Levy then gave a new language to this phenomenon, and once the Tahitians had acquired a word for ‘grief’ they came up with a ritual to tackle their problem.
There are at least three aspects of this story that are central to learning and culture change.
First, all thought carries an energy (emotion). Tahitians, like all of us, felt a strong emotion when someone would die. But they lacked the language to express their emotion. Without the language the emotion remained hidden like trapped energy. This created all sorts of problems such as anxiety, trauma and sickness in the society.
Second, Levy recognised the problem and gave Tahitians the word grief. Nothing changes until the emotion (energy in motion) is turned into language.
Third, only a small fraction of cultural change comes from introducing a new language. The key to all cultural change is not a shift in metaphors alone but to do something with that shift. Having the word ‘mourning’ or ‘grief’ did not solve the problems of the Tahitians until they got together and performed a ritual of grief and mourning. Coming together, hugging, crying, mimicking, sitting, standing, walking in sequence etc. were essential to give a collective meaning to the language.
A bodily experience is necessary in order to break from previous habits and behaviours to create the desired change.
This short story serves as a powerful reminder about the true nature of cultural change.
- Start with understanding the desires, fears, worries and concerns of the people
Examine their language
Help them to reframe their language (metaphors)
Anchor a ritual to this new language to create change
We move from emotion through symbols to rituals and then we come back to emotions. This becomes a continuous cycle of unlearning, relearning and culture change.
Source- Tahitians: Mind and Experience in the Society Islands by Robert Levy (1975)
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Rob Long says
In all my work in culture change I’ve found that the willingness to consider a change in language and symbol are the first indicators that people are prepared to change. The fear of change seems to be the biggest hurdle and once a group decides they can change some key language (eg. WS, HS, GS) and change semiotics (eg. jettison zero) then the other aspects of change become less fearful. This is why in SPoR we speak about e-motion, the energy that puts action in motion. Thanks for the post.