Having read through the text, it has already given us a wide scope of examples about the interaction between people of the different countries. Since we already have a comprehensive understanding about communication between various nationalities, I will be touching on something different in my blog this time.
One of the characteristic of culture is that they are dynamic in nature. As time goes by, the changes in the economy and technology affects the living condition and behaviors of human kind. Clearly, we often hear youngest mention that they have a ‘generation gap’ between themselves and their elders. The reason behind this gap is to be explained by the different culture we live in. Here, we will explore deeper into two cultures that evolves with time; the modernism and the postmodernism cultures.
The whole idea of modernism and postmodernism revolves around the complexities of literature, philosophy, art, history, architect, music, identity and culture. Here in this post, I will limit the scope of discussion by only commenting on the culture, the way of living, as well as the mindset that governs the thought of the different generations.
Through the application of communication concepts to the two cultures, the modernist culture (where most our parents belong to) is relatively more collectivist while the postmodernist is more individualistic in nature. It could be traced back to our parents’ living conditions in the past. The most visible example is by examining the fact that they live in ‘kampongs’ where the homes of their parents, aunts and uncles, nephew and nieces are of walking distance. Naturally, as they grow up in that environment of high interdependence, they value the fulfillment of others’ needs in order to live in harmony. Different from the postmodernist culture, we live in a nuclear family style where we are often separated miles apart from our relatives. Adapting to this living condition, we start to believe that an individual is the most important social unit where one act on each owns interest. As we develop low dependency, we become less concerned for the needs and feelings of the people around us.
As an individual, we are increasingly capable of striving for advancement when we value speed and accuracy. Undeniably, this efficiency brings our country and economy to greater heights. However, as we enjoy the benefits, being individualistic also brings drawbacks to our society. When we are only concerned about fulfilling the task laid in front of us and the results we would achieve as an individual, we may neglect the fragility of others’ feelings.
Secondly, the modernist culture is high context in which non verbal cues are often interpreted and less importance is placed upon spoken messages. On the other hand, postmodernist culture is relatively low context in nature where we make sense of the context through spoken languages. Since modernist value face-saving and modesty, they are more sensitive to the facial expression and kinesics of the communicator. Belonging to the high context culture, our parent’s value politeness and respect where they believe that not all things must be spelt out for our comprehension. However, for postmodernist like us who grew up in a society of a low context culture, we see speech as a tool to express ourselves. Governed by this mindset, we become more straightforward in our articulation. Although it helps in the clarity of our expression where we minimize miscommunication, sometimes we may become too direct in our enunciation. When this happens, we would be baring the risk of hurting others feelings once again.
A once slow paced life with rich human connection has evolved into a fast paced culture where people become relatively insensitive to interpersonal relationship. If you have a choice, which culture would you prefer to belong to? A Modernist or a Postmodernist?
