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our internet feature article...
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the oicd mailist
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By OICD director, Bruce
White
There is little doubt that knowledge - the certainty of one's beliefs - is cultural in nature. Ask someone about his or her opinion on any subject - from the political state of their society, to their ideas about sexual promiscuity - and their answer will almost certainly be the result of a careful consideration of the many lines of thought available in their respective culture. Rarely do we truly import Other Cultural ideas into our own social worlds, make them part of the tapestry of our relations with our friends and relatives.
Our inability to operate multi-culturally on this level is not, as is often suggested by the movers of Political Correctness, a failure on our part as social beings. Nor, is it in anyway a reflection of us being successful, or not, in utilizing the diversity of multi-cultural societies. Thought, Opinion, Knowledge and Identity are culturally contextual because cultures, traditions and ways of life determine their existence - give them the boundaries, which in turn make them significant and meaningful to us.
The current debates on globalization, the speculation that will continue to occur about the future of a many-cultured world, will, it seems, have to ground-down at some point to this unalterable human logistical connection: our culture determines our understanding, our understanding our humanity. The link is as obvious as it is unchangeable - the key to improving peoples' relations with each other, in reducing violent and non-violent conflict, lies in increasing the choices that LOCAL cultures give to people in feeling this way or that about their cultural/national membership. Doing so successfully will have knock on effects all the way up to conceptions of ourselves as global citizens, albeit with 'comfortable' cultural identities, carefully developed to provide freedom of thought to their members. This is the overriding philosophy of the OICD, and the theoretical base from which its activities, projects and promotional campaigns intend to fully operate.
But like so many organizations that seek change on a seemingly intangible level, the OICD comes up against several important charges to its existence and practice: what difference can the OICD expect itself to make to the cultural freedoms of people around the world, and how will any such changes become apparent, exist as evidence for OICD supporters that their money or support is making any real difference?
The involvement of governments
In answer to part of that parcel of charges, lies the hope that the OICD will encourage governments to take more of an interest in the national and cultural identities of the people they administer. If the OICD can persuade governments that having an OICD office in their country is not only beneficial to their people, but an invaluable research center which can provide them with information such as: the degree of people's affiliation to their culture/nation, and the ways in which education and the media were affecting the development of such identities in the positive and negative, then the organization will begin to be able to realize its far-reaching potential.
With several offices operating internationally - supported by the local government - the OICD would become expert at comparative cross-cultural research on the movement of cultural, national and global identities. This expertise would allow it to further hone its campaigns, projects and activities, directing them more effectively towards the cultures on which they focus. Along with expertise in practice would come an expertise of evaluation and monitoring, allowing more concrete examples of how OICD activities were having a positive effect.
The involvement of governments is not essential for the OICD to prove its worth. It is highly probable that the OICD could operate internationally using fundraisers and corporate donations, (effective evaluation of projects a requirement from the word go). And indeed, in some nations, governments may well see the OICD as a threat to national sovereignty. It is the OICD's view however, that some world leaders are becoming more educated in the link between non-ethnocentric cultural/national affiliation, (as well as the notion of global citizenship which goes with that), and economic and social mobility, productivity and happiness.
That global minds move local social and economic worlds is a connection slowly seeping into enlightened political circles, and with it, the OICD intends to move. The future of OICD effectiveness lies in its ability to expand, to persuade governments that it is needed, and to then channel its experience back into practice. If it can do that, it will be able to answer all charges to its existence.
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