A Brief Analytic Study of Muticulturalism

 By: Stephen [Dashu] Ainsah-Mensah

 “Know yourself” is a motivational assertion.  It inspires the individual to uphold and enhance the unique traits that define him/her whether as a biological entity or as a person that functions in social spaces.  A fine application of “know yourself” leads to commendable personal development and, by implication, general progress. Hence, the exclusive traits that differentiate the individual - including competence - in comparison with others is an epitome of the said assertion. 

If one should know oneself, then one’s personal identity is what is espoused. Yet, one can find shades of personal identities that crisscross such that individuals are collectively believed to portray matching personalities in a familial sense in one culture compared to other groups of individuals in another or other cultures elsewhere. Thereof, it may be rightly deduced that one culture is unlike another or others.

One may rush to claim that personal and collective identities limited to territories are likely to be debased if individuals migrate to settle in other cultures. Mature contemplation will show that this claim is unduly simplistic or that it’s, at least, wrong in many respects. In any case, the coalescence of cultures with the dominant culture which produces a new cultural reality for a new kind of progress is what is commonly called “multiculturalism”.

Multiculturalism may redefine and reshape the distinct identity of dominant-culture settlers when all sorts of immigrants settle and integrate in the culture. I say “dominant-culture settlers”, not “natives” since there are cultures where the native’s culture isn’t the dominant culture as could be found in, say, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.  To simplify matters, let me refer to dominant-culture settlers as settlers. 

With a vigorous cultural mix, immigrants or visible minorities, so to speak, need to continually interrogate their original identities in relation to how they now live or ought to live in a dominant culture. Subsequently, they face the reality that life in the new culture is unsustainable, loaded with many difficulties, unless there is enough understanding, appreciation, knowledge and practice of what the new culture expects from them.  It’s as if the immigrant is being told: “Do as you see here, not what you saw and experienced in your native culture.”

Here, personal identity takes a new turn.  It’s broadened, given a new flesh that is a dilution of one’s original identity. However, this watering down of identity is offset by a synthesized personality that comprehends issues in life and around the world in a more broadened fashion.  In short, the immigrant’s worldview becomes far more open and complex; he/she sees the need to be tolerant and collaborative amid all sorts of individuals from different cultural backgrounds; and when the adaptability of settlers, aborigines and visible minorities turns reciprocal, the benefits go beyond the boundaries of the multicultural society.  In considering cultures in other parts of the world, impartial appreciation and acknowledgement of them is likely to take precedence over their belittling or denigration based on differences in science, technology, socio-economic and moral affairs. Unquestionably, this is healthy for diplomacy, multifaceted communication and other constructive engagements on the world stage and across cultures.

Thus, with multiculturalism, an immigrant interacts with, relates to, works with, and learns from aborigines, settlers and other immigrants from other cultures as a fundamental part of life. If, therefore, one should consider a core advantage of multiculturalism, it resides precisely in the expanded functional scope of the immigrant. To fully integrate helps to augment one’s humanity via cultural synthesis.  Personality is reshaped; the cultural domain in which one’s imaginations, thoughts and actions take place bestows a renewed robustness on many aspects of life.

Nevertheless, the pleasantness of multiculturalism is challenged and may be tainted if there is a steady proliferation of immigrants in the dominant culture. Settlers may feel threatened by the increasing number of immigrants believing that immigrants could not only outnumber and overwhelm them but also jeopardize the rights and privileges that they reap the benefits of such as access to educational, social and economic goods.  This obstacle or threat ought to be addressed by authorities in order to avert frequent socio-economic and moral conflicts in addition to the raging issues of discrimination and racism.

Multiculturalism, then, isn’t necessarily laudable.  Laws and institutions may have to be structured in such ways that they ensure justice for all; supervisory techniques must be strengthened and modified whenever needed to maintain justice.  Suppose this state of affair prevails, it can hardly be questioned that multiculturalism is of huge benefit to the society.

Now, school people may engage in debates regarding which is better, a monoculture or multiculturalism.  A monoculture - as the name suggests - is a culture of which the people come from a single cultural background.  Hence, the issue of immigrant populations and cultural diversity is practically non-existent, or it isn’t an issue of concern.  I presume the two kinds of cultures are both great, and this means debates aimed at showing a preference for one against the other are out of place.

A monoculture that induces progress in an atmosphere of peace, stability and harmony demands retention; the same goes for multiculturalism. Nevertheless, a monoculture that appears to face a steady decline in the workforce or/and shortages of skilled labour coupled with an ageing population needs the support of immigrants to fill the undesirable work vacuum.  With time, the monoculture may become a multicultural society.

Whether multiculturalism could flourish or not depends, not only on the praiseworthy efforts of visible minorities but also sustained teamwork and accords with/of settlers [and aborigines].  Fruitful multiculturalism lessens or eliminates the narrow-mindedness and destructive arrogance that is discernible of cultural insularity.  To claim, therefore, that multiculturalism doesn’t work is to assume that culture conflicts among the different cultural groups are inevitable and unresolvable.

Dancing to the rhythm of globalization has emerged as a growing trend; and allied to globalization is mass migrations to nourish the tree of multiculturalism.  Of course, other factors such as instability, internal strifes, in one’s own culture leading to incurable despair contributes to such migrations.  That migration is an inerasable phenomenon is doubtless resulting in the blurring of cultural boundaries. 

I believe that an on-and-off restructuring of the hinge on which multiculturalism turns will ultimately solve its unwarranted problems.  Admittedly, too, a multicultural society that is discrimination-free and racist-free grants stupendous optimism to any of its individuals to strive and utilize their full potentialities for personal and overall development. In reality, this kind of development will be one of the finest although my belief is that, so far, no multicultural society has reached this ideal destination.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Loose and Close Families: How They Shape Individual Personalities in Cultures

I am not a freak regarding family structures and how they function or ought to function, nor am I lame on this subject. I respect the dignity that characterizes a family, particularly in the area of nurturing children to sustain the spirit of a society through the family’s reproduction style. I am aware of the consistent role the family has to play to enable members to develop personalities that are expected to be polished, respectable and advanced for the triple development of the individual, the family and the society. Shortcomings may occur in such family activities, sometimes due to limited resources and sometimes due to explicable or inexplicable human failings. The blessing of adequate resources or the striving to generate this adequacy promote the aforesaid triple developments. What I say in the piece below is to show my awareness, my personal observations and informal study of family types that can be claimed to be distinct precisely because the cultures the families belong to are themselves distinct. I do not claim to be precise about what I say, but I hope that whether I have been general or specific in the points I offer, I show some measure of convincingness to those who care to see the modern family in the light of the powerful and irresistible influence of technology and what it carries along with it. Technology is king as it directs, in many ways, the structure of the modern family!

Modern families could be said to be close or loose. For close families, the cooperative force among family members is strong. For loose families, the individualistic spirit is common. But even between these two different kinds of families, shades of the cooperative and individualistic spirits crisscross to blur the dissimilarities. What makes a family loose or close is, in general, not that the families themselves deliberately work out the family structure; it is because the family structure is largely an offshoot of the culture in place. Usually, family structures that resist the temptation to change in line with significant modernizations to technology and employment mechanisms presuppose a toughened traditional culture. Such a culture is enriched with a remarkable history, language, architectural formations, social organizations, and/or allied factors. Concisely, the weight of the declared cultural categories supports the resilience of the traditional culture. Families, on the other hand, that easily change in relation to significant changes in technology and the employment system suggest a malleable culture.

Western societies in particular are full of loose families as the overwhelming importance attached to technology and employment has unseated marked traces of the cooperative spirit in the family. What technology has done is to place much more importance on automation, the use of machines, while labour-emphasized methods of production experience considerable reduction. Thus, people have to compete aggressively for limited jobs to the extent that one’s inherent and acquired skills may be underutilized or, simply, turn out to be irrelevant. This prevalent feature of the employment market has generally brought into being a large pool of employees who are overqualified for jobs they do, yet have no choice but to do them. If they do not do such jobs, they will have little or no income to support themselves. It is this aggressive pursuit for jobs that has restructured the passion and reason of so many people to make them appear self-centred, individualistic, and often secluded from the field of socialistic activities. The average employee has to fasten so much passion and thought to his/her job in addition to the fact that he/she has to prove to be insistently diligent in order to retain his/her job and win the favour of the employer. So how much room is left in the composition of one’s passion and thought to engage the task of catering effectively to the child or children one has or the family one belongs to? No wonder that the fabric of the family turns from being loose to something else. Children often get back home from school to face the toughness of life by themselves as parents have to be busy even at home trying to update their competence on the job and salve their crazy stress through unintrusive rest.

It can be deduced that children are forced to be largely individualistic, made to discover and apply the techniques of creativity mostly on their own accord. The adventurism, the courageous personalities that are typical of loose-family members arises largely from how technology and employment mechanisms forcefully instruct the temperament and direction of the family and family members. Loose-family parents may tell their children this: “Go to the outside world to enable you fulfill all your dreams. Acquire as much social skills and informal education as you could possibly acquire, but, also, redeem yourselves through the expert possession of all the capabilities that will make you well-rounded persons.” Children widen their respective fields of skills. But it could be unfortunate for those misguided children who, despite their wealth of skills, fail to mature in the fields where social morality equally abounds and ought to have been sought and acquired.

If this colourful personal initiative advances creativity, it also breeds the kind of endless ambition that seems to influence the psyche of the individual into thinking that individualism is the major benchmark of progress. It may further be said that getting out to explore the unexplored promotes the unfinished business of critically studying and knowing about matters that were hitherto unknown. This kind of curiosity is a recipe for towering innovation, but it can bring along with it untold stress. The individual, say a young male adult, is pushed to overwork himself, seek his personal development as if on his own accord, and almost perceive cooperativeness as a hindrance to progress. His intuition keeps telling him that his success in life is inadequate whereupon his curious mind undertakes a much deeper exploration of great matters. Doubtless, a government’s timely intervention may be aimed at forestalling individual greed, restlessness, and mindless selfishness. The object, furthermore, could be to moderate excesses and promote social-economic tranquility. Today, government-supervised progress is viewed by many as the ugly erection of socialism. The question is: when did socialism become ugly if it does not stipulate the practice of the forced possession and control of people?

I find this viewpoint of individualistic progress admirable but also troubling. Individualism of this sort is inclined to foster social and moral decay even though it may advance, rather quickly, economic progress. Individualism, while great, needs the conscious supervision of family members as well as authorities who work for the society. We, as individuals, are not perfect with our judgements and consequent doings. Sometimes we need the observance and skilled guidance of others to help us direct our motives and desires in the right directions, so that we do not inflict pain on the society. The young male adult who goes on to sell dangerous drugs because his unrestrained individualistic instincts have prompted him to do so has brought pain to bear on the society; and were his actions previously checked within the ambit of a closed family and the cautiously applied laws of the society, he might have done something different - and better. Individualism, moreover, has reinforced the question of privacy but privacy in a hazy form. Take the case of a man (or a woman) that prefers to stand or stay almost alone and strive for his own progress. Is he not a man trapped in contradictions? He dislikes cooperativeness, but in striving to achieve his own progress, he meets others for help. He has no job of his own and wants to be employed, so he goes to others for help. By his personally observing others, reading all kinds of materials, listening to tapes, and watching movies, he sharpens his mental aptitude, the grace of his body language, the quality of his voice, his speaking style, and goes on to attend a job interview. Finally, he gets a job though not the kind of job that equates with his inbuilt and built talent.

It may here be argued that the dependence on others to achieve one’s goal or get what one wants does not really meet the full requirements of individualism. The other side of the argument is that individualism merely means an initial glad taking of steps by the individual himself/herself that eventually leads to his/her expectations. Are the expectations genuine, original, in conformity with one’s unduplicated talent? If yes, individualism is really in place; if not, the individualism so achieved is obscure or tainted. Yet, there is the need for reasonable individualism, the kind of individualism that generates moral and social harmony. To what extent, therefore, individualism can be defended depends on how its support and practice yields economic progress within the bounds of moral and social harmony. Where a government and families fail to assert themselves on the issue of morality and social accord, the quest for individualism may be reexamined and its mode of functioning guided well by reformulated laws - laws that tend to be more stringent and more supervisory than before.

I ought to admit that I do not subscribe to unbending individualism, nor do I claim that the loose family is bad but the close family better. With the surge in technology to meet the requirements of growing populations, it has become difficult to retain the purity of the close family in so many cases.

The close family revolves around parents whose systematic guidance, and, indeed, coaching of children relieves families from the dangers of human flights. Children grow to understand that their love for their families is consistent, pretty invariable. They strive to retain this familial character irrespective of age and new dimensions to life. Even when children are financially independent adults, they prefer to work at places that are not that far from the parental homes. The object is to think and be thought of by parents, and get that kind of emotional comfort that derives from parental tutelage. The child adequately pays back with the kind of emotional and financial support that reinforces the mental and emotional fibre of the parent. To be loved so much is a key to building one’s confidence and categorical integration in the family. Why work that far if that may destabilize one’s emotions, erode the health of the mind, and, hence, punch discordant holes in one’s dispositional attitudes? Parents simply form a bond with the children to create reciprocal love. Securing a place in the family is a matter of eschewing unrestrained individualism. Yes, individualism is not barred, but it is made to function within the parameters of the family’s work-plan. A family member plays the game of life according to the set rules of the family. Your multiple functions in living human spaces proceed, time and again, and ultimately, in the living shadows of the family. You usually show a character that is expressly different from that of a loose-family individual. Your moral character is couched in a sober mould. Your dispositional attitudes are softer, gentler. In appraising social skills, one can see that the close-family individual regularly expresses them in ways that are characteristic of what transpires in the family: caring, a good sense of honesty, a good dose of modesty, empathy, the willingness to help, but a kind of a lay-back attitude to life. He/She exudes the principles and qualities of family-hood at public places and proves - or pretends to prove - its efficacy. In general, the adventurist traits typical of the loose-family individual tend to be less in the close-family member. For the latter, exploring the outside world on his/her own accord is inclined to be an arduous task. The conscience continually reminds him/her that the family is unavailable in this kind of enterprise, and therefore that quite a heavy risk, unpalatable consequences could occur. Friends, acquaintances, co-workers, seem to partake in adventures should family members be excluded or be unavailable.

One should not think that close-family individuals lack the innovative force, personal initiative or entrepreneurial spirit that is characteristic of loose-family members. No! Close-family individuals harbour these traits but usually with team-like characteristics, as if the traits are a family possession.

What close-family members find worrying, yet incapable of redressing, is the changing face of technology and its crushing impact on employment patterns. Modern technology has opened up new doors to businesses. New businesses are regularly being established with new compositions, ways of doing things; old businesses are frequently undergoing relocation. Old employees, new employees, and job seekers are logically compelled to follow the movements of these business practices. The trouble for employees in close families is immense on the basis that moving along with business movements also implies leaving behind, in most cases, the solidly built family structures. If a close-family employee has made it an irrevocable duty to stand by the family, be close to it, he/she has to now retract.

I personally regard this anomaly as a huge demerit of technologized businesses, yet its persistence is unquestionable.

Consider two individuals, a couple, so to speak, who belong to a close family. They live in China, are Chinese, and work at separate locations in the same city, the City of Handan, in Hebei Province. The man’s company relocated - to Shanghai; and he, accordingly, moved to Shanghai to work. The woman, the child, and the other family members had to bear with living in Handan. Now, the informal pact that the man made, which meant standing by his family, has been, somehow, dented by the forced migration to Shanghai. Whether a new kind of an individual is produced, it is not easy to hazard a definite answer. However, one can, perhaps, conclude that this man emerges with a synthesized individualism, drawn towards the plentiful practice of curiosity and some measure of adventurism, permeated by new social skills, filled with a new brand of courage, consumed by the spirit of a new temperance, and brought to the fold of a new morality that still exemplifies far more of the qualities of virtue in relation to vice.

Now, it is pretty unrealistic to judge regarding the issue of which family is better, the close or the loose.

I know that in life, extremes produce instability, which can terrify steady progress. Mediocrity or second-rate efforts are no better either. Our man in Shanghai was initially destabilized on all fronts. He learned the art of adapting to his new niche. His synthesis has brought to him a new identity but an identity that destabilizes the structure of a strong, close family. It is a question of which (one) should be retained, the family or individualism? In principle, I believe the family should be retained. With the realities that come along with technology and businesses, the striking change in the individual's doings has given rise to different kinds of turmoil in the family and has, rather unknowingly, made the individual occupy centre stage in the affairs of life. Does that mean the close family is gradually losing the battle for preservation? It seems to me it is.

Thing Development Must Be Guided By Human Development

By: Stephen Ainsah-Mensah

When did it suggest itself to us that development must not be confined to the mere development of things? This question appears irresistible the more we see the massive development of things without a corresponding development of the people. Then, when this occurs, producers appear restless, very agitated and press to make sure that their products are consumed by adopting any means necessary. It should be noted that “the people” means as many as possible of the people and not anything to the contrary. But, then, the modernization of a society, the beauty of developed fashionable things is all it takes to reconstitute the personality of people who care to observe them. What follows this state of affairs is the relentless activation of acquisitiveness – as if life without acquisitiveness is woefully incomplete. In line with the general structure of human behaviour, the predominance of developed fashionable things in the consuming market provokes a new form of consumption behaviour that refashions human personalities in such a way that the modern human is claimed to be a product of materialism. The common consensus happens to be this: you are developed because of your high level of acquisitiveness or your wealth - or both. Unfortunately, your acquisitiveness rocks the fabric of your moral fibre to the extent that there might be a moral deficit to your personality even as your materialistic appeal tends to be puffed up. One can discern a paradox here.

As much as moral values and, in general, the cultural index tends to depreciate in relation to the advanced development of physical things, it can be deduced that the human factor of development has been cavalierly supplanted by non-human ones. Suppose we ask: what is the purpose of the development of things, we are pressed to provide an answer that nullifies the initial claim or resolve that things merely have to be developed. Of course, we cannot say that things have to be developed for their own sake; for that will be a mockery to those who strive and make certain of the development of things. Furthermore, it does not make sense to say that humans just go about to develop things that have no direct bearing on their own development but just for the sake of developing things. The thesis of the development of things may follow different lines of reasoning according to the social-economic principles of the initiators of development.

There are some people who may say that the development of things should take place without any cautious consideration of its relationship to the development of the people. Just go about to develop things and people who use the things will be able to effect human development through this means. It is not a question of what kinds of people could be developed; the whole process of human development comes about unprompted through the use of developed things. Some people directly use the developed things but some do not; and even those who do not could be developed through their interaction with those who do in different kinds of ways. But it can be seen that this way of developing things could equally promote an unrestrained development of things since the human factor is not taking into any serious consideration in the process of development. Yet, unrestrained production calls upon the producers to be as innovative as possible; for new, more viable products have to be available in the market in order for consumers to be enticed to go for them. What goes on with time may be wastes both in production and consumption – and more of them.

Advocates of this theory of development may insist that it is better to create massive surpluses than to restrict production. The latter may cause scarcity and, thereby, price hikes, which may, eventually, strangle the economy. But the issue to address is whether the surpluses referred to here are really about essential products for life’s progress or are about overly luxurious products. For example, what has the massive surpluses of flashy cameras got to do with human progress? How do unduly expensive flashy cars cause human progress? Will it not be better, one may ask, to channel money spent on such products on more pressing needs? What is more, the craze for expensive, flashy products signals a bizarre rush to overwork oneself, so that sufficient money could be had to acquire them. Unless this acquisitive intuition is checked, it could exclude humaneness as a fundamental component of the human character. The idea that we humans are degenerating into forms that debase individual and collective conscience is partly born out of this problem.

Thus, we can see that the hypnotic effect of advanced technological products - on potential or actual consumers – brings trouble to bear on an otherwise social and economic stability. Do a perceptual and mental excursion of a technologically advanced society, and you will be bound to infer that unless the moral and social alertness of the society is granted a prominent or adequate priority, excess stress is a predominant trait of many a people. Heightened materialism grips the man who repeatedly observes state-of-the-art technological products. Mere perception of such products transmits images of the products into the psyche of the individual. There begins the battle to reform the structure of the psyche in order to incorporate materialistic forces that have invaded it. The invigorated mental and emotional capacity of the individual arises from this spectacle, but it is also a scene for a new human spiritedness that shapes moral drives in ways that are far more egoistic than cooperative. Societies may become progressively class-based because of this particular reason; for if I am far more interested in satisfying my materialistic cravings than anything else, why, for heaven’s sake, should I be preoccupied with short or long-term objectives that are intended to improve the lives or ameliorate the sufferings of others?

Some other theoreticians – or even some pragmatists, people who are keen on addressing the practical success or failure of specified issues – may opt for a different approach to the development of things, which is of this form: develop many things only if it can be envisaged or appraised that most people, irrespective of social-economic status, will actually benefit from those things. But this viewpoint does not exclude the case of developed things that serve the interest – mostly – of a certain group of people such as the well-to-do. The point, however, is that priority is not given to this particular issue. Developing schools and hospitals are not just for development’s sake. All kinds of people ought to be able to access the schools and hospitals. If, however, moderately rich or very rich people are the ones who can mostly access the schools and hospitals, then, according to the expected supposition, the developments are bad. The developments will give more room to accentuate a class-based society, and, hence, produce unintended tension between the rich and the have-nots.

I am not necessarily in favour of the egalitarian approach to establishing the development of things; but I believe that it offers some kind of hope, of optimism, for those who do not have the monetary ability or, simply, the means to access social-economic services or goods. An uncritical endorsement of this mode of development may, however, provide a recipe for the spread of laziness and the stifling of creativity. Suppose I am neither rich nor poor, but have sufficient money for a minimally decent level of living. I have a child I want to train in a good school I know of. Regrettably, I do not have enough money, at least at this time, to do so. I, therefore, use all of my mental sophistication and bodily effort to secure an extra income through extra jobs in order to send my child to the school I want. I succeed in doing so. With the development of schools that grant equal eligibility to all kinds of students irrespective of their parents’ income level, I am content with my initial income level, an income that qualifies me as neither poor nor rich. I moderate the use of my mind and body in the doing of things instead of allowing myself to go into some kind of extremes to meet some set goals.

While extremes may engender soaring innovative spirits, they may also wear down the individuals, impair the health. Moderation, on the other hand, usually calms the emotions, reduces the risk of energizing the mind to an uneasy level. It is, indeed, a question of what priorities a society has at a given moment; and since I am in favour of the principle of balance, I tend to subscribe to the view that extremes, if they are intended for use for short-term, gap-fixing developments are okay. In the long term, prioritized development of things in relation to human development - that are less than extremes - are to be favoured.

The Reformation Of The Human Character Through The Global Culture

By: Stephen Ainsah-Mensah

Except for the members of his nuclear and extended families, everybody else knows and calls him by his nickname, “Steel” This nickname was not earned by luck or chosen as a kind of imitation of a revered person. It was earned in relation to the diehard principles Steel stands for. He was brought up in a culture that was expertly sealed off from interaction with other cultures outside his society. Thanks to the eminent appreciation of technology, Steel’s society has shown an equally eminent technological progress. The products from this progress are well known, well liked, and prove the ingenuity of the inventors and producers. But the fallacy that has germinated the seed of alarming arrogance in Steel comes from his line of reasoning, which can be summarized in the form of one basic premise and its associated conclusion.

1. My society has proved its superiority to others in the form of technology and its products.
2. Therefore, the people in my society, including myself, are superior (and better) than others.

The conclusion - 2 - that is drawn from the premise -1 - does not merely lack perspicuity but is unsound. The conclusion, moreover, is a recipe for gross misbehaviour by a people who dwell on the concept of technological superiority as the basis for dominant thoughts and actions. The fact that Steel’s society enjoys perhaps incomparable technological progress does not necessarily mean its people are equally advanced in ways of doing things that exclude the technological index. A people’s advancement ought to show in their manner of speaking stripped of the arrogant dress. It is essential that their temper is softened by the spirit of patience. They need to supplant chilling pride with reasonable modesty. Their glad heart must be expressed in the cheerful enthusiasm with which they associate with and respect the cultural constructions of others without any traces of facial cringes. Above all, they must appreciate and learn from other cultures as the basis for exchanging and assimilating positive ideas, knowledge.

With these fine human qualities comes along the breaking of the walls of inequity, of prejudice. Even if the people in Steel’s society are advanced in many conceivable facets of life, that does not warrant the assertion by Steel or any other members of his society that in terms of the right choices to make for human progress, Steel and his kin have the incontestable right to do so. The analyzed condition of Steel is likely to reveal raging forces that tend to dislocate his emotional structure. This speaks volumes as to why he tends not to be calm, conciliatory, at every turn whenever the global cultural stage is full of participants who are keen on sharing culturally stimulated thoughts without resorting to any kind of comparative advantage. Participants choose – or have chosen – to be fair-minded, modest in disposition and justly forthcoming in teamwork. Steel does not fit into this category, for his irreducible snobbish temperament draws towards him far more isolation than he must have envisaged. But that is why in desperation, he is compelled to apply all the deceptions under his sleeve to win converts to his side. Yet it seems to me that this hardened stubbornness is the root of much of the human failings that translate into the looking down of one species of people by another.

I need to emphasize that human refinement is not just a matter of technology. We need the service of human respectability to generate a criterion for establishing objective standards regarding acts of understanding and cooperation among people from other cultures. It is the global cultural stage that offers the best test of one’s decorum in the doing of things. Over there, varied cultures abound. They may enrich the mental receptacle with varied cultural ideas that are so vital for cross-cultural synchronization. What Steel may bring to the global cultural stage is rather cultural dissent since, for him, no other cultures count more than his when the issue of appraising matters of great importance are at stake.. He is unable to shake off the framework of cultural insularity that retards his apprehension of global cultures. With this shortcoming follows the sin of discrimination and, in the extreme form, of hidden or explicit racism to bear on innocent folks. For if cultural insularity obstructs the victim’s range of apprehending the reality, the goodness of other cultures, then Steel and his kind are not genuine participants on the global cultural stage; they provoke tension, conflicts, discord, tricks with the hope of winning over vulnerable participants. Besides, ignorance, and, above all, risky arrogance haunts the personality of Steel.

We could eventually see the unqualified adoration of technology and its products fixed with a different kind of priority. The contributions of this branch of human ingenuity to progress, while great, have also, in large measure, unseated the rightful place of the human fibre to progress. When the said priority is reached, we likely will be inclined to say: “humanity has come to fully appreciate its rejected essence.”

A Brief Essay On The Ways To Solve Problems About Hiring The Best Job Applicants

By: Stephen K. Ainsah-Mensah

We know that the psyche of the individual is unreachable from the observations of others; but we also know that it is easy to access the look that an individual wears on the face. If so, why is it common to say that an individual’s personality can be read from the look on the face? Does the movements of the psyche have any direct connection with the foibles of the face? Or, we may put the question in a different way by stating: how does the internal goings-on of an individual together with what he/she has in mind translate into readable facial expressions? Even though this question belongs to psychology and its alleged school people, it frequently instigates business people to make decisions in their hiring practices on its basis, or it compels employers or employees to make critical judgements on the degree of likeability, cooperativeness and competence of a person.

What do employers, for instance, do in their hiring practices?. Now, employers in general have no precise means for telling the personality of a job applicant except to dwell - sometimes largely - on the rather imprecise but, supposedly, readily available criterion: facial expression. A smiling and relaxed face hints to them that the applicant is probably friendly, cooperative, willing to learn, relevantly ambitious, interested very much in the employer’s business, receptive to new ideas, amenable to human or structural changes that promote business, etc. Candidates who are fully aware of this significant component of the hiring procedure of employers but who do not naturally have the requisite facial expressions may go at length to practice on this job-related piece. Some of them may even hire image consultants to assist them to turn around their relatively unappealing facial looks. Eventually, they go for job interviews and win the jobs they desire so much. But, then, those other job candidates who are even more capable are refused the jobs precisely because they were not as good as those who got the jobs with regard to facial looks. But here is the rub! The sincerity of one’s personality has gone unnoticed, yet a dressed-over personality has been judged to be sincere and granted the opportunity to fit into the business culture. What the businesses under study have done are a kind of gamble; but why? Because usually, some of the hired employees may, with time, underperform since their rewarded facial expressions do not rationalize their natural and actual competence on the job .

Of course, the natural personality of the employee should rule over his/her artificial personality! The artificial personality is a copied one projected unto the composite behaviour of the employee. But the finest capability of the individual for business growth ought to arise from natural personality. Some contemporary businesses may not flourish well due to contributions from employees who mirror artificial personalities instead of the natural one. What happens here is that the employees get very experienced in the use of trickery and outmanoeuvres intended to entrench them and win for them the workplace aspirations they have in mind.

Perhaps, employers should place great emphasis on the technical skills of the job applicant. With such a method, employers will be thinking and acting in this way: “job applicants must prove their actual competence by being assigned, during the interview process, some key tasks correlated with the jobs they are looking for.” This method may work well, but helps very little in wanting to find out how good the communication skills of the applicant is. Moreover, if the job is not really technical, then it may not be that practicable in emphasizing on technical skills as the chief criterion in selecting job applicants. So, do we face a predicament as to what to do regarding job applicants? Certainly! We might find an escape route, a redeeming optimism, and, thus, a reliable solution by sticking to this hint: look at the entire behavioural style of job applicants and how they naturally match with their talking acts and responses to questions! And do your best not to overemphasize facial look as that could be deceptive, unoriginal.

How We Make The Mistake In Thinking Specialization Alone Answers Business Questions

By: Stephen K. Ainsah-Mensah

A man has found himself tormented, on a daily basis, by frustrations in life. His repeated attempts at finding a high-paying job have failed. He studied Literature in the university and has proved to people he has happened to interact with to be far more than ordinary in terms of critical acumen. Ask him vital questions about business, management, world affairs, how to discriminate between right and wrong, and others, and he will surprise you with the depth of his answers. He is prized with the calmness of (his)thoughts, a striking body language that wins very productive attention from all sorts of people - that kind of attention that is great for a steady business growth. His speaking style is unusually charming. He knows the right words to choose when relating or interacting with different kinds of people matched with a captivating tone of the voice. But why is this man out of favour with employers and, accordingly, denied a fitting job? Has he shown some transgressions that employers see as discouraging to their respective businesses? Certainly not! It should be admitted that in this contemporary world the study of Literature may prove one's intellectual depth and answer some pertinent questions about the nuances of language and its application or connectedness to cultures, societies; but it may not prove the depth of one’s specialization in terms of business. Since our man in question shows plentiful finesse in the former skill, why not give him the chance to practise this at the workplace?

If this question makes a lot of sense, which I believe it does, then a good deal of employers fail to grasp the important connection between intellectual skills and practical skills. For a person who has a lot of intellectual skills can break down the skills into various parts of which practical skills - that are essential for business growth - can be part of. He/She can exercise the intellect in polished ways on a variety of subjects or topics that immediately connect to business or ultimately to it. What we presently have at most workplaces are specialized skills that conform to specialized knowledge studied specifically in a university or a college. So, for example, a man wants to be a business manager, first through an entry-level position, then he ought to have studied, by the predictable reasoning, business management or administration in school. But specialization of this form rids the mind of a broad scope necessary for relating directly to business and necessary for relating to other issues that could indirectly enhance business. A broad-minded person has what it takes to perceive and understand the complex world of business. He/She sees this world aright and acts accordingly to enable business to go on at the right pace. It should be noted that business is not just a matter of goods and services, but the politics related to it, the present life and life history of people related to it, the structure of societies and the people related to it, and other affiliated matters. Thus, we must be careful about the confusion we tend to bring to business whenever we talk about specialization.

Having said the above, we need not overplay the issue of intellectual skills. Certainly, our man who studied Literature cannot be an engineer, nor can he be an architect or a computer programmer unless he goes back to school to study the details of any one of these vocations. These highly skilled, specialized jobs need the special skills related to them, not intellectual skills. But if, say, a female architect wants to be a top manager of business, she has to broaden the scope of her skills to incorporate intellectual skills. What I am saying here is that business managerial skills are not to be equated with specialized skills but the generality of skills of the form: “how do we manage human resources, in particular, in a way that will maximize proficiency.” It is clear that stress on human resources is preferable to any other categories of business. Put differently, the final arbiter of business progress is human resources. Thus,the manager who rightly adopts human-centred approaches to business must prove to have intellectual insight about the affairs of business, not only at the workplace but in the world of business. If his/her scope of knowledge is all-embracing, so much the better.

Let me conclude by saying that what we miss so much in business is the fair balance of human-centred management and technical sophistication - the kind of sophistication that yields state-of-the-art products and, peculiar as it may sound, services too. But if we can realize this point, then it shows how far we are in recruiting the desired human resources to let business flourish in the right directions. Let us avoid the risk of misapplying the term "skill" at the workplace; and our man who read Literature should remind us of our avoidable errors. Above all, the question must be asked: Is the man who read Literature significant at the workplace? Yes, he is. Is Liberal Arts significant for positive consideration at the workplace? Yes it is. But job candidates in this discipline - or allied disciplines - have to be positively considered only if the jobs at stake are not strictly technical.

The Need To Fix An Invented And Inverted World

By: Stephen K. Ainsah-Mensah

The rooting of Western education in many centres of the world has naturally given rise to the growth of the stem, the branches and flowers of the tree of knowledge. That this has led to the flourishing of knowledge while debasing indigenous knowledge cannot be overlooked. Whereas this admixture must have widened the scope of knowledge of the recipients, brought - to them - a more vigorous understanding of the outside world, it has also distorted the compass of human and structural development. What we have seen, time after time, is the deliberate contention by Western encroachers that rhythmic and sophisticated cultures are/were unavailable in the recipients' societies. Such a risky arrogance invents a new wheel of human decorum that turns the natural progress of individual and collective personalities upside down. But encroachers build up superiority intuitions from this enterprise, which, with time, grows into a world-wide scope, diseased in many respects. Thereafter, all sorts of people glorify the encroachers’ values, developments, and strive to be part of it even as the values, the development of encroached cultures are put down for no good reason(s). Global affairs have proceeded largely from this unwarranted human arrangement. It looks as if capacities and talents are being laid waste through this invented and inverted world; yet, we do not, in most cases, seem to care - or fail to care.