Tett argues that we live in a time of intensifying global volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (“VUCA” in US military jargon). Because of that and the nature of the environmental, social and governmental problems that humans face, societies, governments, businesses and individuals need to change the way they view the world, other cultures, their own culture and themselves. The point of adopting a different mindset is to better see, understand and adapt to problems, human needs and social changes as pressures from VUCA intensify.
Tett argues for what she calls anthro-vision. It amounts to trying to see the world through the lens of anthropology. The case she lays out looks pretty solid. In the last ~20 years most major businesses have gone from being hostile to anthropology and social science generally, to a mindset that now embraces an anthro-vision and social science generally. Even crusty old engineers and nerdy computer programmers have come to understand that they need to understand humans, human behavior and societies much better than they did in the past. The anthro-vision mindset, i.e., pro-social science, including pro-anthropology, is becoming more influential in governments too.
The business community did not adopt anthro-vision willingly. Business adopted anthro-vision because of painful economic losses and catastrophes that came from ignorance about the human condition and societies and their traditions. Huge companies and banks such as GM (General Motors), BP (British Petroleum) and HSBC learned the hard way that they ignore humans and human behaviors at their peril. In the process of learning their peril, big companies also learned two other extremely valuable lessons. First was some humility about the arrogant illusion of their own infallibility.
Second, and most importantly, was some empathy for various things, traditions, groups of people and recently, business externalities, that seemed strange, not worthy of consideration or irrelevant. Turns out that sometimes even little things can be critically important in human behavior, commerce, global geopolitics and war and peace. On first look, those little things usually look to be so trivial that even thinking about them at all appears to be a waste of time. That can occasionally be a fatal mistake for a company or a catastrophe for a country or the entire human species.
Tett raised a point about the business community's mindset. It strikes me as important to mention. Specifically, what drove businesses to even look to anthro-vision? Profit and risk. Some huge companies were suffering crippling losses and the executives didn't have a clue about why. Some looked and looked and looked but found nothing. Some big companies were dying but executives did not have a clue why. Out of sheer desperation, a few major companies started by hiring an anthropologist or two, asking them if they could see what was wrong. It turned out that over time they came to see what was wrong. The problems were grounded in a combination of things like corporate tribalism, tunnel vision, complexity and reliance on economic ideology that was not working. All that made the company dysfunctional, inefficient and/or misguided in its product development and performance. There was too much blind arrogance and too little understanding and empathy. That was hurting or even killing companies.
What is anthropology?
Tett describes it as an interpretative science, not an empirical one. The classical anthropological methodology was to plunk an anthropologist down in a tribe or ethnic group somewhere and then quietly watch and listen for a long time, months or years, not weeks. Over time, the things that are discussed and not discussed become apparent. Relations and traditions between families and groups start to appear and make sense in the local context. Even strange local music starts to feel normal to the quiet observer and their body instinctively reacts just like the rest of the tribe or group.
It is not a matter of “going native.” It is a matter of coming to see reality through the eyes and minds of the strange people and their strange behaviors. Empathy and acceptance tends to arise from the visions and understanding. Tett repeatedly emphasizes the empathy-inducing aspect of keeping quiet, listening and asking open-ended questions.
In complex industrialized and technological societies like the US, modern anthropology is now focused on plunking an anthropologist down in a company or a group of a company's customers, then quietly watching and listening for a long time, and then etc. In other words, the main thing different between classical and modern is where the anthropologist gets plunked down, an exotic milieu or an apparently non-exotic one. Turns out that the non-exotic sites in big companies or banks are just about as exotic and weird as the exotic locations. They are about equally tribal and siloed in their respective cultures. The siloing tends to blind people and groups to a broader, more nuanced and accurate vision of reality, including misunderstandings, opportunities and threats.
An example helps clarify some of this.
The Ebola epidemic
Human diversity makes tolerance more than a virtue; it makes it a requirement for survival.
Rene Dubois, Celebrations of Life, 1981
In 2104, the Ebola virus was tearing through Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Western aid groups and governments sent in help to contain the outbreak. The mortality rate was about 50%. Despite Western expertise and help, the epidemic was spinning out of control and killing a lot of people. Reports were coming out of the region that local people who were infected with the virus were engaging in what appeared to be bizarre behavior that was likely to kill them. Specifically, people were running away from Western medical facilities and aid workers, sometimes killing them. Just as strange, at funerals of people killed by the virus, mourners were touching and even kissing the dead bodies, which were known to be highly contagious. Westerners on site kept warning the people there not to do these things, but they kept doing them. The Westerners especially disliked getting killed.
The chief science advisor to the British government asked some anthropologists why modern science was failing so badly in Western Africa. One of them had spent 40 years studying the Mende people in the forest regions of Sierra Leone, one of whom he married and was also an anthropologist. She was at the meeting. She angrily told the British government science guy that Western science was failing because it was looking at the problem through Western eyes and minds. In her mind, the problem was blatant and obvious. But the Western experts were dumbfounded. They had no idea of what she was talking about.
Without empathy for the local people and their strange behaviors Western medical advice was sometimes useless because it ignored the cultural and social context that Ebola was rampaging through. The cultural and social context did not matter to Western experts but it sure did matter to the locals. One problem was local tribalism. Tribes in the affected region were attuned to threats from outside their own tribe, but not to ones from inside. The Western experts spoke in terms used in the West, but meant nothing to the locals. Also, Western computerized disease monitoring using cell phones was misleading people in the West, while a medical anthropologist in Liberia, Susan Erikson, saw a different reality on the ground.
The problem with Western monitoring of cell phones in Africa was that Westerners failed to understand that a cell phones was usually used by a family, group or whole village, not an individual person. Because of that misunderstanding, the data flowing into the West was based on far less information than what tracing cell tower pings would reveal. A cell tower ping was not a person, which is what the Westerners falsely believed.
Another problem was grounded in language. In villages where the chief spoke English and BBC broadcasts reached local radios, there was much better compliance with Ebola protocols. In villages where the chiefs did not speak English, Ebola was attributed to witchcraft or to government plots, and Ebola abatement measures tended to be ignored with predictable bad consequences. African traditions in the region were to keep dead bodies in the house for several days to pay proper respects and to hold a funeral with the body to keep the dead person and everyone around them from going to hell. This was a critically important part of life for those people.
The anthropologists who understood the nature of the problems in Western Africa were somewhat paralyzed by their own tribalism. Anthropologists tended to be shy about intruding into events. Tett writes:
“‘I had an American journalist call me up and ask why the Africans kept behaving in this barbaric and stupid way,’ [an anthropologist commented]. .... Until the early decades of the twentieth century, American had routinely kept the bodies of deceased family or friends in their houses after death ....Yet Western journalists, doctors and aid workers were now decrying the West African’s ‘primitive’ rituals and claiming (wrongly) that Ebola was caused by strange ‘natives’ eating ‘bushmeat.’ .... A lack of empathy was quite literally killing people and fueling the spread of the disease.”
In time, advice from anthropologists got Western aid and communications efforts to align with local customs and culture. Once that mindset had set in and began to operate Ebola patients stopped running away and killing aid workers. The people were taught that hazmat suits could be made of materials available to the local people. Within a period of months, the epidemic and been contained.
Tett goes on to assert that some of the Ebola mistakes have been repeated with COVID-19. She cites the example of the ex-president blaming the pandemic on China and closing the border there. That tended to blind the US response to the threat from Europe. That's tribalism again. Threats from outside the tribe are seen but not ones from inside. She argues that public health is generally better served when medical science includes consideration of social science or cultural concerns.
Conclusion
Tett cites other examples of where anthropologists have been able to shed light on problems in an effort to try to avoid making the same mistakes more than once. She described the 2008 financial crisis in detail. It was an example of a tribe, financial experts, living in their silo and unable to see threats and a broader context for what they are doing. Tett writes:
“... one problem was that many people who worked in the world of money assumed that money was the only thing that made the world ‘go round’. That was also wrong. ‘Bankers like to imagine that money and the profit motive is as universal as gravity .... They think it’s basically a given and they think it’s apersonal. And it’s not. What they do in finance is all about culture and interaction.’”
Tett’s argument that we live in a time of intensifying VUCA is persuasive. Her goal for the book is simple. “The core message of this book: we find it hard to see what is really happening in the world around us today and need to change our vision.” Tett argues that adopting anthro-vision involves at least five beliefs or behaviors.
- Recognition that we are creatures of our environmental, social and cultural environments
- Human existence is diverse and there are multiple social cultural contexts
- We need to repeatedly try to enter the minds of others who are different to foster empathy
- We need to try to see our own reality and society from the lens of an outsider
- We need to listen to and see what people say, including what they do not say (their social silence)
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