Question: How does Appiah’s model fit the work of public relations?
One of the continuing themes in Appiah’s book, Cosmopolitanism, is that of cultural differences, which again makes me think of my relationship with my old teacher, Swiftdeer. We could not have been more different, and yet we always found common ground in our respective customs. One time, I had the good fortune of witnessing and being in a naming ceremony. It was a great honor and I kept some special mementoes from that extraordinary experience.
Flash forward several years. My new husband and I were moving into our first home together, and he noticed these small, unusual looking items. My husband, who had been raised by rather strict Catholic parents, always laughingly referred to himself as a “smorgasbord Catholic.” As one would choose the most palatable food from a buffet or smorgasbord, he chose those practices of Catholicism that sustained and strengthened him and passed by those that did not. Nevertheless, he was a somewhat conservative guy in his spiritual views, and he looked at these wildish looking little mementoes with an expression much like one would have for a cobra that was loose in one’s living room.
I explained to him what they were and that they were as benign and no less meaningful as the small gold saints medals that he had received as a youth from his favorite uncle and now had tucked in some boxes. His expression remained unchanged, so I continued. I told him that, as I saw it, there are many paths to God, and the paths may be different, but in the end, they all lead to the same place, and regardless of whether one refers to it as “God,” “a creative life force,” “Allah,” “Buddha,” “Great Spirit” or whatever, it doesn’t really matter because it’s all God. Yes, he said, but he still wasn’t sure if he was comfortable having these things in our house.
I then further explained to my husband that perhaps he may have always envisioned angels as having wings, golden hair and long white flowing robes, but that some people like Swiftdeer envisioned angels as sometimes having fur and bushy tails but they were no less benevolent guiding forces than the ones with halos and harps. My husband paused, considering this, and then said, “Oh. That makes sense. I guess I just never thought of it like that.”
Appiah states that “the great lesson of anthropology is that when the stranger is no longer imaginary, but real and present, sharing a human social life, you may like or dislike him, you may agree or disagree, but if it is what you both want, you can make sense of each other in the end.”
This “making sense of each other” is essential in public relations, and when dealing with the various parties or audiences, sometimes we have to begin at the most basic level – learning each other’s language and discovering and understanding the meaning and value we attach to certain words in that language, as exemplified above with the word “angel.”
When I had begun speaking with him about their different perceptions of angels, I did not expect my husband to agree with or adopt Swiftdeer’s beliefs and practices. As Appiah states in one of his most important ideas on cosmopolitanism, “Conversation doesn’t have to lead to consensus about anything, especially not values. It’s enough that it helps people get use to one another.”
In public relations, we have to strive to reach that ideal win-win for all parties involved. And sometimes things may not go our way, but we can at least learn something from each other. If we discount the perceptions of others and lose sight of their interests and values and always apply what Appiah calls “cultural patrimony” and “property fundamentalism” in our representation of our clients, then we, as public relations professionals, risk being coercive rather than persuasive.
In my conversation with him about angels, my husband’s worldview shifted. He realized that he did not necessarily own the “right” view. And in further discussing ownership, Appiah states that “we have been poorly served by intellectual property law when it comes to contemporary culture: software, stories, songs. All too often, laws have focused tightly on the interests of owners, often corporate owners, while the interests of consumers – of audiences, readers, viewers and listeners – drop from sight.”
This business of cultural entitlement and corporate ownership can cut both ways – all kinds of ways. An interesting example of this is the news story, “Nepal Airline Sacrifices Two Goats to Sky God in Face of Aircraft Problems.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,295857,00.html
The goat sacrifice is a great PR move by the airlines corporation. It serves the interests of the corporation’s Nepalese customers, who are entitled to their cultural beliefs and practices just as the corporation is entitled to address its operational problems. And I’m perfectly happy for both parties to have as many goats sacrificed as they see fit. However, before I set foot on that Boeing 757, I want my interests served too – I want to know that, in addition to the goats being sacrificed, a qualified technician has fixed the mechanical problem.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Leaving Only Moccasin Prints
As they pertain to author Kwane Anthony Appiah’s work, Cosmopolitanism, two questions have been posed to us for our first blog entry: Does everybody matter? What about people within corporate America’s supply chain?
Appiah defines cosmopolitanism, in part, not as worldliness or the opposite of provincialism, but a respect for various cultural perspectives. Cosmopolitanism is in contrast to positivism, which is grounded in the age of science that became prevalent in the West. The positivist’s view is from the angle of privilege and superiority, one in which scientific certainty is a dominant and important value. From a positivist’s view, the cultures that place the most value on scientific certainty are right and better than other cultures.
Another key element in Appiah’s definition of cosmopolitanism is that we are all citizens of the planet and part of a global tribe. Though this concept might strike many Westerners as unusual and new, it shares similarities with an old American one, which I heard some twenty years ago from one of my most influential teachers, Harley Swiftdeer, who taught me an expression that closely parallels Appiah’s view and takes it even further: “Mitakye oyosin,” which loosely translated means, “We are all related” or “All are my relations.”
Swiftdeer, who was a “metis” or mixed-blood Cherokee and was considered to be a holy man by the people in his community, was also one of the few people I ever knew who tried to live that relatedness consciously everyday. Most of us do not. However, few of us, if asked, would disagree with the notion that everybody matters. Swiftdeer saw himself not only as part of his immediate community’s circle, but also as part of the greater world circle – a great “Medicine Wheel,” on which each part was equally important, and therefore, mattered, and no one part was superior to another.
Appiah discusses the definitions of and the distinctions between facts, beliefs, values and desires, and describes desire, in part, as being how we would like the world to be. Swiftdeer’s experience with relatedness was not simply a desire or merely a component of a cultural belief system that was handed down to him. It also was observable to him and was based on the science that we “two-leggeds”, as he called us humans, all carry the same human DNA and a genetic blueprint, which the latest scientific theory traces all of us back to an early ancestral migration out of Africa.
So, yes, as we are all related, we all matter. Regardless of whether that view of relatedness is from a science-based or cosmopolitan perspective, we all matter – but to what degree we matter and in comparison to what are arguable points from individual to individual. And this is where we are confronted with our values. We might agree that we all matter, but we might attach more value to someone or something that matters more to us.
For example, as members of a consumer society, we might place more value on acquiring that trendy pair of Nike shoes from Wal-Mart at a cheap price than we value the person who assembled them at the factory under conditions of which we are not even aware. However, as Nike executives discovered a few years ago, many of us do not value shoes above a human being. Many of us are willing – or we say we are willing – to pay more money for that product or seek it elsewhere if doing so will alleviate substandard working conditions.
Raised in the old traditional ways that imbued him with rich metaphors, Swiftdeer, who did not hear English spoken until he went to elementary school, use to say, “Our task is to leave only moccasin prints when we walk this earth. And that’s a hard thing to do.”
By that, Swiftdeer meant that we must do no harm. It is indeed a hard thing to do. Our smallest actions can impact the lives of others in far-reaching and profound ways. Swiftdeer’s view of the earth as sacred mother and its human inhabitants as relatives contrasts sharply with some (fortunately not all) corporate views of the earth as a receptacle of resources and most of its human inhabitants as cheap, disposable labor.
When I contemplate the moccasin metaphor as an indicator of our actions, values and consciousness, I am aware that I occupy that borderland of being part of the problem and part of the solution. The fact that I own a pair of shoes makes me a wealthy woman compared to most of the inhabitants of third world countries. Yes, my consumption creates jobs. Somewhere in the world someone bought a loaf of bread or a bag of rice because I bought that pair of shoes. However, I don’t always know if the exchange was fair or if I contributed to the abysmal conditions in a sweatshop. I don’t know if I left something more damaging than moccasin prints in the life of that person – a person who is not an “other” but is someone to whom I am related.
Though their words are different, Appiah and Swiftdeer speak of the same concept – an awareness and acknowledgment of a greater community and a respect for that community, in which we are all interconnected and related and all matter. Our moccasin prints and our actions as PR practitioners must be not only as advocates of our corporate clients but also as guardians of their integrity and protectors of the human dignity of those who work for them – all of which is also related.
Appiah defines cosmopolitanism, in part, not as worldliness or the opposite of provincialism, but a respect for various cultural perspectives. Cosmopolitanism is in contrast to positivism, which is grounded in the age of science that became prevalent in the West. The positivist’s view is from the angle of privilege and superiority, one in which scientific certainty is a dominant and important value. From a positivist’s view, the cultures that place the most value on scientific certainty are right and better than other cultures.
Another key element in Appiah’s definition of cosmopolitanism is that we are all citizens of the planet and part of a global tribe. Though this concept might strike many Westerners as unusual and new, it shares similarities with an old American one, which I heard some twenty years ago from one of my most influential teachers, Harley Swiftdeer, who taught me an expression that closely parallels Appiah’s view and takes it even further: “Mitakye oyosin,” which loosely translated means, “We are all related” or “All are my relations.”
Swiftdeer, who was a “metis” or mixed-blood Cherokee and was considered to be a holy man by the people in his community, was also one of the few people I ever knew who tried to live that relatedness consciously everyday. Most of us do not. However, few of us, if asked, would disagree with the notion that everybody matters. Swiftdeer saw himself not only as part of his immediate community’s circle, but also as part of the greater world circle – a great “Medicine Wheel,” on which each part was equally important, and therefore, mattered, and no one part was superior to another.
Appiah discusses the definitions of and the distinctions between facts, beliefs, values and desires, and describes desire, in part, as being how we would like the world to be. Swiftdeer’s experience with relatedness was not simply a desire or merely a component of a cultural belief system that was handed down to him. It also was observable to him and was based on the science that we “two-leggeds”, as he called us humans, all carry the same human DNA and a genetic blueprint, which the latest scientific theory traces all of us back to an early ancestral migration out of Africa.
So, yes, as we are all related, we all matter. Regardless of whether that view of relatedness is from a science-based or cosmopolitan perspective, we all matter – but to what degree we matter and in comparison to what are arguable points from individual to individual. And this is where we are confronted with our values. We might agree that we all matter, but we might attach more value to someone or something that matters more to us.
For example, as members of a consumer society, we might place more value on acquiring that trendy pair of Nike shoes from Wal-Mart at a cheap price than we value the person who assembled them at the factory under conditions of which we are not even aware. However, as Nike executives discovered a few years ago, many of us do not value shoes above a human being. Many of us are willing – or we say we are willing – to pay more money for that product or seek it elsewhere if doing so will alleviate substandard working conditions.
Raised in the old traditional ways that imbued him with rich metaphors, Swiftdeer, who did not hear English spoken until he went to elementary school, use to say, “Our task is to leave only moccasin prints when we walk this earth. And that’s a hard thing to do.”
By that, Swiftdeer meant that we must do no harm. It is indeed a hard thing to do. Our smallest actions can impact the lives of others in far-reaching and profound ways. Swiftdeer’s view of the earth as sacred mother and its human inhabitants as relatives contrasts sharply with some (fortunately not all) corporate views of the earth as a receptacle of resources and most of its human inhabitants as cheap, disposable labor.
When I contemplate the moccasin metaphor as an indicator of our actions, values and consciousness, I am aware that I occupy that borderland of being part of the problem and part of the solution. The fact that I own a pair of shoes makes me a wealthy woman compared to most of the inhabitants of third world countries. Yes, my consumption creates jobs. Somewhere in the world someone bought a loaf of bread or a bag of rice because I bought that pair of shoes. However, I don’t always know if the exchange was fair or if I contributed to the abysmal conditions in a sweatshop. I don’t know if I left something more damaging than moccasin prints in the life of that person – a person who is not an “other” but is someone to whom I am related.
Though their words are different, Appiah and Swiftdeer speak of the same concept – an awareness and acknowledgment of a greater community and a respect for that community, in which we are all interconnected and related and all matter. Our moccasin prints and our actions as PR practitioners must be not only as advocates of our corporate clients but also as guardians of their integrity and protectors of the human dignity of those who work for them – all of which is also related.
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