2-D to 3-D

I read this on another blog the other day and I think it describes somewhat correctly how hard it is sometimes to understand a different culture.

The best explanation I have to why the U.S. and Europe and their proxies (people from and representatives of) often don’t agree is via a rather abstract, yet enlightening, analogy. Everyone knows we live our lives in a 3-dimensional space (system). We have length width and height for everything around us. We understand these dimensions and use this knowledge to correctly appreciate distances and put the environment around us to the best use. Now imagine a 2 dimensional world… a world your daughter has drawn on a piece of paper. This world has only 2 dimensions, and the people inside it will only be able to think and act in those 2 dimensions. Now think about what would happen when you, a 3dimensional person, would try interacting with the 2d world. If you put your hand on the piece of paper, the little people in the paper world would see the part of your hand coming in contact with their world, ie the parts of your hand coming in contact with the paper.

The blog is named "Angry Romanian in U.S". Just for the record, I do not agree with everything that is posted on this blog, but I still think this analogy fits cultural understanding/misunderstanding. Because there is always a certain aspect of a foreign culture that is hard to understand. I am not saying that the Danish culture is 3-d and the American 2-d, but that when people from American culture looks upon Danish culture there is always some things that will seem 3-d where the Danish is 2-d or vice-versa.

Some of the things I have a hard time understanding here in the U.S are:

The importance of religion. Danish are among the least church going people in the world and for me it seems strange that in a society, which is so evolved and people know about science through history, still believe in religion. I am not saying its wrong, I just do not understand it.

The acceptance of inequality. In 2001 the richest ten percent of U.S citizens accounted for 80 percent of the wealth (Teller-Elsberg et al. 2006, page 3) and in 2000 in Denmark the same richest ten percent accounted for 20 percent of the Danish wealth (http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Europe/Denmark-POVERTY-AND-WEALTH.html). I don't understand why nobody thinks this fact is horrible and do something about it.

Censorship on television. I can not comprehend why your censorship is as it is. To me it should be reversed somehow. Why can't there be shown nudity, but you can see hard violence. On daytime television you can't see Jeff Daniels on the toilet in Dumb & Dumber, but you can see somebody get shot in the head in CSI. You have the freedom to buy a gun down the street, but if you say the F word on television people are horrified. I don't know who Americans are trying to protect through this weird censorship. Do children become better people if they grow up with this image of the world as a place full of violence, no foul language, and that nudity is something unnatural and forbidden?

Maybe it is me that can't see the full picture of how your society works, as mentioned before you are 3-d to me (or even 4-d). I will in future posts comment on differences in our two societies that I find peculiar.