These are excerpts from the author’s book “Deep,” which contains eight of his small books published in the form of Wisdom Literature covering different aspects of life: Facing troublemakers, dealing with pain, personal financial issues, gastronomy, reading, criticizing, inspiring, and feeling always good to go.

Series 5: Reading.

Criticizing Cultures

• A thorough knowledge of any culture is important before you proceed to criticize any of its lifestyles. At least you should try to understand the motives of the lifestyle you are about to criticize in the other culture.

• It is natural for other cultures to provoke you more to criticize them, and it is natural that your culture will automatically be your reference for your criticism. But always make sure that your culture is a reference only as a starting point for criticism and not a destination on which to evaluate the good and the bad.

• Prudent criticism, more than being preoccupied with what is good and what is bad, reveals the motive behind the actions and concepts that people differ in assessing them as good or bad. This is one of the most important things that will help you to achieve high-value criticism, especially toward other cultures, where the standards differ to the point of contradiction.

• Cultural differences are among the richest sources of knowledge, but they need insightful criticism to make the most of them. Don’t be alarmed by cultural differences; no matter how annoying they may seem, they are worth your patience and reflection.

• You will often be comfortable with the similarities between the other culture and your own. But it is the differences between the two cultures that will benefit you most when you approach these differences, criticizing with a sincere desire to explore and learn.

• No two cultures are identical. Unless one of the two sides of the comparison is your own culture, the slight differences between similar cultures require a keen critical sense to identify them and explore the motives behind them.

• In the criticism of cultures, the issue is not merely to identify the similarities and differences between the culture you are criticizing and your own culture or any other culture. You are closer to realizing what any culture is when you approach it as far as you can from prior reference comparisons.

• Your expression of your point of view may be too obvious yet not understood by the other party in the corresponding culture. You see your expression very clearly, while that clarity might be still within the framework of your own culture.

• Cultures are entities that constantly change to one degree or another. No matter how accurate your judgments are on any culture in any of its aspects during any stage of your life, do not take these judgments for granted throughout life. Retest them whenever you get the chance, and you will inevitably discover change to some degree.

• It is difficult to penetrate the essence of any culture before you penetrate the essence of your own culture, but a particular culture that you look at deeply may help you to better understand an aspect that you did not like in your own culture. The openness to other cultures, in general, makes you more able to deal with and address the aspects of your own culture that are difficult to accept.