I received notice this week of the passing of Sally Miller Gearhart, university professor, science fiction author, women’s and lesbian/gay activist. After her retirement Sally moved to rural Northern California.

After the move, she wrote an article in 1995 about her changing attitudes about conflict and confrontation, admitting to making obscene gestures to logging trucks loaded with redwoods. She observed that male drivers reciprocated in kind. Later she noted she was “gentler,” only glaring at the drivers and mouthing obscenities, but recognized that approach didn’t seem to be any more effective than her gesturing.

Still later, she said she stopped judging and badgering others and instead sought to find a “joining point”
or place where people can meet as human beings and share. For example, people in conflict can learn that both parties struggle to find work to feed a family.

She came to realize the lumber truckers were not her enemy and finding a joining point with them led her to say that, yes, she could love her enemies. An activist can speak out, confront, crusade, fight, and be involved in struggles without creating and maintaining adversaries.

In conflict studies we speak of superordinate goals—finding those goals that can only be achieved through cooperation. “Joining points” and superordinate goals both emphasize finding the common ground we share with those we disagree.

It was my honor to have been her student many years ago and later her colleague. She once asked me to sit in on a meeting with Harvey Milk in San Francisco. She asked my opinion. I said “he’s trying to use you.” Her response was that it’s okay to be used if the cause and outcome are important. Her comments were published in the September, 1995, issue of “Sojourner: The Women’s Forum.”    

Perhaps the most widely researched and accepted difference between cultures is the concept of individualism and collectivism. The word individualism entered the English vocabulary in 1835 with Alexis de Tocqueville’s observations of the young America. Throughout the years the United States continues to rank highest in the world in valuing and practicing individualism. Individualist cultures stress self-direction and self-achievement; collectivist cultures stress in-group loyalty and conformity.

A related concept is that of high and low context cultures. Edward T. Hall, who is commonly credited with originating the study of intercultural communication, noted that high context cultures are those in which less has to be said or written, because much of the meaning is encoded in the physical environment or already shared by the people. Think of the traditional Japanese tea ceremony—full of meaning but without words. Hall descried low context cultures as those in which meaning is primarily encoded in spoken and written words. Compare friends meeting over coffee to the traditional Japanese tea ceremony. Examples of high context cultures are China, Japan, Korea, most Latin American cultures, and southern and eastern Mediterranean cultures such as Greece, Turkey and the Arab states. Examples of low context cultures are United States, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, and the Nordic states.  Of course, not every individual in these countries exhibits that generalized stereotype.

Why does high context China emphasize collective order and low context Western cultures stress individual liberties? Recent analysis has attempted to explain the observed cultural difference in terms of historical agriculture tradition, specifically the differences observed between rice growing cultures and wheat growing cultures. According to these studies, over half of the world’s population lives in 15 societies with legacies of rice farming. The irrigation and labor demands of rice cultivation required labor sharing and resulting interdependent relationships. The studies suggest that the social traits in rice-growing communities extended to others in the communities whether they were involved in agriculture or not. 

Rice-growing cultures are more interdependent, think more holistically, and show less individualism that wheat-growing or herding cultures. One test of the theory was to compare rice-growing southern China with the wheat-growing north. The researchers found again that people in the rice-growing south were more interdependent and holistic-thinking. 

Research like this demonstrates that cultural variables, such as high and low context, are very stable, long-lasting constructs that help us understand the conflicts that arise and/or will arise. Corporate life, as an example, can be very different in high context and low context countries. And domestic life in an international marriage as well can challenge the beliefs and values of the partners.