Customs of the World - Using Cultural Intelligence to Adapt, Wherever You Are

I really enjoyed Professor David Livermore's course - Customs of the World: Using Cultural Intelligence to Adapt, Wherever You Are. Being curious about another culture or another human being is much more interesting than working from a rigid stereotype from limited knowledge.

He advocates an approach of intelligent stereotyping instead of negative stereotyping. This involves learning as much as you can about a different culture before you begin interacting with individuals from that culture.  You can use this knowledge as a working hypothesis to better negotiate the nuances of a culture. Remember that these are not hard rules but starting points as there are variations within cultures and be ready to make adjustments and learn the culturally appropriate ways to ask for help if you don't understand.

Learning how a culture typically treats time is very important. Some cultures value the time being spent in relationship with a person more than being punctual for a future engagement. Other cultures expect people to anticipate problems they may encounter and expect individuals to be punctual. In a relationship culture this makes scheduling meetings or even arranging a time to play golf problematic. Another author's book describes an express bus in India that stopped and allowed people to get out and join in with wedding festivities on the way out of town. The ride took longer than anticipated but people had a good time enjoying the company of other people.

Professor Livermore lists ten contrasting cultural characteristics.

1. Risk - low vs. high uncertainty avoidance
2. Achievement - individual vs. group
3. Lifestyle - being vs. doing
4. Rules - universalist vs. particularist
5. Identity - individualist vs. collectivist
6. Authority - low vs. high power distance
7. Time - punctuality vs. relationships
8. Communication - direct vs. indirect
9. Expressiveness - neutral vs. affective
10. Social Norms - tight vs. loose

Communicating in an indirect culture is often very difficult. The person speaking assumes you have contextual knowledge. This is often more common in areas that are isolated and have little contact with outsiders. Individuals often don't need to offer explicit directions because there is an assumption that you have a basic familiarity with the territory and a few landmarks will be sufficient to guide you. 

The Professor also roughly organizes cultures into groups. He notes that this list is not exhaustive and may lump some very different cultural groups together. He describes how each cultural group generally fits in with the ten cultural characteristics. 

• Anglo
• Nordic
• Germanic
• Eastern Europe
• Latin Europe
• Latin American
• Confucian Asian
• South Asian
• Sub-Saharan African
• Arab

The information from these lectures will be useful as I interact with staff and students around the world on health and safety concerns. 

Turning Points in Modern History - Great Courses

The Great Courses offering of Turning Points in Modern History by Professor Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius, Ph.D. covers historical events from the 1433 voyages of Chinese Admiral Zheng He up to the development of Facebook and the internet in the 2000's. The Chinese chose to pull back from exploration allowing the Europeans to begin the Columbian Exchange with its negative consequences for the people who had arrived earlier in the Americas.

The course is not centered on the American perspective. I appreciated learning about the dawn of the women's movement that started first in New Zealand and gradually spread around the world. The lessons from the temperance movement about organizing were used to move forward women's right to vote. The abolition of Slavery started in the UK and then spread to the Americas.

The first modern war between the Japanese and the Russians was resolved by a peace treaty brokered by Teddy Roosevelt. Japan learned the wrong lessons from that war and attempted to apply it at the start of World War II. 

The professor contrasts peaceful accidents of history such as the fall of the Berlin Wall with the violent crushing of the Chinese student protests around the same time. Do leaders have the will to kill their own people? The leaders of the Soviet coup attempt against Gorbachev did not. The Chinese leaders did.

Summary of Turning points - 2 min. 

HG Wells and table top war games - 41 seconds

Nuke the moon - 30 seconds

Customs of the world: Using Cultural Intelligence to Adapt, Wherevever You are

I enjoyed the lectures in Professor David Livermore's Customs of the World: Using Cultural Intelligence to Adapt, Wherever You Are. I don't do the extensive world traveling that the instructor does, but I do encounter people from all over the world as part of my job. Getting a basic understanding of the cultural archetypes provides a good starting point for attempting to understand how to relate to other people.

The first part of the course describes cultural dichotomies such as universal vs particular. In a universal culture treating everyone the same is valued over making exceptions for individual circumstances.  As an example a public school may have specific guidelines for a student who will qualify for assistance with a learning disability following the universal guideline. A private school may have more latitude to respond to the particular needs of a student.  Cultures will also differ on the value they place on being prompt and how much forgiveness they will have for being late.

In the second part of the course he examines some of the major large cultural groups and how they fit on all the dichotomy scales.  Some groups are closely related including the Nordic and Germanic cultures. Middle Asia incorporating Russia, the Baltic countries and Mongolia is a more diverse grouping with individuals at least historically adapted to a nomadic cultural lifestyle. He recommends doing extensive research prior to traveling to another country and using the knowledge of cultural norms as a starting point but not a strict guideline as for interacting with people from other countries.

Introduction the Cultural Intelligence - 2 min. 

National Geographic Guide to Birding Great Courses

I've just got into birding this year and found National Geographic's The Guide to Birding in North America from the Great Courses to be very helpful. The course leader, James Currie covers the basics of bird identification with physical description and auditory cues. He also provides specifications for binoculars and other birding gear.

He describes each grouping of birds and how to differentiate them. There is also a section on extinct and endangered birds.

A nice complement to the course is the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, 7th Edition. The sixth edition is also available at considerable discount. The full color line drawings are helpful with verbal descriptions of the bird calls.

National Geographic Guide to Birding in North America - 31 minutes 

The National Geographic Guide to Landscape and Wildlife Photography - Great Courses

The National Geographic Guide to Landscape and Wildlife Photography by Tim Laman and Michael Melford gives tips specific to each type of photography.

I was impressed at the efforts required for getting wildlife photos. Researchers will sit in blinds for long periods of time. They will install cameras in nests. They will climb up hundreds of feet into trees and wait days to get the perfect photo.

Landscape photography has more to do with location, lighting, and time of day. You need to be comfortable getting up early in the morning before sunrise to capture the special light when the sun is low in the horizon and the shadows are long.

Preview of The National Geographic Guide to Landscape and Wildlife Photography - 2 min. 

Landscape Photography by Michael Melford - 46 minutes

Evolutionary Psychology part II: The Science of Human Nature

This part of the Modern Scholar lecture serie The Modern Scholar: Evolutionary Psychology, Part II: The Science of Human Natures on focuses on group interactions. How do friends and foes interact. Warning some of the conclusions in this lecture are disquieting.

The lecturer makes a compelling argument that the cohesion and sense of group identity with a larger purpose that religion offers people makes them a much more effective in fighting and surviving wars than individuals with no religious background.

Identity and willingness to sacrifice for a group can also lead to toxic altruism in the form of extremist groups or terrorism.

Understanding warfare an evolutionary approach - 50 minutes

Dirt by David R. Montgomery

As part of our book club I read Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations and was impressed. My father was careful to distinguish between dirt and soil. Soil has structure with layers. Dirt is unstructured.

The book starts with research from Charles Darwin focusing on the the positive effect of earthworm castings on the  building up the depth of soil structure. This is good for some parts of the world but not so good in certain forested areas.

How civilizations practice agriculture and take care of the soil affects their sustainability and survivability. When cultures increase the use of the soil without crop rotation or letting it rest the productivity of the soil declines. Erosion increases the loss of top soil and reduces the ability of plants to grow on the soil. Irrigation often increases the amount of salt in the soil which reduces the types of plants that can grow crops.  Egypt and North Africa supplied grain for the Roman Empire because the farming practices of Rome eroded the top soil and made the land unproductive.

Cutting down trees and planting on hillsides is a prescription for rapid soil loss and subsequent transition out of productive farm land. Agricultural practices will need to change, crop rotation with nitrogen fixing plants. Mixing in organic matter with soils. Using low till or no seed drills will also extend the useful life of the soil. He points to the organic farming method used in Cuba out of necessity because they lacked access to chemical fertilizer or pesticides.

For those of you who want a touch of optimism feel free to explore the work being done by the Land Institute.  They are working on developing perennial crops which put less stress on the soil.  The University of Minnesota is also researching the perennial grain kernza as part of sustainable cropping system.

Bringing our soil back to life - 66 min. 

Soil degradation and why you should care - 27 min. 

Can we reverse the long term pattern of soil degradation - 17 min.