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Fachbuch aus dem Jahr 2011 im Fachbereich Kulturwissenschaften - Sonstiges, , Veranstaltung: Interkulturelle Forschung, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Dieses bilinguale Werk, das eine Integration des kulturell-sprachlichen Perspektivenwechsels erfordert, wird einerseits die wesentlichen Kulturmodelle kurz darstellen, die der Interkulturalist und insbesondere der globale Manager bereits kennen sollte, den Bezug der Modelle untereinander herstellen, sowie diese interkulturelle Logik in die umfassendere Logik einer ganzheitlichen Bewusstseinsarchitektur in der Gestalt des transkulturellen Profilers (siehe S. 48), mit anderen Worten, den interkulturellen Managementansatz in einen emergenten transkulturellen integrieren. Dieser erweiterte theoretische und praktisch wirksame Bezugsrahmen ist wissenschaftlich fundiert und effektiv...
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011
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Page 1
Gebhard Deißler
Eine kurzer Abriss
der
interkulturellen Forschung
CULTURE RESEARCH
KULTUR FORSCHUNG
RECHERCHE CULTURE
BUSQUEDA CULTURAL
RICERCA CULTURALE
跨文化的智慧精髓
uтранскультурная
Page 2
Page 4
Interkulturelles-u. Transkulturelles Management (German)
Intercultural &Transcultural Management (English)
Gestion Interculturelle et Gestion Transculturelle (French)
Gerencia Intercultural y Gerencia Transcultural (Spanish)
Gerência Intercultural e Gerência Transcultural (Portuguese)
跨文化的智慧精髓- kua wen hua de zhi hui jing sui (Chinese)
транскультурная компетенция- transkulturnaja
kompetencija (Russian)
toransukaruchā・manējimento (Japanese)
トランスカルチャー ・ マネジメント
Vishua Chaytana (Sanskrit)
ZAKAA AL-TA'ALOF AL-THAQAFEE (Arabic)
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Ein kurzer Abriss der interkulturellen
Forschung
BEWUSSTSEINSARCHITEKTUR UND
INTERKULTURELLE FORSCHUNG
Kulturmodelle
1. Determinismus (achtziger Jahre)
2. Indeterminismus (neunziger Jahre…)
3. Probabilismus (drittes Jahrtausend)
Dieses bilinguale Kapitel, das eine Integration des kulturell-sprachlichen
Perspektivenwechsels erfordert, wird einerseits die wesentlichen Kulturmodelle
kurz darstellen, die der Interkulturalist und insbesondere der globale Manager
bereits kennen sollte, den Bezug der Modelle untereinander herstellen, sowie diese
interkulturelle Logik in die umfassendere Logik einer ganzheitlichen
Bewusstseinsarchitektur in der Gestalt des transkulturellen Profilers (siehe S. 48), mit
anderen Worten, den interkulturellen Managementansatz in einen emergenten
transkulturellen integrieren. Dieser erweiterte theoretische und praktisch wirksame
Bezugsrahmen ist wissenschaftlich fundiert und effektiv.
Page 6
Das Ziel dieser Erörterung besteht weniger in der Darstellung, Deutung und
Anwendung des Bekannten, sondern vielmehr in deren Integration in einem
zukunftsorientierten leistungsfähigeren, den kulturellen Herausforderungen des
dritten Jahrtausends angemessen optimierten interkulturellen Paradigmas, das hier
als noetisch, transkulturell oder quantisch bezeichnet wird. Doch jeder
interkulturelle Forscher, so meine ich, schuldet den Pionieren der interkulturellen
Forschung den wissenschaftlichen und menschlichen Respekt, ihre Arbeit
angemessen zu repräsentieren. Andere haben das Recht und sogar die Pflicht deren
Werk im Lichte wissenschaftlicher Paradigmenwechsel im Sinne einer Verpflichtung
der Menschheit insgesamt gegenüber fortzusetzen, denn das globale Management
bezieht sich nicht nur auf die globale Wirtschaft und deren Erfordernisse, sondern
auf alle Bereiche des Lebens auf der Erde, die nun allesamt eine globale Dimension
haben, nicht zuletzt auch die Überlebensfrage des Menschen schlechthin. Deshalb ist
nicht nur eine interkulturelle Standortbestimmung der Akteure, sondern auch eine
Standortbestimmung der interkulturellen Forschung vonnöten um sie im Lichte der
globalen Erfordernisse voranzutreiben.
Ich möchte aber gleich darauf hinweisen, dass die drei Generationen der
interkulturellen Forschung keine fixen Kategorien, sondern dass die Übergänge
fließend sind.
Geert Hofstede(1980)
Kultur wird hier als mentale Software oder als kollektive mentale Programmierung
definiert, die Kulturgruppen voneinander unterscheidet. Diese Forschung ist in
sofern deterministisch, als dass jeder erforschten nationale Gruppe statistisch basierte
fixe landeskulturelle Werte zugeordnet werden. Doch Hofstede räumt ein, dass
unser Denken und Verhalten desweitern über die determinierende nationalkulturelle
Ebene hinaus von weiteren kulturellen Ebenen, vergleichbar mit dem
Individualkultur Profil der Ebene D6 des transkulturellen Profilers, bestimmt wird
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und er fügt auch hinzu, dass es sich bei der mentalen Programmierung um eine
Vorprogrammierung handle, wobei das Individuum noch eine Marge der Mit- und
Ausgestaltungsfreiheit besäße. Die fixen landeskulturellen Positionen geben dem
Modell dennoch eine statische Prägung; daher dessen deterministische Orientierung.
Die vier (und schließlich fünf) Kulturdimensionen Hofstedes wurden am konzisesten
von den britischen Managementwissenschaftlern Hickson and Pugh definiert:
1. Machtdistanz als die Art und Weise, wie die Menschen einer Kultur Autorität
managen.
2. Individualismus-Kollektivismus als die Art, in der Menschen Beziehungen
managen.
3. Unsicherheitsvermeidung als die Art, in der Menschen ihr Sicherheitsbedürfnis
managen.
4. Maskulinität als die Art, in der Menschen sich selbst managen.
5. Langzeitorientierung vs. Kurzzeitorientierung als die Art, in der Menschen die
Zeit managen.
Nun haben wir das Aggregat-Kulturmodell Hofstedes in wenigen Zeilen resümiert.
Es ist im Transkulturellen Profiler Modell auf der Ebene des Nationalkulturprofils
D7, 1-5, S. 48, angesiedelt. - Diese geistig-kulturelle Landkarte sollte man von nun an
immer als Wegbegleitung, bildlich gesprochen, einsichtsbereit zur Ortung verfügbar
haben. - Nun harrt nur noch seine Übersetzung in die diversen Sphären des
gesellschaftlichen und organisationalen Lebens anhand der dafür nachfolgend
ebenso prägnant subsumierten landeskulturellen Indices.
Weiterhin hat Hofstede die Unterscheidung von Werten und Praktiken und deren
Zuordnung zu National- und Organisationskulturen im Zwiebelmodell
veranschaulicht, deren Grad der Reversibilität, sowie deren Erwerbszeitraum
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erforscht, sowie die von ihm erforschten Kulturen inbezug auf managementrelevante
Charakteristika kartiert.
Hofstede’s National Culture Profiles (country culture rankings)
Power distance Individualism Masculinity Uncertainty Avoid.
Argentina Index Rank Index Rank Index Rank Index Rank Australia 49 35-6 46 22-3 56 20-1 86 10-15 Austria 11 41 55 18 79 2 70 25 Belgium 65 20 75 8 54 22 94 5-6 Brazil 69 14 38 26-7 49 27 76 21-2 Canada 39 39 80 4-5 52 24 48 41-2 Chile 63 24-5 23 38 28 46 86 10-15 Colombia 67 17 13 49 64 11-12 80 20 Costa Rica 35 42-4 15 46 21 48-9 86 10-15 Denmark 18 51 74 9 16 50 23 51 Equador 78 8-9 8 52 63 13-14 67 28 Finland 33 46 63 17 26 47 59 31-2 France 68 15-16 71 10-11 43 35-6 86 10-15 Germany (F. R.) 35 42-4 67 15 66 9-10 65 29 Great Britain 35 42-4 89 3 66 9-10 35 47-8 Greece 60 27-8 35 30 57 18-19 112 1 Guatemala 95 2-3 6 53 37 43 101 3 Hong Kong 68 15-16 25 37 57 18-19 29 49-50 Indonesia 78 8-9 14 47-8 46 30-1 48 41-2 India 77 10-11 48 21 56 20-1 40 45 Iran 58 19-20 41 24 43 35-6 59 31-2 Ireland 28 49 70 12 68 7-8 35 47-8 Israel 13 52 54 19 47 29 81 19 Italy 50 34 76 7 70 4-5 75 23 Jamaica 45 37 39 25 68 7-8 13 52 Japan 54 33 46 22-3 95 1 92 7 Korea (S) 60 27-8 187 43 39 41 85 16-17 Malaysia 104 1 26 36 50 25-6 36 46 Mexico 81 5-6 30 32 69 6 82 18 Netherlands 38 40 80 4-5 14 51 53 35 Norway 31 47-8 69 13 8 52 50 38 New Zealand 22 50 79 6 58 17 49 39-40
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Pakistan 55 32 14 47-8 50 25-6 70 24-5 Panama 95 2-3 11 51 44 34 86 10-15 Peru 64 21-3 16 45 42 37-8 87 9 Philippines 94 4 32 31 64 11-12 44 44 Portugal 63 24-5 27 33-5 31 45 104 2 South Africa 49 36-7 65 16 63 13-14 49 39-40 Salvador 66 18-19 19 42 40 40 94 5-6 Singapore 74 13 20 39-41 48 28 8 53 Spain 57 31 51 20 42 37-8 86 10-15 Sweden 31 47-8 71 10-11 5 52 29 49-50 Switzerland 34 45 68 14 70 4-5 58 33 Taiwan 58 29-30 17 44 45 32-3 69 26 Thailand 64 21-3 20 39-41 34 44 64 30 Turkey 66 18-19 37 28 45 31-3 85 16-17 Uruguay 61 26 36 29 38 42 100 4 United States 40 38 91 1 62 15 46 43 Venezuela 81 5-6 12 50 73 3 76 21-2 Yogoslawia 76 12 27 33-5 21 48-9 88 8 Regions: East Africa 64 21-3 27 33-5 41 39 52 36 West Africa 77 10-11 20 39-41 46 30-1 54 34 Arab countries 80 7 38 26-7 53 23 68 27
Quelle: G. Hofstede, Cultures and Organizations, Software of the Mind and Bartlett, Ghoshal, Birkinshaw, The Transnational, 2003
Fons Trompenaars und Charles Hampden-Turner (1997)
Das Kulturmodell des britisch-niederländischen interkulturellen Forscherduos, das
auch als Dilemmadoktoren bezeichnet wird, weil sie eine Dilemmatheorie entwickelt
haben, die für die Lösung globaler kultureller Dilemmalösung angewandt werden
kann und die später noch im Lichte der Transkulturalität erörtert werden wird.
Die auf Kluckhohn und Strodtbeck zurückgehende Kulturdefinition von THT (kurz
für Trompenaars und Hampden-Turner) bezieht sich auf „die Art und Weise, wie
eine Gruppe von Menschen Probleme bewältigt und Dilemmata löst.“
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Das siebendimensionale Modell, siehe Transcultural Profiler, Ebene D7, 5-12, Seite
48, besteht aus folgenden Dimensionen, die ich im Wortlaut der Autoren, zusammen
mit der anschließenden Landeskulturenklassifizierung inbezug auf diese sieben
Parameter der Kulturanalyse, wiedergeben möchte:
1. Universalism-particularism: seeks to discover one's prime allegiance to rules and
und classifications or to the exceptional, unique circumstances and relationships
2. Individualism-communitarianism: measures the extent to which managers see the
individual employee and shareholder as paramount, their development,
enrichment, and fulfillment; or to what extent the corporation, customers and the
wider community should be the beneficiaries of all personal allegiances
3. Specific-diffuse: measures the tendency to analyze, reduce and break down the
field of experience or to synthesize, augment, and construct patterns of
experience
4. Neutral versus affective: this concern the legitimacy to show emotions while at
work
5. Inner-directed - outer-directed: concerns the 'locus of control.' Is it inside each of
us, or outside in our environments to which we must adapt?
6. Achieved-ascribed status: refers to whether status is conferred to people on the
basis of what they have achieved or because of what they are
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7. Sequential-synchronous time: has to do with whether one sees time as passing in
a sequence or coming round again and again' (THT 7D-model, source:
Trompenaars, Hampden-Turner, Managing People Across Cultures 2005).
Trompenaars - Hampden-Turner Classification of Cultures
Individualistic Communitarian Specific Diffuse
USA Japan USA Japan
UK China UK China
Argentina Indonesia Brazil Indonesia
Mexico Hongkong France Hongkong
Brazil Singapore Belgium Singapore
Spain Venezuela Austria Argentina
Austria France Switzerland Mexico
Belgium Czechoslovakia Venezuela
Italy Germany
Germany
Switzerland
Czechoslovakia
Universalist Particularist Neutral Emotional
USA Japan UK USA
UK China Indonesia China
Brazil Indonesia Hongkong Brazil
France Hongkong Argentina France
Belgium Singapore Mexico Belgium
Italy Argentina Venezuela Italy
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Austria Mexico Spain Germany
Germany Venezuela Austria Switzerland
Switzerland Spain Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Achieved Status Ascribed Status
USA Japan
UK China
Argentina Indonesia
Mexico Hongkong
Spain Singapore
Austria France
Germany Belgium Source: F. Trompenaars/Ch. Hampden-Turner
Czechoslovakia Italy/Switzerland Hodgetts and Luthan, Intern. Management
2003
Dieses Modell ist ebenso wie das vorhergehende Hofstedesche Modell ein statistisch
basiertes Modell zur Unterscheidung von Kulturen, jedoch etwas weniger statisch als
das vorausgehende, denn Kulturen können auf den Wertekontinua in beiden
Richtungen "entlangtanzen". Während dieselbe Nationalkultur in einem Bereich eine
Position auf einem und demselben Kontinuum einnehmen kann, kann sie in einem
anderen Bereich eine andere einnehmen. Während man in beiden Modellen von der
Annahme ausgeht, dass eine mentale Programmierung vorhanden ist, ist sie im
statischeren Hofstedeschen irreversibler, im letzteren THTs ist sie dagegen
reversibler und veränderlicher. Daher kann man von einer Progression von einer
eher deterministischen zu einer emergenten indeterministischeren Kulturkonzeption
sprechen und das fünfdimensionale Kulturmodell Hofstedes dem Determinismus,
das siebendimensionale Kulturmodell Trompenaars und Hampden-Turners
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hingegen dem Übergang vom Determinismus zum Indeterminismus zuordnen. Der
Indeterminismus im eigentlichen Sinne zeichnet sich erst in der nächsten
Kulturauffassung ab.
Zusammen vollenden die beiden Modelle die Ebene D7, 1-12 des transkulturellen
Profilers, Seite 48 und verkörpern das aus 12 maßgeblichen Parametern für die
Differenzierung von Kulturen und die Kulturanalyse bestehende
Nationalkulturprofil in Ergänzung des gleichermaßen aus 12 Parametern bestehende
Individualkulturprofils der Transkulturellen Profilerebene D6, 1-12. Beide
zusammen ermöglichen ein differenzierteres kulturelles Profiling, das durch die
Einbettung in die Gesamtarchitektur des Bewusstseins des globalen Managers im
globalen Managementkontext vermittels der Integrations- und Steuerungsfunktion
der Ebenen D1 bis D5, insbesondere der transkulturellen/noetischen Ebene
vorteilhaft kontextualisiert werden kann.
Die virtuose Beherrschung des gesamten Wertekontinuums, bzw. des Wertekontinua
Clusters, und dessen Integration ist die Voraussetzung für die Generierung von
interkulturellen Synergien und unterstreicht desweiteren, dass Werte keine statische,
fixe und unveränderliche Positionen verkörpern, sondern vielmehr Prozesse im
Bereich der Mediation von Unterschieden sind.
Unter dem Begriff Dilemma Doktoren ist das britisch-niederländische
Kulturgelehrten-Gespann bekannt für die Dilemma Theorie. Nachfolgend möchte ich
zeigen, wie auch in diesem Bereich das interkulturelle Paradigma durch das
emergente transkulturelle nutzbringend im Hinblick auf umfassende und
nachhaltige „360° Synergien“ durch Einbeziehung und Operationalisierung (Ebene
D3) der im Transkulturellen Management Modell oder Profiler enthaltenen und die
kulturelle Dialektik des Mentalbereichs transzendierenden umfassenderen Logik der
diesen Bereich transzendierenden Bewusstseinsdimensionen D1 und D2 mit ihrem
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strukturell-funktionell integrativen und optimierenden Charakter, erweitert werden
kann.
Nun das von mir zu der Veranschaulichung dieser Progression von einem 90°
Synergiemodell hin zu einem 360° Synergie entwickelte Modell, das dem
ganzheitlichen Menschen mit seinen in der Phylogenese angelegten Potentialen
gerecht wird, inklusive Legende. Es sei mir gestattet, das diesbezügliche Kapitel aus
meiner Publikation Transcultural Management - Transkulturelles Management,
GRIN Verlag München, in Englisch einzufügen:
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The Dawn of an Intercultural
Metascience
An Epistemological Blue Print for
360° Transcultural Synergy
The dawn of a global civilization presupposes the waning of the dark clouds of the
culture wars of the 20thcentury and the mindsets that have been thinking from the
background of this century. A more global civilisation needs a radically new
approach. Optimizing old approaches still amounts to old approaches, however
improved, with consequences that can only be different in degrees with regard to
their capacity of generating cultural problems. We are prolonging the past
indefinitely in myriad variations. We haven’t been able to identify and successfully
implement a kind of master control software that allows us to successfully manage
our mental software. This is the master dilemma of which intercultural dilemmas are
but mirror reflections at lower levels. Like Don Quijote, we create and fight our
dilemmas ourselves heroically, ‘with unbearable sorrow, going where the brave dare
not go, dream the impossible dream, this is my quest’ (Cervantes, Don Quijote). The
moment we realize that there is a master dilemma, which creates myriads of sub- we see a new possibility, one of realizing our seemingly impossible
dream. The dilemma is that we are conditioned in myriad ways and that this
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conditioning, which has taken place in our lifetime and probably beyond, determines
our actions, attitudes and behaviours. So, conditioning and time are elements of
concern here. Instead of liberating us from this conditioning, cultural categorizations
have cemented us into straitjackets of mental programming, which we act out
mindlessly. So, the programming of the mind has become utter mindlessness, while
freedom is rationalized by the automation of our being. The programming goes on in
ever more sophisticated ways. Does this have a future? It has brought us some
awareness and models. So far, so good. The entire intercultural approach pertains to
a time and a mind, which is the product of that time, which flow in to the future,
reproducing the same mind-product-of-time. Part of the master dilemma is that this
conditioning is perpetuated, however sophisticated. It applies to the researcher as
well as to the researched. They partake in the same mechanism, ever recreating the
dilemma. Yet, what we need more of is not recreation but creation. This is our cre-do.
The new (creation) presupposes the dream, the perception of the possibility, the
belief in it, the hope of its attainment, then the daring heroism of a quixotic mindset.
If we master the master dilemma, dilemma doctors will be rationalized by this new
epistemological ‘technology’. Presently they need the conditioning, which creates the
dilemmas, in order to solve them, to make a living of it. The moment you master this
root problem, there is less need for masters nor slaves nor dilemmas nor dilemma
doctors.
Is this awareness feasible and operational? Self-interest and celebration of that self
(academically and monetarily) are their value preference rather than helping
mankind ahead on the road of evolution. No wonder, most of them are from high
IDV cultures. They are creating new dimensions of difference, more divisive factors,
competing for new, smarter ones among them. But what about the master dimension,
that which manifests the sub-dimensions? Is there one and is it possible to manage it
in a way that puts the dimensions of cultural difference in a radically new light,
transcending them at will, enabling us to put them on and off, inclusive of their
reconciliations and synergies? The present approach is largely horizontal: thinking in
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cultures, their empirically identified value preferences and the optimum interfacing
thereof. These fairly fixed categories are comparable to Newtonian physics
categories. The vertical dimension approach to be added is the level of conscious
evolution. At the intersection of the horizontal and the vertical there, at this centre
lies the quintessentially new approach. Simply a shift of focus to incorporate the
observer or conscious entity behind the mind, as the quantum physicists since
Heisenberg and Schrödinger have been envisaging in the first part of the previous
century. Can we afford to exclude what the hard scientists have been envisaging over
hundred years ago and which enabled space age? Can an analogous process in our
area of concern enable the space age consciousness corollary, the global transcultural
civilisation? The new coexists with, encompasses and simply transcends the old. No
destruction, just tapping into a new resource, a higher order of things. The master
dilemma is that of conditioning, the mind as a storehouse of it and time versus
deconditioning or transcending conditioning to leverage consciousness as a whole
instead of the myriad fragments of the sum total of our learning and socialization.
Conditioning versus deconditioning, psychological consciousness versus pure
consciousness. Time versus freedom of time and therefore mental programming
versus mental deprogramming are road sign dimensions which point to a substantial
reality that escapes conceptual terminology, for the mind with its mental
programming, the time, memory, language storehouse is one horn of the master
dilemma to be integrated at a new level. Integrating the observer, the observation
and the observed, this is the challenge. Whether this is possible and what its
potentialities are will be looked at cross-culturally, in order to see how various
civilisations across the ages have approached this question. We are postulating a
reality that, transcending words and concepts, governs the dimensions - like a master
key unlocking all doors of our mental edifice - we are trying to reconcile as well as
the potential synergies. We are not projecting an illusory magic quid, a miraculous
compensation of our dire human condition of intercultural strive - a fairy tale cloud
cuckoo land -, but we are investigating a biological reality of the mind which has
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been investigated by select adepts and elites of East and West, science and
philosophy of all civilisations across the ages. Finding out whether such a master key
exists and how it can fit intercultural research will be the prime quest here and now.
In order to investigate this question we want to undertake a journey across cultures,
ages and civilisations, in order to find out whether across the millennia there are
supporting elements of our hypothesis. The new intercultural edifice we envisage
must rest on an incorruptible foundation, with as many supporting pillars as
possible, which mutually validate and consolidate each other to provide a rock solid
base for further research. It must reflect the truth, have universal validity, appeal and
operationality. Each reader must decide whether he has the solidity to travel a road
of the mind of another culture or whether he prefers to wait until the new insight is
translated in the categories of his native culture by the quixotic heroes, for we must,
though it may sound contradictory, have a sound foundation in the best of our own
culture, before we can add on what we envisage, before we can transcend cultural
programming.
Let us first turn our eyes towards the cradle of Western Civilisation, which is Greece.
Non-Aristotelian thinking has become much en vogue. On the one hand Aristotelian
thinking seems to be considered too static (‘opposites in the same space mutually
excluding each other’) to allow higher frequency dynamics of successful
reconciliation. On the other hand, however, it provides the notion of a trinitary
hierarchical structure of man, the noetic-psycho-somatic triad. The second level, the
psychological level is the repository of our mental software, or collective mental
programming. The psychological structure contains the mind, time, the sum total of
our conditioning. The third level of the triad the noetic, from the Greek NOUS,
beyond the repository of learning, socialization and conditioning as a whole, seems
to be of pristine, unalloyed, universal nature, and, as we will see in the
neurophysiologic approach, it has the power of control over the subjacent level, the
psychological which in turn governs the somatic level. We are in the presence of a
hierarchical top-bottom control system. Yet, if we ignore or are unable to activate the
Page 19
noetic level of the integrated hierarchical triad, which has the power of control of the
psychological level, the latter cannot be adequately managed, which means, it runs
wild. As it is the repository of our mental software we needn’t be surprised if it is
dysfunctional. So, over 2000 years ago, Ancient Greece knew a holistic, threefold
noetic-psycho-somatic structural concept of man, which in our days has gone out of
fashion, so to speak. Is it connected to its unique cultural performance of laying the
foundation of Western Civilisation? By returning to the roots and the cradle of our
Western Civilisation we can resource us and see whether we can leverage this
superordinate level to the psychological, mental level, which is assumed to have the
prerogative of the power of control over the subjacent levels and therefore of the
entire repository of our cultural conditioning.
If we turn our eyes further East and deeper in the past, to the Ancient Indian
Civilisation, we notice, that it considers the mind as material as opposed to the
immateriality assumption of Western psychology and that it has a few thousand
years of exploration of the inner cosmos of man with results that fill libraries and
cannot be dealt with in our specific inquiry into an enhanced culture management
principle. However, in our search for another structural element of our new edifice of
an intercultural metascience we encounter a concept, which is that of the
‘consciousness witness’ and which is considered one of the greatest contributions of
India to Human Civilisation. Consciousness-witness, similar to the ‘Nous’ or noetic
level of Ancient Greece, refers to a level of consciousness beyond the mental
structure and functions we are conversant with, which is pure consciousness,
choiceless awareness, perception, unalloyed by the mental and emotional ups and
downs, the incessant movements of the mind. Various systems of yoga are trying to
access and leverage this level of our holistic biological consciousness-mind-body
structure to enhance mental and physical structure and functioning.
Turning our attention now to Ancient China, we are aware, that, here again,
intercultural research frequently refers to Confucianism as the explanatory variable
Page 20
of Chinese culture and management. In addition to Confucian dynamism, there is
less reference to Lao Tzu’s ‘hyperdynamism’, if one may use this term, the
underlying dynamism of the entire world. Lao Tzu, in his Tao Te Ching advocates a
mindset, which translates into Western languages as ‘Not Doing’ which is the very
opposite of doing nothing, because, according to Taoism, ‘not doing does
everything’. It refers to a mindset, which witnesses life in a non-interfering way.
Tapping this higher level of the biology of the psychophysical structure of man
supposedly creates order of the highest possible kind. What comes here to one’s
mind is the assumption of intercultural management research, that the descriptive
international managerial mindsets are more effective than the judgmental ones.
Further East, even in the Land of the Rising Sun culture we can trace this
hypermental dimension of consciousness, which underlies Budo and Zen. It has been
expounded by Takuan in ‘Fudochi Dhinmyo Roku’, which translates as ‘The Secret of
Unmoved Wisdom’. Poetry describes this mindset as the image of the moon on the
water, the mirror image of the moon does not move. According to this practical
philosophy, the nature of our spirit, of our self is like the mirror image of the moon
on the water the moving flow of our thoughts. If one doesn’t cling to the thoughts,
letting them go, the nature of the spirit becomes ‘fudo’, that is without movement:
‘Hishiryo’. This secure anchor transcends mental programming, unburdened by
conditioning.
Whether the ‘Nous’, the ‘Consciousness Witness’, ‘Non-doing’ or ‘Hishiryo’, they all
are levels of awareness above our habitual awareness, governing the levels below.
Culture, mental conditioning being contained in the subordinate mental level,
cultural phenomena are also governed by the superordiante level identified by
different cultures and framed and derived differently according to the cultural
background. Thus we have found a key to culture, to cultural conditioning, a central
hub, on which the philosophies and psychologies of major civilisations converge
Page 21
unanimously. The central hub, that on which all mental programming hinges, this
door of a new perception of culture, we are unlocking now.
The millennia old cradles of civilisations from where such notions originate, which
correspond to a more inner-oriented science of man, have to be tested by the criteria
of more outer-oriented Western sciences: Neurophysiology and microphysics will be
considered here, before we reconcile East and West by the philosophy of a sage who
bridges East and West:
As soon as in the early twentieth century neurophysiologists like Mme and Louis
Lapique, (Ramon y Cajal, Sherrington) have formulated the law of functional
subordination, meaning essentially, that higher centres of the hierarchical structure
of the human nervous system control lower ones. The French cardiologist Dr.
Thérèse Brosse has conducted 50 years of related research in East and West.
Psychosomatic research tells us that the state of mind has the power to influence
cardiac, respiratory and other rates that are usually measured in diagnostic medicine.
However, if the psychological level controls the somatic, what entity subordinates,
controls, integrates and normalizes the psychological level. Here, Western
psychology ends, as it reasons in a dualistic psychosomatic mode only, although a
healthy psychological functioning would imply a superordinate function, capable of
subordinating and integrating the psychological level, the highest in the Western
dualistic conception of man. Neurophysiology points to the presence of and a need
for a third level, an extension of the dualist psychosomatic structure of man to an
enhanced trinitary structure, which we could trace in the major civilisations of the
world spanning nearly ten millennia. It is this level of our human constitution which
is termed in different ways by different cultures. Factually a type of pure
consciousness as opposed to a conditioned personal consciousness is the nature of
that entity which we have been tracing successfully in Eastern cultures, confirmed
and validated by the law of functional subordination, which has the normalizing,
integrating function in the constitution of man. The hiatus between physiology and
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psychology can be bridged as in the Japanese assumption, where physiological and
mental immobility are necessarily concomitant.
Turning to microphysics, since Heisenberg and Schrödinger, maybe not surprisingly
also in the early 20thcentury, there appears a kind of interconnectedness between the
subject and the object observed; a shift to also encompass the consciousness of the
subject in the observation of the object. Consciousness redirects its gaze back at itself
in quest of understanding maybe a consciousness-time-space continuum. Is it new?
The Sanskrit notion of Chit-kala-dik (Consciousness-time-space continuum) seems to
be present in Ancient Vedic texts already.
Over the larger part of the past century the intellectual giant J. Krishnamurti, who
pertains to East and West alike, has been discussing issues like conditioning and
deconditioning with outstanding physicists like David Bohm, psychologists and
scholars from East and West. He equates the observer with the observed, a cryptic
notion to the unaware. His psychology transcends all psychologies and philosophies
because it seems to be able to liberate us from all conditioning by leveraging a level
of choiceless awareness, a mode of ‘seeing’ which is non-fragmentary, beyond
psychological time and conditioning, beyond the mind, of which culture is a
component. This art of perceiving is an act of liberation that, and here is the
revolution, can take place instantaneously, while the other techniques, which have
been outlined, require long and arduous training and as such are unlikely to really
transcend time and the mind, as they are efforts in time and thus products of the
mind. That which transcends the mind and conditioning is something unknown,
radically new, originating in the awareness of the impossibility of the mind to
transcend itself. Seeing this can effect the alchemy.
Does that square with Western ethics? Is it blasphemous? Where is God in this
equation? The answer is provided by Jacques Maisonrouge (1988), who as sole
European became President of IBM World Trade Corporation, a transcultural
manager par excellence. He clearly states that we should stick to the highest principle
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of Judeo-Christian Civilisation, that of ‘love thy neighbour’. It is the guarantee for
private and professional success and that the companies, which, based on this
principle have the best human relations are also the most profitable ones. Love
definitely liberates us from the clutches and shackles of the ego, a purely personal
consciousness, to liberate the higher level of an impersonal consciousness, which
transcends conditioned responses of the mind, of which culture is a fragment.
In sum, each culture has a specific path - based on its specific traditions - to access
and leverage this seemingly missing third level (in Western approaches) of
unconditioned non-fragmentary higher consciousness - also suggested by hard
science. Although the term may convey a threat to material consciousness, it may
turn out to be the royal path of managing and controlling and foregoing culture
clash: an ultimate ejection seat before culture crash, the scenario depicted by gloom
and doom culture clash harbingers.
How does that fit with the intercultural management paradigm, state-of-the-art
models of multiculturalism? For the uninitiated reader into the scientific
underpinning and the application of dilemma theory I would like to present two
approaches to dilemma resolution and synergy, that of the Cambridge Professor
Charles Hampden-Turner and the intercultural management consultant Fons
Trompenaars as well as the approach to reconciliation and synergy taken by N.
Adler. Details can be read in the publications by these three authors (see
bibliography). I would like to represent it as I understand it in order to show where it
can possibly be enhanced by my approach.
