current moment. But to enter into the subjective life of another culture – its symbolic codes, its overt beliefs and implicit assumptions – requires, as any immigrant or nomad can tell you, a considerable effort of consciousness and imagination; a kind of stretching of self towards the other, and a gradual grasp of differences which are sometimes imperceptible and subtle. And here, I obviously don’t mean culture only in the sense of articulated and formal expressions of literature, art, or other artefacts, but in all its human and social meanings – it was another premise of this project that cultural relations need to happen on this broader plane.

Of course, cultures are not static organisms – they are complex, changeable and internally diverse. And yet, we each come into a specific culture; and each culture gives us our first existential map, so to speak, and our earliest templates for the basic elements of experience: what constitutes personhood, what is beautiful or disturbing, how family relationships are structured, or intimacy conducted.

Recently I happened to read an article about the anthropology of alcohol called ‘How Culture Shapes Drinking Habits.’ I think we recognize that it does, and I bring it up only because it suggests how cultural attitudes can inform not only the obvious parameters of behaviour, but very particular social habits and rites – and even responses which may seem purely physiological. It was the formative lesson of my emigration that culture is not only something outside us, that we use or respond to; rather, culture exists within us, and it constructs our subjectivity, our perceptions and even feelings.

Different cultures may have varying predispositions towards not only moral values, or forms of group affiliation, but towards different states of self – say, the degree of self-sufficiency or interdependence which seems desirable; how much spontaneity or self-control is valued; whether it is intensity or serenity which feels good. What is considered healthily assertive in one culture may be seen as aggressive in another; certain kinds of personal disclosure which may seem quite unproblematic in one society may be seen as embarrassing or entirely unacceptable elsewhere.

 

Such deep values, or incorporated beliefs, can be very surprising, or perplexing, from the outside, partly because they are often taken as given, and therefore remain unarticulated from within. But it is such deep values that I think we need to understand in order to engage in cross-cultural relations which are more than superficial.

How, then, can we talk to each other across such differences – how can we come to know each other better, or collaborate in ways which are productive and possibly creative? I think it almost goes without saying that openness and mutual respect, a recognition on the part of each interlocutor of the other’s legitimacy, is a prerequisite for cross-cultural dialogue; without that, nothing much can happen. But it also seems to me that a full and rich engagement calls for something more risky and entangled – something closer perhaps to the process of translation.

 

Like literal translation, cross-cultural back and forth requires a simultaneous receptivity to the other’s subjective language, and a strong sense of one’s own. And like literal translation, it calls for a kind of cross-checking between the two ‘languages’ or forms of sensibility – keeping conscious of what needs to be understood about each other – and what we don’t understand. In order to grasp another culture’s inner life, we need to develop some empathy for its tonalities and textures, its expressive palette and affective norms. At the same time, one’s original language has to remain as a point of reference, and a place from which to speak and to make oneself intelligible to the other. And, we need to acknowledge both the analogies between the two languages, and the differences.

Indeed, if dialogue is to be more than a synonym for a palliative exchange of niceties, it needs to include the possibility of disagreement. And, just as there are sometimes untranslatable fractures among texts, I think sometimes it has to be recognized that some differences may be unbridgeable, or non-negotiable. In confronting these, it seems to me it is neither salutary nor sufficient to collapse one’s own cultural identity, or idiom, into ‘the Other’ – to delegitimize oneself, so to speak, in the name of concord or polite agreement. For to give up on one’s own perspective or perceptions is to lose the vantage point from which differences can be perceived in the first place, and therefore the possibility of further interchange, altogether.

 

But more often, I believe, cross-cultural dialogue can lead to a kind of interweaving of languages – to a discovery both of difference, and of underlying similarities, or who knows, perhaps even certain human universals. After all, just as textual translation would not be possible without some shared linguistic structures, equally we could not understand our cultural differences without having some commonalities from which to communicate across them – some shared language of subjectivity. In all these ways, I think, dialogue is central to our understanding of ourselves and the world.

It is increasingly recognized by thinkers in fields ranging from multi-cultural theory to psychoanalysis, that we become who we are by entering into and participating in webs of conversations, narratives, interpretations of our situation, or stories about our past. And cross-cultural dialogue especially can change and enlarge all the interlocutors engaged in it. It can make both parties conscious of where they are coming from, so to speak – of what their own unspoken assumptions and internalised values may be; it can also increase our awareness of the other – and of the range of possible human aspirations, ways of being, visions of the good society or the good life. And what can be more exciting or interesting than that?

To embark on this experiment in intercultural dialogue, we decided – perhaps in the British empirical tradition – to start with specificities, and asked a number of leading thinkers, cultural observers, commentators and interpreters from various parts of the world to share with us some local knowledge – that is, to give us some guidance and insight into the inner topographies and the subjective languages of their societies and cultures; and also, to reflect on the ways in which cultural values in each context intersect with the contemporary situation, and political arrangements.

 

The contributions which have come in response to this admittedly rather challenging assignment have been fascinating and varied. Each of them emphasizes different aspects of cultural experience: forms of public and private discourse, the role of art and knowledge, tensions between tradition and modernity, or conflicts between personal freedom and repressive ideologies. Quite a few of our participants live abroad from their country of origin, or they move back and forth between two countries. In one or two cases, this is because it is not possible to speak freely, or to do critical work, from within countries of origin; but in most instances, it is a kind of over-determined coincidence. Over-determined, because people with hyphenated identities are often very adept at cross-cultural translation; indeed, such translation – whether overt or internal – is an intrinsic part of the bicultural condition.

And so, the contributions brought by our various participants are already acts of dialogue; and together, they challenge us, in turn, to think about important elements of cultural experience we need to be aware of; about the changing configurations of culture; and about what we mean when we talk about culture today. I also hope that we can think about concrete forms of engagement which may be suggested by the various presentations: what practical forms might dialogue take in each context; with what actors, or groups; what can it contribute to mutual knowledge; and how can it potentially affect things for good.

 

* Eva Hoffman was a senior editor at The New York Times, and is the author of five highly regarded works of non-fiction: Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language, Exit Into History, Shtetl: The Life and Death of a Small Town and the World of Polish Jews, After Such Knowledge: Memory, History and the Legacy of the Holocaust, and Time as well as two novels, The Secret and Illuminations. This text was presented as the introduction to a Counterpoint/British Council conference on The Inner Lives of Cultures.