There are many things that are just ‘human.’ We all need to love. We all need to hope that there’s a tomorrow. We all need to laugh. We all have times when tears are all we have to express ourselves. And yet for all those things that we have in common; our cultures create chasms between otherwise amiable human beings.

Sometimes it’s a hegemonic encounter. As Masami Teraoka demonstrated in his series of drawings about the effects of American culture on Japanese culture; it can be more than jarring. It can distort or even destroy an ancient culture.

Then, there is the other problem of emigration. The newly arrived immigrant can find it hard to maintain those things that defined his/her culture. Often this becomes so difficult that assimilation is the preferred option. Then, the old culture becomes an artefact. Like a song that you can’t quite remember the lyrics to, it fades in and out of the assimilated person’s consciousness. After a generation or two, the old song is often lost.

It’s a conundrum. One tends to feel that one’s own culture is superior to other cultures. Yet, is it? What measure can we use to make that determination? Are we more technologically advanced, yet are we poisoning our food with that technology? Are we more literate and at the same time don’t take the time to read? It’s an ironic dichotomy that we miss if we’re not paying attention. That’s how the wealthiest nation in the history of the world can, at same time, be so poor.

Can we pick and choose those elements of other cultures that we find comfortable and integrate them into ours? I suspect that in this wired world that this is happening all time. But change is still slow and we find ourselves in dilemmas that we can’t understand. It’s not just a question of why Muslims and Jews can’t seem to get along when their religions have many of the same tenets. Why are Born-again Christians so different from Roman Catholics? Why are Orthodox Jews so different from Reform Jews? Why are Sunni Muslims so different from Shia Muslims? And on it goes.

No, I don’t have the answers and I suspect that no human does. But a deep breath, a step backward, and a short course in critical thinking would do us all a world of good.

Please give what you can to Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders).

And, of course