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52 pages 1 hour read

Edward T. Hall

Beyond Culture

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1976

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Introduction-Chapter 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction Summary

Beyond Culture’s Introduction posits that the population/environmental crisis and the relational crisis between humans will propel the world into “disaster” unless humans learn to cooperate on a mass scale and regulate consumption. To do so, humans must transcend the limits of individual cultures that preclude the working together of peoples across nations and societies. Communication and true understanding of others will help achieve these goals.

Hall questions why people are hard on themselves and do not use their talents wisely, pointing out that such disparaging behavior can be seen in religion, folklore, and philosophy. Hall differentiates himself from Sigmund Freud, who argued that to facilitate harmonious living, “basic energies” need to be repressed and “libidinal energy” needs to be sublimated into the creative drives that form modern institutions. In Hall’s eyes, people began to “err in judgment” after they evolved their extensions, a term Hall uses to refer to language, tools, institutions, or anything that enhances a function of an organism without changing said organism. This led to humans getting caught in a web of “extension transference,” which refers to the tendency to transfer familiar meanings or understandings from one cultural context to another. Hall proposes a “massive cultural literacy movement” to improve understanding of other peoples, cultures, and the quality of life (7).

Chapter 1 Summary: “The Paradox of Culture”

Hall argues that “the natural act of thinking is greatly modified by culture” (9). The West believes that logic, or linear thinking, is best and synonymous with truth. Freud, however, showed that thinking isn’t always linear, which challenged other scholars and the Newtonian model. Hall cites a February 20, 1970, New York Times article about a seemingly happy, but ownerless, dog at Ruffle Bar near New York that was captured at great public expense (with helicopters, police, and ASPCA workers). The dog was happy and healthy and had lived independently for two years, but officials became fixated on capturing it. Hall posits that the mindless persistence of institutions and bureaucracies to “control everything” reflects disordered priorities and “delusional” behaviors. “Sanity” itself in the West is one such delusion; linear thinking precludes comprehensive thinking, which allows one to evaluate priorities with the common good in mind.

Anthropologists disagree on what falls within “culture” and the extent of the unconscious’s impact on culture, often failing to study cultural patterns that are not explicitly told to the anthropologist. Hall uses a linguistic analogy to highlight that humans often do more than one initially thinks (as conveyed through media like language) when crafting culture. Anthropologists do, however, agree on three aspects of culture: 1) “it is not innate, but learned” (16); 2) it has interconnected facets; and 3) it is “shared” and differentiates groups.

Culture impacts all aspects of life, from personality and expression to thought and movement, personal to institutional, and economics to government. Using Americans’ relationship with time, which Hall terms “monochronic” (M-time) due to the American penchant for scheduling and focusing on one task at a time, Hall discusses how the relationship causes stress when Americans enter other frames of time, like polychronic time (P-time), in which there is less structure, fewer appointments, and more flexibility: The way M-time orders life is “arbitrary and imposed; that is, learned” (20). It can alienate one from the self and prevent appreciation of a broader experience by narrowing the scope of one’s attention to specific segments of time. P-time locales, like the Mediterranean, have systems with people deeply involved with one another, which compromises the speed of task completion and often hinders cooperation with outsiders. P-type organizations rely on a “head man” to handle problems, whereas M-type organizations lose sight of their own structure and functions as they grow.

Chapter 2 Summary: “Man as Extension”

Hall exemplifies evolution with the bowerbird, the evolution of which accelerated once it used its environment as a tool and developed extensions. Humankind excels at evolution by extension, but studies about “material extension” are infrequent due to lack of attention on material culture among early anthropologists. Every organism, Hall argues, alters its environment to survive; there are two distinct processes at work, “externalizing” and “internalizing.” Extensional systems begin with flexibility but become rigid over time and can be confused with the extended. For example, English teachers used to misrepresent written language as an extension, but spoken language is the primary extension, and written language is a “second-generation extension” (28), or a symbolization of spoken language. Hall dubs the intellectual confusion “extension transference” and cites James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, Picasso’s paintings, and Moore’s sculptures as examples of creators who portrayed the “externalizations of the processes of the brain” (28).

Extensions help people solve problems, evolve, and adapt without changing the body. They also allow one “to examine and perfect what is inside the head”; upon externalizing it, they can “study it, change it, and learn things about the self” (29). After describing the research of descriptive linguists who followed Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf but fell victim to extension transference by believing that language “was thought,” Hall details the work of Charles Ferguson, a descriptive linguist and Arabic specialist. Ferguson demonstrated in his study of Arabic that first-generation extension is often “overshadowed” when he insisted that State Department personnel should learn colloquial Arabic—which indeed had linguistic rules, despite the presiding stance that it lacked structure. Hall then discusses Americans attempting to learn Japanese by imposing the wrong extensional system (English grammar) onto Japanese without any reference to the structure of the language. Extension transference distortion also happens in schools, where educators fail to distinguish learning from education. For Hall, modern education has created the “illusion” that all learning must happen within schools to be valuable.

Extensions enhance functions, like how language and math enhance thinking, knives enhance cutting, etc. Extensions can also reveal something about whence they derived, as linguist Noam Chomsky has argued that language can reveal the brain’s organization. Hall describes humankind’s extensions as “expressions of [their] basic nature” and says that the natures can be numerous (36), yielding diversity among humans. Extension systems should be treated distinctly from the user, and several extension systems can take on a history of their own in a collective body: “Culture is the prime example” (37). Extensions also facilitate the “sharing” of talents, like through radio and television, but they can dissociate one from their actions and cause harm, such as when using mechanical systems to kill in warfare. Hall argues that successful lives must consider how various extensions work and the influence they have on humans. He points to high-context cultures, in which people have deep involvement with one another, as places where mechanical systems can overwhelm the culture, whereas low-context cultures, in which there are low levels of involvement with people, can use mechanical extensions without compromising culture because people become like the machines.

Chapter 3 Summary: “Consistency and Life”

Though the human form hasn’t evolved in years, the human communicative framework has. Understanding communication hinges upon being familiar with social and historical behavior; a person’s identity continues to change based on what they learn. Eventually, however, learned behaviors become subconscious and habitual, which poses problems when trying to differentiate the innate from the acquired. The nervous system only recognizes unconscious patterns and behaviors when there is a “deviation from plan” (43). Therefore, the cultural unconscious “controls” actions and requires intensive thought and experience to understand, none of which comes from “an armchair” alone (44). Looking at culture in the eyes of a foreigner (i.e., through a cross-cultural lens) can help illuminate the least well-known parts of one’s own culture, like the American distrust in relationships because words are not considered “bonds” in American culture.

Examples of cultural exploration in American treatment of time in a foreign embassy and two different groups of blind people’s interactions reveal that some have “avoidance systems” and others have the goal of “seeing” others. People who are blind are not aware of their blindness, nor do they know the “systematic” and “consistent” nature of their behaviors within their groups. Time spent getting to know others saves time later because people can work together more efficiently “with a friend” (53).

Hall dubs one’s stereotypes and unconscious cultural programming “control systems”; overcoming them is only possible by living for an extensive amount of time in another culture or a “training program” that recognizes the human tendency to operate within the same behavior patterns unless there is a disruption in the norm. People can recognize their own patterns only after they remain consistent “in the face of a foreign culture” (54); globalization has caused a shrinking of the world, which in turn requires people to be aware of their own behavioral systems because they must interact with strangers as individuals—that is, “extensions have widened [the] range” of interaction (54).

Introduction-Chapter 3 Analysis

Hall elucidates the intricacies of culture across his Introduction and first three chapters, in which his central message emerges: Cultural understanding demands a nuanced exploration of the unconscious dimensions that shape human behavior. Leaning heavily on paradoxes throughout his discussion, Hall highlights the complexity of anthropological study and specifically how Unconscious Differences Create Cultural Complexity among humans; for example, the futile pursuit of a seemingly happy dog like a villainous criminal (in Chapter 1) spotlights the disordered priorities that have arisen due to complex institution and bureaucratic behaviors. The unconscious drives these control systems for Hall, who challenges his readers to better understand culture by transcending their own cultural bounds. The challenge lies in the paradoxes: Humans craft culture but cannot define it, and they craft extensions for innovation, but extensions harm humans, too. Hall’s critique of armchair anthropologists both strengthens his tone and underscores his belief that humans can achieve true understanding only through experiencing another’s culture, replete with their extensions, for themselves rather than relying on the written accounts of others as late-19th-century unilineal theorists did.

Hall employs a thoughtful and critical tone throughout the first three chapters, blending insights from anthropology, linguistics, and sociology. His tone reflects a deep concern for cultural understanding and the consequences of overlooking unconscious differences. Hall criticizes Western assumptions about logic and sanity, using the seemingly trivial incident with a dog to underscore deeper issues within institutions and societal priorities. Hall maintains a reflective tone as he explores the intricate relationship between humans and their extensions, highlighting the impact of these extensions on culture and diversity. Hall's tone becomes instructive, urging readers to transcend their own cultural frameworks and recognize the role of cultural unconsciousness in shaping behavior. He empathizes with his reader, recognizing that the path to cultural competence begins with “annoyance” (45). Yet Hall’s otherwise critical, exhortative tone is crucial in conveying the urgency of Cross-Cultural Competence as a Path to Personal and Global Improvement. He underscores the need for a nuanced understanding of cultural complexities, making his work a significant contribution to the discourse on communication and cooperation in a globalized world.

Hall’s numerous critiques of the West challenge ethnocentrism, the tendency to evaluate other cultures through the lens of one’s own, and showcase the effectiveness of his methods to come in the book in anecdotes about improving relationships or better understanding other individuals and groups. From the book’s first chapter, Hall questions Western norms, unveiling the limitations of linear thinking and the delusions embedded in institutional priorities. Hall emphasizes the diverse nature of extension systems and highlights the danger of imposing Western structures onto other cultures, like those who subscribed to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (i.e., that linguistic structure shapes perception) and consequently misunderstood the cause of cultural differences. The repeated critique of the West prompts readers to question their ingrained cultural perspectives, which is intended to foster a more open-minded approach to cross-cultural interactions. Hall’s challenge to ethnocentrism is a call for cultural humility, recognizing that no single culture should be the default measure of human experience.

Hall relies on binary classifications to provide simplified frameworks for understanding cultural differences while appealing to a wide audience beyond academics. These binaries create a structured approach to categorizing complex cultural patterns, making it more accessible for readers unfamiliar with anthropological concepts. By using dichotomies, Hall emphasizes the contrasting aspects of different cultural traits, allowing for clearer comparisons and discussions, such as in his discussion of cultural relationships with time in Chapter 1 or high- and low-context cultures in Chapter 3. It’s crucial to recognize that these binaries are heuristic tools, and Hall acknowledges the limitations of such classifications when he repeats that cultures are diverse and that individuals within a culture may exhibit a spectrum of behaviors rather than fitting neatly into one category.

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