A friend who once helped train Peace Corps volunteers was trying to explain to me about culture shock. Culture shock is not that they eat odd foods. Culture shock is when they say or do something that is simply wrong. As you see it. That’s culture shock: when what is good and acceptable in that culture is simply wrong in your own. And, of course, the shock at seeing a friendly gesture or remark received with anger or hostility—when you’ve done something wrong (though in your own eyes, knowing that you acted perfectly properly, you decide that the local residents are surly and hostile (in general, not due to anything you did).
I would bet cultural divergences closely track and mirror language divergences: at first the related groups can understand each other perfectly well, but as time and space grow, each begins to notice that the other is speaking with an accent; then, a strong accent; then, you can’t understand a word they say—better get an interpreter.
Cultures probably diverge in a similar way: all together initially, but then as the groups grow apart (and their languages diverge), they also develop new routines suited to new habitats and the new generations that come along—styles change independently in the two cultures, and new ideas and strong personalities have their own effects, and pretty soon people from one culture are shocked and stunned by what the other culture thinks is not only perfectly okay but the obvious thing to do/say.
I was telling The Wife tonight about trying to watch Eastbound and Down because I like Danny McBride, but the egotistical asshole character he played totally put me off. I was telling The Wife that this comedy would be funny only to those who have never known such a person, but I have, and my goal in running into such a person is to put as much distance as possible between me and him.
But The Wife protested: some people know people like McBride’s character and they stay with them. We started discussing why: trapped? doesn’t know any better? thinks that everyone is like this? actually enjoys it?
I got to thinking about why I didn’t enjoy it, and I suddenly realized: it’s culture shock. This character is from another culture—well, let’s leave the McBride character for now, because pretty much no one likes him: he really is an asshole. But look at the Tea Party adherants and GOP leaders such as Eric Kantor and Mitch McConnell: I can’t stand them, but perhaps that’s culture shock on my part. The various cultures within the US have gone past “speaking with an accent” at each other (as in the 50’s and 60’s, say, when communication was still possible and both sides had similar understandings of reality, natural and social) and now simply do not speak the same language and cannot communicate—and each side is shocked by the behavior and positions of the other. Maybe the US is falling apart along cultural fault lines.
