Friday, November 30, 2007

How to understand other people

I heard an interview with a novelist, Gina B. Nahai, who said that to understand a people you have to read their fiction. It is in their fiction that you can see how they think and how they interpret events.

Of course, it is important to read history of a people. I also think that it is important to read the standard stuff you find on the CIA World Factbook -- economy, demographic profile, political organization and recent history, etc.

Still, I think Nahai is right. In my experience if you understand someone's premises and how their analytic processes differ from your own, you have a much better chance of predicting how they will extrapolate from observations. Besides, reading fiction is interesting. I note, however, that you can also learn quite a bit from popular culture about how people think -- foreign movies, foreign popular televesion shows. Even watching British, French or German international news programs indicates not only what information is forming other peoples opinions, but what information their news agencies feel is best to broadcast.

No comments: