‘Global perspective’
I suppose you have come across this phrase elsewhere. It is one of the key elements that composes ‘global competence’, which UTokyo encourages you to possess. To acquire global perspective, I suggest, it is necessary to observe yourself in relation to others. But how do you interpret ‘relativity’ in global contexts?
Relativity or the state of being relative means ‘making judgment on something in comparison with other things and not by itself’. The word ‘relative’ is an antonym of ‘definitive’. Personally, I find myself relative when I compare myself with others living in different cultural milieux because it makes me realise that my view is not necessarily right.
Let’s take English as an example. Some of the speakers of British or American English say ‘I am one hundred percent (100 %) sure’ to express certainty. To mean the same, however, some of those who speak Hinglish (a hybrid of Hindi and English) say ‘cent percent’. I am familiar with British and American English and therefore associate ‘cent’ with ‘0.01’ (remember the smallest change in euros or dollars). However, my understanding would not be definitively right in Hinglish-speaking countries such as India.
What is considered ‘right’ is generally conditioned by country or culture. For this reason, relativity is closely connected with diversity. Numbers, which may seem uniform, are also diverse to some extent. If your first language is Japanese, you may struggle to say 10,000 (ichiman) or 100,000 (juman) in English. This is because English uses 1,000 (sen) as one unit whereas Japanese uses 10,000 as one unit.
Different people have different perspectives. As you probably know, what people imagine when looking at the moon depends on society from which they see it. Why do different countries or religions scramble to possess the same land? Why can’t different countries cooperate with each other in tackling the environmental problems? Why are there countries where women’s empowerment and gender equality are hardly achieved? To solve these problems, you need to understand perspectives that are different from yours.
The world is full of relativity and diversity. Let’s try to imagine how people, who live in different places from yours and are accustomed to different cultures and languages from yours, perceive the same thing. After COVID-19 crisis subsides, please visit different places and study their cultures as well as languages to check whether your assumptions are correct. I hope you will keep thinking about relativity and diversity, just as you would if you were going to solve one giant puzzle.