“Cultural Awareness” is a Meaningless Term

Was there ever a more meaningless term than “Cultural Awareness”? I think not.

For several decades, the term has been vomited on the public. Liberal colleges and HR departments, in particular, get an erection every time they say the word. They’ll say the term and stand there proudly – as if uttering the phrase has intrinsic value. And a cottage industry has grown out of the term: sensitivity trainers, software developers, liberal professors, etc. They make money to explain the term, provide a one-sided argument, and shame anybody that dares to disagree.

They believe that cultural awareness is inherently good. End of story..period. As Americans, we should learn to be sensitive…and “sensitivity” will solve America’s international problems!

 

But what is “cultural awareness”? What does it really mean?

• Is it the Day of the Dead festival in Lake Patzcuaro, Mexico? Is it the Running of the Bulls in San Fermin, Spain? Is it Carnival in Rio?

Is this cultural awareness?

• Or…is it slavery in Mali, the jailing of gays in Egypt, or a public beheading in Saudi Arabia?

Or is this cultural awareness?

You get the point. Culture is not inherently good, nor bad. Like humanity, it’s a mixed bag. It’s up to adults to determine why something is good or bad. They have to use their moral compass (if they have one).

The battle for truth is linguistic. We use words to define our reality…so we have to be careful about the terms we use. “Cultural awareness” is one of these terms – it creates an ambiguity about the world we live in which, in turn, leads to a false understanding.