Wednesday, July 16, 2008
as i went through the 'textbook' for that saches' class (honestly i hate to pronunce his name so i'll just keep it as 'persuasion'), i realise, ya, that rule of reciprocity is true. doing someone a favor, and the person feels indebt to you, there is a need to repay your favor, cos the feeling of being indebt to someone is horrible (quoted from mr persuasion), so they are much likely to comply to your request next time. and there are many little factors that affects the magnitude of reciprocity, also then there are exceptions.
as i was reading on the train, ya, i thought it made perfect sense. human mind is shaped to perceive things as they are presented, that's why education exists to (unwilling quote) promote rhetoric, to seek the truth.
then i thought to myself, something is wrong here. something is very very wrong here. why is it that this is not the case here? i don't see that happening. or am i blind?
then i realise as i stepped onto the escalator with the book back in my bag, that's the thing about culture, which makes you love and hate at the same time.
collectivist culture. really, we live in a collectivistic culture, where the 'united we stand, divided we fall' thing applies. so everyone is linked to another person, and face saving is so important than having business done.
so here's the catch. collectivistic culture has this unspoken rule that says 'develop a good relationship with everyone you meet'. which simply translate into, in a crude way, do that so as to save face and don't embarrass others in time to come because with a good relationship, it brings that ah beng saying into play.
'aiya, we are brothers! nevermind one la!'
so, ok. this is how it is. with good relationship, it seems that people are forgiving and more tolerant because simply of that good relationship in play. that's where reciprocity fail to apply here. people will think it's ok to be indebt, since they are 'brothers', and next time they will repay.
but the bigger catch is here. individualism vs collectivism. we asians may think that americans are selfish because they are more self-oriented, but they are not, it's just their culture of being independent, which is admirable in reality. but there is just that fine line separating individualism and selfishness.
so when someone does someone a favor, when this someone is in need, many a times they don't find help from people close to them. why? there's where the individualism and selfishness comes into play. people trying to 'act' individualistic, by saying 'i can't help', 'i dunno', 'it's not my business', that, is selfishness.
the collectivistic sense gives people the false impression that the debt is paid through the relationship they have. it is only natural that they receive help, and since they are a unit, there's no need to repay the favor.
at this point, how i wish i'm from an individualistic culture and say 'what a load of bullshit'.
it simply just shows that the guilt factor simply doesn't play here. that instead of being individualistic, people are just being selfish.
take the mrt scene for example. at the interchange, many people are getting down, many people are getting on.
an individualistic person would be thinking: i should let others come out first so that i myself can enter the mrt.
but a selfish person would think: i need to get in first or else i don't have a seat or place to stand, or worse, i'll not be able to get onboard.
and you want to know the situation i see every freaking day? there is a jam and nobody can enter. why?
because there are simply too many selfish idiots trying to board the mrt!
the announcements have been repeating for god knows how many irritating times 'please allow passengers to alight first before boarding'
and in four, FOUR freaking languages. are you telling me that these people who dressed up absolutely nicely to go wherever they want can't understand their mother tongue or english? well in that case these people please drink a bottle of kool-aid and stop wasting the earth's resources.
so as i mug on for tomorrow's exam, i seriously shake my head and want to go tell Saches, what you are teaching us is absolute bullshit, at least in our context.
so (quoting Paris, Rockstar and honolulu) 'Time's up, you gotta stop.
