Multi-culture Vs Mono-culture

There are some multicultural countries, e.g. the United State, Singapore, Hongkong, etc. As a matter of fact, Indonesia is also a multicultural country. Different from the US which is multicultural for its a big number of immigrants coming from around the globe, Indonesia is multicultural for its diverse societies (Javanese, Sundanese, etc).

When people meet with somebody from another culture, they will be shocked, surprised or even feeling uncomfortable. It is because cultural difference makes people assume that people from the another culture is impolite or even strange.

Process of receiving another culture can be shown in this milestone diagram.
First milestone          : Our way is the best way
Second milestone     : Wait a minute, there may be another way
Third milestone        : Oh, you mean there are reasons why people respond differently
Fourth milestone      : It's okay to be different
Fifth milestone         : Multi-culture living can enhance our life and even be fun

Multi-culture is good because we can know and live with different cultures. So, what is wrong with being mono-culture? The answer is we can get trapped of being mono-culture. Actually, there are 6 traps. They are:

• A naif ethnocentrism
• Judge everything use my own culture. Absolutism thinking
• Insisting their things are unquestionable. An Embracing of naive realism
• As we see things that the way they are without any filter. Look with respect for other people's way (contra with number 3)
• The evalution of customs and perspective on the basis of only own culturally assumptions and values
• The use of pejorative terms to describe customs different from my own culture.

What is wrong with being ethnocentrism? (actually ethnocentrism cotra with xenocentrism). It means that we open premature judgement, always say that we are best. Besides of that, too much respect is also dangerous because people can take another culture and assume that the culture is superculture.

Content credit: Mr. Hani, STBA LIA Yogyakarta
Image credit: yummybubby.com