On Cultures and Lenses

August 2, 2006

In my dissertation I talk about perception and experience. People view the world through the narratives and models that they have grown up with. In trying to describe this point of view I have resorted to the phrase "cultural lens"— i.e. the culturally shaped group of narratives and ideals through which every individual perceives the world. But that is something of an ad hoc term.. and I have long wanted to found that on something a little stronger.

A Washington Post article that came out on Monday (July 31) points out another direction from which this idea of a "cultural lens" can be approached. The article is specifically interested in showing how political bias largely resides in the mind of the beholder. The writer, Shankar Vedantam, gives the example of an experiment done on 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans:

When Republicans saw Kerry (or Democrats saw Bush) there was increased activation in brain areas called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is near the temple, and the anterior cingulate cortex, which is in the middle of the head. Both these regions are involved in regulating emotions. (If you are eating an ice cream cone on a hot day and your ice cream falls on the sidewalk and you get upset, these areas of your brain remind you that it is only an ice cream, that not eating the ice cream can help keep those pounds off, and similar rationalizations.)

I thought it was interesting that this "emotions regulator" was specifically tied to constructing reasons. (I sometimes think that the vast majority of human ideas and thoughts are exactly about rationalizing a feeling.) Vedantam goes on:

More straightforwardly, Republicans and Democrats also showed activation in two other brain areas involved in negative emotion, the insula and the temporal pole. It makes perfect sense, of course, why partisans would feel negatively about the candidate they dislike, but what explains the activation of the cognitive regulatory system?

Turns out, rather than turning down their negative feelings as they might do with the fallen ice cream, partisans turn up their negative emotional response when they see a photo of the opposing candidate, said Jonas Kaplan, a psychologist at the University of California at Los Angeles.

In other words, without knowing it themselves, the partisans were jealously guarding against anything that might lower their antagonism. Turning up negative feelings, of course, is a good way to make sure your antagonism stays strong and healthy.

"My feeling is, in the political process, people come to decisions early on and then spend the rest of the time making themselves feel good about their decision," Kaplan said.

This is one brief and limited view of the "cultural lens" that we are all working with. We find reasons to accept what appears to agree with us, and we find reasons to dismiss what is different.

In this case it is concerning two contrasting points of view within American culture, but this same process must play out within distinct cultures: French and Swedish and Iranian individuals perceive different worlds. Their minds work hard to select and process the information that reaches them in ways that are consistent with their pre-established commitments.

This works for individuals.. but how do we get to a culture? Since a culture is made up of individuals, the perceptions of those individuals will tend to reinforce and strengthen each other.. leading to something that looks like an aggregate "French point of view" or "American point of view." (One fact I find frustrating about right vs. left arguments in the US is how little people realize that both sides share assumptions that the rest of the world does not share.)

What about the lens metaphor? Well, all metaphors of course are imperfect.. Images and ideas are received through the senses, but those things are not perceived "as they are", but rather in terms of how they match up to the ideas and values we already hold. The mind therefore acts as a filter.. a lens, if you will.. for the jumbled world that is out there.. picking and choosing what will make the individual feel good.

One important part of education is its role in challenging that built-in lens. The goal cannot be to provide reasons for seeing the world in the way one wants to see the world, but rather to make each and every perceiver conscious of the way they filter the world.. and to gain more skill at understanding how people from other cultures are not crazy, but responding to the world as it arrives to their mind through their own distinct cultural lens.