of groups within every culture help with that adaptation process while also giving
members of that particular culture guidance on how to behave. The three
most influential social organizations are (1)family(clans), (2)state(community),
and (3)religion(worldview). These three social organizations—working in concert—
define, create, transmit, maintain, and reinforce the basic and most crucial elements
of every culture.
The deep structure institutions are at the core of every culture and provide the
fundamental values and attitudes that are most critical to that culture. This chapter
looks at the institution of the family and how families shape the social perceptions
and communication behaviors of members in a particular culture. In the next chapter,
a culture’s collective history will be linked to the deep structure of a culture. And,
finally, in Chapter 5, worldview and religion are connected to the topic of intercul-
tural communication.The Deep Structure of Culture
Although many communication problems occur on the interpersonal level, most seri-
ous confrontations and misunderstandings can be traced to cultural differences that go
to the deep structure of a culture. When Americans were exuberant over the killing
of Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011, they reflected American values of retribution
and justice, both part of the historical worldview of the United States. These sorts of
examples of deep structure that pit one set of cultural values against another can be
found throughout the world. News reports abound with stories of the ongoing perse-
cution of one ethnic group by another. The Kurds in Turkey, Iran, and Iraq have
been engaged in a decades-long war to free themselves from ethnic discrimination.
In Kosovo, ethnic Albanians declared independence from Serbia—not for economic
reasons but for cultural reasons. A kind of“ethnic cleansing”and genocide has been
occurring in Rwanda and in the Darfur region of Sudan as the minorities in these
areas struggle over divergent cultural norms. In China, discrimination aimed at Tibe-
tans continues on a somewhat regular
basis. In Syria and Iraq, the Sunni–Shia
fighting that took place in 2014 has a his-
tory dating back thousands of years. The
same, of course, can be said of the conflict
between Israel and much of the Arab
world. Here again is a deep structure dis-
pute that began thousands of years ago.
Hostility and brutality over two contra-
dictory worldviews are as common today as they were thousands of years ago. Christians
on a number of fronts are facing oppression and physical abuse around the world. In
Pakistan, Malaysia, Iraq, and Nigeria, Christians and their churches have been under
attack. In Sudan, the“conflict nurtured by racial and religious hostility”^2 reaches back
to the early twentieth century. Even when disagreements do not result in violence, you
can still observe how deep structure issues create problems. For example, Japan and
China continue exchanging angry words over a series of islands in a dispute that has
lasted hundreds of years. We suggest that wherever or whenever there are ethnic,
religious, or historical confrontations, be they in Boston, Beirut, Burundi, or Mumbai,
it is a culture’s deep structure that is being acted out.REMEMBER THIS
It is the deep structure, the conscious and unconscious assump-
tions about how the world works, that unifies a culture, makes
each culture unique, and explains the“how”and“why”of a
culture’s collective action.70 CHAPTER 3•The Deep Structure of Culture: Lessons from the Family
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