The Language Teacher
01 - 2001
Opinions and Credibility
Trevor Sargent
Tottori University
Apart from Shaules's (TLT, November 2000) generous offer of hospitality, I was disappointed with his reply to my response. Although he chose not to dispute any of the arguments I made about how his and Inoue's (TLT, May 2000) "framework" doesn't work, he did see fit to repeat his unsupported personal opinions on the immature undeveloped psychological state of World Citizenship (WC) authors (statements can't be ethnocentric, only their authors), despite my pointing out their glaring lack of evidence to support such public claims. Enough opinions already, where is the evidence?
To make my point even clearer, I will demonstrate that their attempts to show how WC authors are ethnocentric are simply opinions, and then discuss issues from their article and response which impact on the credibility of all their opinions.
Following a quote by one author in the WC special issue (TLT, February 1999), Shaules and Inoue state, "This allegiance is, we assume [italics added], based on universal elements of shared humanity. What precisely we share is left undefined." They make an assumption -- that the author bases his statement on "shared humanity" -- and then criticize him for not doing the impossible -- defining this term, which they introduce later. Following another quote, they say, "We assume Harrison intends [italics added] to encourage . . . . His [italics added] reasoning appears to rest on universalistic assumptions." It is not Harrison's own reasoning at all, it's the reasoning that Shaules and Inoue attribute to him that they offer as evidence of his universalistic assumptions. This pattern is repeated several more times in their article. This is not objective evidence. This is opining -- making unexplained guesses at what might lie behind these statements. These are examples of the "assumptions" and "insinuations" I refer to in my earlier response. Without objective evidence for support, the credibility of opinions becomes directly proportional to the credibility of their author(s).
It is now clear that Shaules and Inoue have confused Bennet's (1993) term, "universalistic thinking" with the term, "cultural universals." In their article, they claim WC exhibits "universalistic thinking," and in his response, Shaules claims that WC has goals that emphasize cultural universals. This helps account for their puzzling and still unexplained choice of Bennet's model to try and represent the similarities/differences issue.
"Universalistic thinking" is a term Bennet coins to describe a type of ethnocentric thinking. Genuine empirically derived cultural universals, however, are obviously not ethnocentric. This is not splitting hairs. Some cultural universals play a significant role in education for cross-cultural adjustment by providing a framework upon which cultural differences can be meaningfully understood (Ferraro, 1998, p. 25). Thus, cultural universals can provide a useful theoretical complement to the phenomenology of ethnorelativism. "Universalistic thinking," however, being ethnocentrically distorted, has nothing to offer education for internationalization. Significantly, Shaules and Inoue's "framework" does not allow for genuine cultural universals.
With regard to cultural similarities and differences, Shaules and Inoue claim Bennet's model neatly divides the issue into a dichotomy of "two opposing viewpoints," and then contradict themselves, claiming the opposite -- that Bennet's model can rescue us from the "dangers" of this "divisive dichotomy," because it, "encompasses both similarities and differences." Why try to force Bennet's developmental model to do things it was never designed for? If Shaules and Inoue are looking for something suitable, Hofstede (1997) developed his framework for the express purpose of objectively presenting cultural differences and similarities, and it is widely used in this regard (Lewis, 1997, p. 287). Because Bennet's model requires specialized training to be used responsibly, Hofstede's framework is also much more accessible to language teachers.
When it comes to the different approaches that WC and Intercultural Communication (IC) take toward education for internationalization, Shaules and Inoue make a sweeping condescending judgment -- WC authors are ethnocentric because they supposedly focus on cultural similarities -- without evidence. Is this practicing the kind of ethos that either ethnorelativism or IC represent in terms of sensitivity to difference? Is this an example of the kind of "education" they propose, to counter the "dangers" they allege to have uncovered lurking in WC? How can Shaules and Inoue, who explicitly claim an ethnorelative mantle for themselves, expect us to believe that they are genuinely capable of being sensitive to differences, when they rush to pre-judge those who happen to take a different approach to teaching for internationalization? Shouldn't such serious, reputation-questioning judgments be made a little more judiciously?
Regardless of their formal educations in IC, the approach Shaules and Inoue take in their article and response raises significant questions over the degree to which they have grasped IC's theoretical content, commitment to responsible investigation and reporting, or standards of professionalism. And this raises considerable doubt over the credibility of their unsupported personal opinions.
Since when has it ever been acceptable to make such disparaging public judgments of others without evidence? If they have any credible objective evidence, where is it? If not, readers should be told.
Trevor Sargent <tsargent@fed.tottori-u.ac.jp>
References
Bennet, M. (1993). Towards ethnorelativism: A developmental model of intercultural sensitivity. In R. M. Paige (Ed.) Education for the intercultural experience (pp. 21-71). Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press.
Ferraro, G. P. (1998). The cultural dimension of international business (3rd ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Hofstede, G. (1997). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Lewis, K. G. (1997). Breakdown -- a psychological contract for expatriates. European Business Review, 97 (6), 279-293
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