TCKs -- Third Culture Kids

By John Ballard

Old racist joke:  In the early days of desegregation an incoming black students at a previously all-white school received a perfect grade on one of his first exams, prompting a resentful comment. "Just look at that new kid, pretending to be smart!"

John H. Richardson is a
Writer at large for Esquire who analyzes an endless stream of bloviation and talks to people who matter. Hat tip to GottaLaff who reads, knows and tweets everything. (Well, almost everything. "All tweets of mine will be auto if they have 'miss this?' at beginning.")

How Obama Really Thinks: A Primer for the Left and Right

America just doesn't understand President Obama. The evidence is staring us in the face, so glaring and obvious we can't even see it. Since the very beginning of his time in office, liberals have been convinced that Obama isn't acting liberal enough � while at the exact same time, conservatives are equally convinced that Obama is so goddamn liberal he's crossed the line into whatever it was the Greatest Generation fought back in Doubleyou-Doubleyou Two, fascism or socialism or communism or whatever.

This was laid bare again last week, during what is rapidly becoming a ritual: the liberal orgy of disappointment with the latest Obama decision. The star of the week was Rachel Maddow, giving her fantasy of what Obama should have said in his oil speech: no company will ever be allowed to drill again "in a location where they are incapable of dealing with the consequence of drilling." Which, if you believe the overwhelming majority of the world's scientists who say that global warming is real, means that we have to shut down oil � completely, all over the world, and right now.

From the right, Ross Douthat makes a similar argument from the totally opposite point of view: "It's not that he hasn't done a great deal for liberals during his 18 months in office. It's that liberalism itself may be running out of time." Somehow Douthat gazes upon the uncontrolled disaster on Wall Street and the uncontrolled disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and decides we need even less control.

The one thing the left and the right can agree upon is that Obama needs to give up this silly bipartisanship thingie and commit to one side or the other, as Charles Blow argued in an op-ed called The Thrill Is Gone: "He needs to forget about changing the culture and climate of American politics," Blow wrote. "That's a lost cause."

What nobody on either side seems to understand is that Obama isn't faking his bipartisanship. He really means it. But it's not exactly bipartisanship. It's something else � something strange and essential. It is, though we don't quite realize it yet, the real reason we elected him.

I may be wrong, but I think I'm uniquely qualified to explain this. Like Obama, I grew up in Asia. I went to elementary school with little Filipino kids, spent a few years in the "real America" � in my case, Virginia � then back to Asia and spent a spent a couple of years in Hawaii and finally came back to find my way in America. There are millions of kids like us, Army brats, Foreign Service brats, and missionary kids along with a sprinkling of international-business spawn. We have a unique culture that is slightly alien to much of contemporary American culture but is in fact deeply American � perhaps even the essence of America. It is certainly America's future.

Social scientists call us "third culture kids," or TCKs. At a primal level that we can never escape, bred in our bones during the formative years of childhood, we exist between cultures. Here are some relevant quotes from the TCK bible, Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds:

While growing up in a multiplicity of countries and cultures, TCKs not only observe firsthand the many geographical differences around the world but they also learn how people view life from different philosophical and political perspectives. Some people think of Saddam Hussein as a hero; others believe he's a villain. Western culture is time and task oriented; in Eastern cultures, interpersonal relationships are of great importance ... [TCKs] have lived in other places long enough to appreciate the reasons and understanding behind some of the behavioral differences rather than simply being frustrated by them as visitors tend to be. For example, while a tourist might feel irritated that the stores close for two hours in the middle of the day just when he or she wants to go shopping, most TCKs understand that this custom not only helps people survive better if the climate is extremely hot, but it's time when families greet the children as they return from school and spend time together as a family.

Lots of people arrive at this conclusion intellectually. But TCKs get training in culture shock from the minute our parents tell us we're moving to some distant place. When I was a teenager in Korea, the lesson was called Three Men on a Shovel. Koreans used to dig trenches using one guy steering the shovel with the handle and two other guys pulling with ropes tied to the shovel. How Americans would laugh! Dumb Koreans, takes three of them just to dig a hole! Then the Army did a test with three Americans with three shovels against the Koreans, and the Koreans kicked our asses.

But a funny thing happens when these multiculturalized young Americans get home. People laugh at you for getting important social markers like dating rituals or slang wrong, and that's when you realize how deep culture really goes � because when people realize you don't share all their habits, they suspect you don't share their values either. An instinctive tribal hostility gets activated:

It seems the very awareness which helps TCKs view a situation from multiple perspectives can also make TCKs seem impatient or arrogant with others who only see things from their own perspective � particularly people from their home culture ... others may notice how the TCK's behavior changes in various circumstances and begin to wonder if they can trust anything the TCK does or says. It looks to them as if he or she has no real convictions about much of anything.

Sound familiar?

This is what the deeply committed liberals who blog and broadcast their complaints with Obama just don't get: He isn't trying to be bipartisan so he can heal the country and bring us together in some great Kumbaya group hug. Confronted with the BP spill, he instinctively looks at the other point of view. If we crush BP for its many sins, how does that affect gas prices? What about the armies of schoolteachers who have their pension funds invested in BP? And why do Republicans hate industrial policy again? Let's review their arguments and see if they have a point.

Again, this isn't a strategy. He's not looking at the November elections and thinking, Gee, maybe I should pretend to be sympathetic to the concerns of Republicans. He really means it. And that's why, unlike the "Real Americans" on both sides, Obama takes his freaking time before he blows his mouth off. He's not getting in touch with his anger. He's not venting America's frustration. He's trying to understand.

Sometimes through rather painful means, TCKs have learned that, particularly in cross-cultural situations, it pays to be a careful observer of what's going on around them and then try to understand the reasons for what they are seeing ... observing carefully and learning to ask 'How does life work here?' before barging ahead are other skills TCKs can use to help themselves or others relate more effectively.

He exists in the world between them, a true third-culture president, the president of America's future � which is not the president we want, but the president we need.

This notion challenges the average reader with a paradigm shift.
The closing idea is worth repeating.

Here's the rub: cosmopolitan cultures shrug off the TCK disconnect. They even see it as an advantage, leading to rationality and fair-mindedness and greater understanding for all. But tribal cultures take it as a betrayal. That's why so many Democrats are frustrated and so many Republicans are angry, because Obama really is "disloyal" to both teams.

I'm already there.
I had the Three on a Shovel lesson in 1966, literally, in Korea.
I learned long ago about what it meant to be a citizen of the World. Those people are few and far between but I have had the privilege of meeting and getting to know some.
I could bore the reader with many stories deriving from this fragile idea, but over time all important ideas are fragile when handled roughly... freedom, human rights, love, non-violence, spiritual insights, empathy, and so on. The list is so long most people think it's as commonplace as air or water. Well actually it is. But we don't need to look far to know how easily air or water can be made toxic.

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Here are relevant links for seekers who happen along...

?Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds (Amazon link)

?"What is a Third Culture Kid?" (Yes, there is a website. Go drill there but watch out for blowouts.)

?Third Culture Kids - Missionary Kids   It comes as no surprise that missionary families produce Third Culture Kids. And yes, MK's also have a website.

?Children in International Mission, a link from Global Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United Church of Christ.

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As a reminder, way back when Barack Obama was first mentioned as a candidate, long before he ever secured the nomination, and long before the Jeremiah Wright flap, Barack Obama and his family attended Trinity United Church of Christ. About four years ago.
Notice that last link.
Despite all that's been said, I think we have another Christian in the White House.
This is the most reasonable explanation I can think of to explain this man's otherwise counter-political behavior.

I have donned a kevlar vest in preparation for comments.