Hutchinsonian Babes

The two pretty Dutch girls (though perhaps not as pretty as they themselves think) at my hotel in Rabat are Hutchinsonians. I know this because comparing Thailand and Morocco they claimed, knowing about the subject nothing whatsoever, that the two cultures are surely very different, presumably on account of religion, race and distance. I have heard this erroneous (but strongly felt) opinion frequently before. I suppose they also think that America and Europe are very similar; an opinion I have also frequently heard before, expressed not only by Asians (who usually cannot know better) but also by assorted “Westerners” (who should).

The cultural differences between America and Western Europe are really quite striking. All one needs is willingness to see beyond the claptrap of fashion, movies and lingo to notice that, for example, Americans’ friendships tend to be numerous, shallow, and temporary, while Europeans like to pretend at least that they have a small number of “friends for life” who are more special to them than the rest of their acquaintances; or that Europeans do not have any of the American’s good natured empathy to strangers (“hi!”), but on the contrary tend to think that homo homini lupus; that Americans go to great lengths to create an impression of folksy classlessness while Europeans are quite hierarchical; that Americans are by and large civically minded, while Europeans are not (some more than others); and so forth.

The truth is that, at least as far as I can tell, there are three kinds of societies: America, Europe, and the traditional middle-income third world. What countries in the last group – in which I would include Turkey, Thailand, Taiwan and now Morocco – have in common is a certain conception of the kind of person one should be: decorous, noble, polite, loyal to family and friends, generous, reasonably selfless. There is an overwhelming sense of dignity and decorum here. In Morocco and Thailand the cosmetic aspects of this are different – dress codes are different, Moroccans shake hands while Thais bow, etc. and this confuses my less insightful friends into thinking that the differences run deeper; but these friends simply fail to see that these are but cosmetic aspects, customarily determined and totally arbitrary ways of expressing the same thing that lies at bottom: one’s dignified respect for strangers, which is really one’s dignified respect for oneself.

The truth is that going from Thailand to Morocco is less of a cultural shift than going from France to America. Because, perhaps, going from Thailand to Morocco is going from one traditional society on the cusp of the great change to another, while going from France to America is a visit from the future to the far future of the world (at least the way things seem to be going now).

But my Dutch friends would not know it, would they. Certainly no more than Hutchinson would: they have not had sufficient exposure to know.