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Freud revealed there was a personal unconscious that motivated what we did and why we did it. Jung claimed we should also remember the collective unconscious that beckons us. Clotaire Rapaille, in The Culture Code, asks us to consider the real impact of our cultural unconscious. If you live in a given culture for the first seven years of your life, Rapaille believes you are imprinted with that culture’s code. A Frenchman by birth, now an American citizen, Rapaille is interested in culture codes because he works for a number of the Fortune 500 companies who realize that knowing these codes can help them determine buying habits. (Rapaille saved Chrysler from doom. They almost made their Jeep more luxurious. Wrong. The American code word for Jeep is HORSE. Buyers of Jeeps wanted rough and ready and out in the open!) Rapille’s insights are a consequence of his academic studies into the relationship between emotion (anger, fear, pain, joy) and learning. You touch a hot stove when you are young and you never forget what “hot” means. The critical connection between emotion and learning led to work with autistic children for whom emotional connectors are often missing. Then, after a presentation on the subject to a large audience a man approached him and said, “I have some people I’d like you to talk with.” The people were Nestle and so began Rapaille’s transition to the (better paying) work of consulting companies on marketing decisions. But you need not be in marketing or business to benefit from this book. In our shrinking global community it behooves us to be aware of what the world looks like through the eyes of the other. Example. Americans, unlike the Japanese, are not as interested in being PERFECT the first time around (culture code words are always capitalized.) Why? Japan is a small country. No room, literally, for mistakes. America on the other hand is vast. We have the opportunity to try again. So we believe in the second and third chance. Which is why our heroes can sin and rise anew. The only real failure in America is not picking yourself up to try again. (Rapaille suggests the world should never write off America’s ability to come back from a slump. In the fallow periods of our disgrace we often reinvent ourselves, coming back stronger for it. I’m hoping he’s right on this one.) The Culture Code has made for great dinner table anecdotes and discussions on how Americans and others really view Love, Health, Beauty, Fat, Shopping, Luxury, Work & Money (and many other topics.) as well as how other countries view us. The good news – at least according to Rapaille – is that the world’s view of us is not completely negative which gives me hope that we might yet recover from our disastrous foreign policy. The American Code for the presidency, by the way, is MOSES. That’s what we Americans are looking for – every time. See one on the horizon? <back to list |
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