Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Mixed backgrounds

When studying, analysing, interpreting and describing a situation, be it social, cultural or philosophical, that differs from your background, you will always be influenced by your background. This is unavoidable, no matter how hard you try.

But what if you have different backgrounds? Everybody grows up in a cultural setting and compares what's happening in the world outside to the values and habits of the background one is raised in.
If you would swap backgrounds after a few years, by, for example, emmigrating to a different region, you will, after a while, get to know the values, views and habbits of the new region. This way your cultural background consists of both environments you have lived in. If you would get to know several different settings, your background would consist of many different views.

If you would have multiple backgrounds, wouldn't it be easier to study other situations without being influenced by your background? Because you have more than one background, you can't compare to just one cultural view, as you are aware of more than one.

One must ask if it is possible to get to know several different cultures, without forgetting about the previous ones. But you must of course be willing to adopt new views.

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