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Beyond Culture
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Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary: “Action Chains”
Hall defines an action chain (AC) as “a sequence of events in which usually two or more individuals participate” with a beginning, intermediate stages, and an end (141). Every AC, from making a meal to writing a book, has varying complexity. ACs are transactions between “the inanimate environment and man’s extensions” (144), between living things, or between parts of the psyche. The last notion he takes from Freud, who identified transactions between the id, ego, and superego.
An AC chain has a continuum, which can progress haphazardly or relentlessly, depending on the internal state of the organism, culture, and situational variables. Hall offers examples like a father and son fighting in private but cooperating in front of others, but he concludes that it is unknown whether personality or culture is “more relentless” in an AC. Cultures differ in their commitments to finishing an action chain; high-context cultures have a high commitment toward completion, while low-context cultures (like American culture) break chains “if they don’t like the way things are going or if something or someone better comes along” (148). Hall recaps the conclusion of René Spitz, a Swiss psychiatrist, that breaking ACs too often blocks normal behavior. Another psychiatrist, Rollo May, studied American apathy after foreign misfortunes, concluding that there are four escalating emotional and psychological stages culminating in aggression and violence. Hall emphasizes May’s concentration on the feelings of powerlessness in his life, which caused him to seek a response from the government and be heard.
Hall combines his theory of time and action chains, arguing that low-context people do not mix well with polychronic influences, and in doing so, action chains get broken. Hall offers heterosexual cisgender dating as an example of a stable action chain in the United States, attributing the patterning to the “cultural unconscious.”
Chapter 11 Summary: “Covert Culture and Action Chains”
Some aspects of behavior go unarticulated because they are “not experienced on the verbal level but on the emotional” (153). Some behaviors are particular to a culture and may be threatening to outsiders when first encountered. In the US, people resist self-evaluation—a hallmark of low-context culture— but the act is necessary to ameliorate intercultural relations.
This is imperative because “people held in the grip of action chains can never be free of them unless they see the AC’s for what they are” (155). Hall examines Western and Northern European ACs involving disputes, which begin with nonverbal cues and progress to verbal or physical confrontation. Hall attributes disputes, violence, and other misfortunes to “short-circuiting” an AC, citing examples in the American Southwest between Latinx Americans and Anglo-Americans. Hall underscores that the disputes feature two sides trapped within the “cultural unconscious” and that communication becomes parataxic. In Japan, people offer no signs of disaster until Europeans “go too far” (161). To avoid such situations, Hall recommends becoming an interpreter of culture.
Little is known about cultural systems’ structure because one has to separate oneself from it in order to observe it. When two differing cultures collide, people often explain those differences through politics, economics, operations, or personalities rather than culture, and people tend to apply one system as if all cultures are alike. Hall laments this phenomenon of cultural projection. Praising anthropologist Franz Boas’s insight, Hall concurs that one shouldn’t impose structure and must “approach each culture anew” (164) by observing “real events in normal settings and contexts” (166).
Chapter 12 Summary: “Imagery and Memory”
Hall distinguishes between the evolution of language itself and its system, arguing that the system became detached from the people it served and facilitated other developments, like writing, philosophy, and logic. In this context, verbal facility hinders the development of other parts of the human mind, which results in wasted talent and “damage” to the population. He traces the bias toward language to the establishment of schools before discussing the research of Jane Goodall, Konrad Lorenz, and others who showed that other life forms have intelligence.
Hall offers Albert Einstein, the renowned physicist, as an example of someone who did not need language to innovate and demonstrate intelligence. Like Einstein, architects and artists think visually. People with eidetic memories thrive because of their visual rather than linguistic strength. Hall differentiates between the truth “printed on a page” and “pictures” of reality (177), underscoring the manipulative and deceptive aspects of two-dimensional messages. For Hall, overcoming the visual bias that pervades the United States allowed him to experience his full range of senses more authentically. He emphasizes that the shift is necessary to overcome the “bonds” of one’s own culture.
Hall cites varying sensory capabilities that his students studied, from the muscular sensations of a skier to the auditory and visual capabilities of musicians like Beethoven, underscoring that individuals think and learn differently. Even accomplished writers like Margaret Mead, Eric Hoffer, Truman Capote, and Mark Twain had different processes when working through editing and shaping their ideas, which often began as images. Psychologists have long known about the different imaging abilities, so visual and auditory memory have been studied, while other memory types like tactile, thermal, and others have not. Hall laments that these nuanced modes of creative imagination aren’t better understood.
Chapters 10-12 Analysis
In Chapters 10-12, Hall uses the idea of a continuum to highlight the dynamic nature of culture while emphasizing the importance of cultivating a holistic understanding of culture. For instance, in exploring action chains in Chapter 10, Hall showcases the variability in commitment levels across cultures. This continuum illustrates that what may be considered a norm or commitment in one culture might differ significantly in another. By presenting these variations on a continuum, Hall reinforces the idea that cultural practices should be understood within their specific context, advancing Contexting as a Catalyst for Cross-Cultural Understanding and acknowledging the relativity of norms and values across different cultures. Similarly, the exploration of covert culture in Chapter 11 and the shift from verbal to emotional understanding further underscores the need for embracing cultural relativism. The continuum here suggests that certain behaviors may be significant within a specific cultural context but might be misunderstood or judged negatively when viewed through the lens of another culture. Seeing these problems from a new perspective can lead to solutions that advance cross-cultural understanding.
Hall's anecdotes across Chapters 10-12 demonstrate a progression from theoretical concepts to more accessible examples that nonspecialist readers can appreciate. Hall employs theoretical frameworks and abstract ideas as a foundation for his argument, gradually translating them into relatable terms to enhance reader comprehension. Though Hall introduces the theoretical concept of action chains as sequences of events with varying complexity in Chapter 10, he proceeds to offer concrete examples, such as family dynamics or disputes, making the concept more tangible and relatable.
Likewise in Chapter 11, Hall discusses behaviors not explicitly articulated (i.e., “covert”) as an abstract idea before transitioning to practical examples of cultural misunderstandings like the Latinx and Anglo-American relationship, interpersonal conflicts, and the need for self-evaluation. These examples highlight how Unconscious Differences Create Cultural Complexity while making the abstract concept of covert culture more accessible to everyday readers, as they can relate to situations where unspoken cultural features play a role and at times lead to misunderstandings. Hall also draws upon famous individuals, such as Einstein and Twain, as exemplars when moving from the theoretical exploration of language’s evolution toward its detachment from other cognitive processes. Overall, these chapters ensure that readers can engage with and appreciate the relevance of anthropological concepts in their daily lives.
Psychological concepts remain foundational for Hall’s exploration of human behavior, cognition, and communication in Chapters 10-12. Chapter 10’s introduction of action chains, for example, expounds on the internal state of individuals and the cultural variables that impact the progress of ACs. Integrating research from Spitz and May further highlights the personal consequences—rooted in psychology—related to breaking action chains. Chapter 11’s discussion of psychological resistance to self-evaluation and the psychological impact of short-circuiting ACs, as well as Chapter 12’s discussion of visual and auditory imagery, memory types, and the varied cognitive processes of individuals, also underscore the interplay between cultural patterns, individual psychology, and the cognitive processes that shape human behavior. For Hall, failing to recognize the intersectionality of psychology and anthropology presents dangers like short-circuiting ACs and hindering certain cognitive abilities. Hall’s solution reinforces that Cultural Understanding Can Lead to Personal and Global Betterment through proper cognitive development.
In Chapter 11, Hall explicitly mentions Franz Boas, a pivotal figure in the history of anthropology. Renowned for his role in shifting anthropological paradigms from cultural evolutionism to cultural relativism, Boas emphasized the importance of studying each culture on its own terms, rejecting hierarchical classifications, and advocating for the understanding of cultural phenomena within their specific historical and social contexts. Hall’s allusion to Boas indicates admiration for Boas’s approach and methodology, which Hall utilizes to advance his central argument for Cross-Cultural Understanding as a Path to Personal and Global Betterment. Overall, Hall’s contributions to the field align with his predecessor Boas’s, as both critique cultural projection and call for separating oneself from the conscious, explicit level to approach each culture anew.
Hall’s critique of the West remains clear in Chapters 10-12, serving as the principal case study for advancing the overarching themes present in his work. Hall critiques the Western bias toward language and verbal facility, arguing that it hinders the development of other cognitive abilities. This critique aligns with his broader theme that unconscious differences, rooted in cultural patterns, contribute to the complexity of human interactions and understanding. Likewise, he criticizes Western culture’s tendency to break action chains and the challenges posed by monochronic, “one-thing-at-a-time” thinking, reflecting his ongoing examination of Contexting as a Catalyst for Understanding Cultural Complexity and effective cross-cultural communication. Western approaches to conflict resolution, such as the American Southwest disputes, underscore the importance of cross-cultural understanding in mitigating conflicts and improving international/intercultural relations for both individual and societies. The West, in Hall’s analysis, becomes a cautionary tale, highlighting the potential consequences of overlooking cultural nuances and the imperative need for contexting in a globalized world.
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