A cultural iceberg

"If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water."
 Ernest Hemingway

We all are aware what an iceberg is, especially after the advent of the film Titanic. An iceberg is a large piece of freshwater ice that has broken off a glacier, or an ice shelf, and is floating freely in open water. Because the density of pure ice is about 920 kg/m³ (kilograms per cubic metre), and that of sea water about 1025 kg/m³, an iceberg is less dense than the sea water by approximately 10 percent. Thus, it is not only able to float on sea water, but typically because of the lesser density, only about one-ninth of the volume of an iceberg is above water while the rest of it is below water level.

The shape of the portion underwater can be difficult to judge by looking at the portion above the surface. This has led to the expression "tip of the iceberg", for a problem or difficulty that is only a small manifestation of a larger problem. Before April 1912, there was no system in place to track icebergs to guard ships against collisions.

The sinking of the Titanic, which caused the deaths of 1,514 of its 2,223 passengers, created the demand for a system to observe icebergs.

This fallacy, the deception of the eye, has lead to the development of many words coined with iceberg. The most popular of such words is the Iceberg Shake (short for Milk Shake). There is also that inebriating variety of thirst quencher, manufactured using water harvested from icebergs. By the way, believe or not; water from icebergs is 7000 times purer than our tap water. Then there are the iceberg types of both men and women. Further, there is the iceberg theory of writing, also known as the 'theory of omission'. Earnest Hemingway, an American author and journalist whose economic and understated style of writing gave birth to this term, was the forerunner. Hemingway began his writing career as a journalist.

Theory

As a journalist, he learned to focus only on events reported, and to omit superfluous and extraneous matter. When he became a writer of short stories, he learned to write a surface story in which he omitted, or only hinted at, the point of the story.

Hemingway believed the true meaning of a piece of writing should not be evident from the surface story because the crux of the story lies below the surface.

His iceberg theory, or theory of omission, in combination with his distinctive clarity of writing, functioned as a means to get the most from the least, how to prune language and avoid verbosity, how to multiply intensities, and how to tell nothing but the truth in a way that allowed for telling more than the truth.

There are also other 'Iceberg Theories' such as the iceberg theory of language, writing, behaviour. For instance, the iceberg theory on culture states that as the iceberg has the visible tip, so does the areas of culture that we can see manifest in the physical sense. More often than not, these are the elements we initially become acquainted with, when entering into a new country or culture.

Cultures

Such "visible" elements include things such as music, dress, dance, architecture, language, food, gestures, greetings, behaviour, devotional practices, art, and more.

In addition, it can also relate to behaviour such as seeing people - like in Sri Lanka - ignoring red traffic lights, spitting on the floor, smoking in public, or not queuing for a bus. All of these traits, depending on your own culture, may come across as weird, strange, rude, ignorant, or simply silly.

None of the visible elements can make real sense without understanding the drivers behind them. These are submerged and hidden on the bottom of the iceberg, the invisible side. These invisible elements are, in fact, the underlying causes of what manifest on the visible side.

They may include factors such as: religious beliefs, worldviews, rules of relationships, approach to the family, motivations, tolerance for change, attitudes to rules, communication styles, modes of thinking, degree of comfort to risk, the difference between approach to public and private property, gender differences , and more such attitudes that will influence the visible portion.

Therefore, when we observe cultures that are alien to us; we need to keep in mind that the bottom of the cultural iceberg will include many features not visible, which in fact may be more important than those visible ones.

If the visible 10 percent above the water represent our culture, skills, talents; the not seen 90 percent below is our integrity and character.

Provoke

The Titanic sank because of what was below, and not due to what was above. Does it not provoke thought? That integrity - uprightness of character, fidelity, honesty, justice, probity; and the combination of qualities distinguishing a person or class of persons should determine whether we sink or not.

When a people lose integrity and character, when they become tractable and thoughtless, when their brain lacks oxygen, the inevitability of descent, decline, and fall is unavoidable as the sinking of the Titanic.

See you this day next week. Until then, keep thinking; keep laughing. Life is mostly about these two activities.

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