We’re Not All the Same (03-16-10)

Designers have recognized the significant influences of national culture on place/object experience, and have begun to focus on customizing place/object offerings accordingly.  Watters, in his review of patterns of mental illness from around the world presents a compelling argument for the recognition of cultural differences during the design process, although he never specifically discusses design:  “The ideas we export to other cultures often have at their heart a particularly American brand of hyperintrospection and hyperindividualism.  These beliefs remain deeply influenced by the Cartesian split between the mind and the body, the Freudian duality between the conscious and unconscious, as well as teeming numbers of self-help philosophies and schools of therapy that have encouraged us to separate the health of the individual from the health of the group . . . What is certain is that in other places in the world, cultural conceptions of the mind remain more intertwined with a variety of religious and cultural beliefs as well as the ecological and social world.  They have not yet separated the mind from the body, nor have they disconnected individual mental health from that of the group.”

Ethan Watters.  2010.The Globalization of the American Psyche.  New York:  Free Press.