Anthropology, Our Imagination, and How to Understand Difference | Michael Kilman | TEDxMSUDenver

00:11:27
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBC4FaVnOAs

Summary

TLDRIn a contemplative talk, the speaker discusses a transformative childhood experience that sparked a lifelong interest in diversity and anthropology. While visiting the Garden of the Gods at age 11, the speaker, who grew up in a segregated environment, realized their misconceptions about Indigenous peoples. This event planted a seed of curiosity, eventually leading to a career in anthropology. The speaker emphasizes the role of imagination in understanding history and constructing futures. To aid in this, the speaker and a co-author created the "three C's" model (Context, Conditions, and Choices) for building complex characters and understanding others. This framework is designed to enhance storytelling in media and foster empathy. The speaker advocates for embracing diversity as a vital tool for innovation and problem-solving, underscoring the importance of practicing empathy and understanding differences through listening and the three C's.

Takeaways

  • 🌱 Embrace diversity to enrich understanding and creativity.
  • 📚 Use the three C's (Context, Conditions, Choices) to understand others and build characters.
  • 🧠 Imagination shapes our understanding of the past and future.
  • 🙌 Diversity drives innovation and problem-solving.
  • 👂 Practice empathy by engaging with diverse perspectives.
  • 🏡 Understand others by considering their contextual backgrounds.
  • 🌍 Collaborate across differences to tackle global challenges.
  • 🕰 Historical imagination is crucial due to the absence of time machines.
  • ✍️ Storytellers can create richer narratives with cultural insights.
  • 🤝 Listen to understand, not just to respond.

Timeline

  • 00:00:00 - 00:05:00

    The speaker describes a moment of ignorance when they were young and mentions a pivotal experience at the age of 11 that challenged their understanding about the existence of Indigenous people. This experience highlighted the importance of imagination in shaping our understanding of history and the world. The speaker emphasizes that as individuals, we often live in our imagination of the past and future, which is influenced by media and stories. This led the speaker and their co-author to write a book targeted at game designers, fiction writers, and filmmakers to help them build worlds that are more culturally aware, believing that better storytelling can solve more global issues by using imagination effectively.

  • 00:05:00 - 00:11:27

    The speaker introduces a model called the "Three C's" - Context, Conditions, and Choices - designed initially for creating well-rounded characters but also useful for understanding people in real life. Context refers to the cultural system into which a person is born; Conditions refer to the individual's specific circumstances such as gender and class; Choices are the actions taken within these frameworks. The speaker argues that understanding these factors can enhance empathy and improve interactions with diverse groups. They stress the critical role of diversity in historical advancements and contemporary problem-solving, urging the audience to engage empathetically with different perspectives and to use imagination collaboratively to address significant global challenges.

Mind Map

Video Q&A

  • What personal experience does the speaker relate?

    The speaker recounts an experience at the age of 11 in the Garden of the Gods, which sparked an interest in diversity and anthropology.

  • What is the 'three C's' model mentioned in the talk?

    The 'three C's' model stands for Context, Conditions, and Choices. It is used for building characters and understanding people.

  • Why is diversity important according to the speaker?

    Diversity is seen as a tool for solving complex problems and fostering creativity and innovation.

  • What professions are encouraged to use the book 'Build Better Worlds'?

    Game designers, fiction writers, and filmmakers are encouraged to use the book to better construct narratives and worlds.

  • How does the speaker suggest dealing with difficult people?

    By using the three C's model to understand their context, conditions, and choices.

  • What is the key takeaway for practicing empathy?

    Engage with works created by people different from yourself and use the three C's to understand their perspectives.

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Subtitles
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  • 00:00:16
    i was ignorant
  • 00:00:18
    oh boy
  • 00:00:19
    it was a big one too
  • 00:00:21
    and we've all had those moments right
  • 00:00:24
    where
  • 00:00:25
    someone comes along
  • 00:00:27
    and exposes us to a new idea or a new
  • 00:00:29
    concept or something in history we
  • 00:00:31
    didn't know and it's
  • 00:00:33
    the rugs pulled out from under us
  • 00:00:36
    and then we have to make a decision
  • 00:00:38
    don't we
  • 00:00:39
    we have to decide if we want to move
  • 00:00:41
    forward
  • 00:00:42
    in a deeply uncomfortable
  • 00:00:44
    and courageous way
  • 00:00:46
    or if we want to retreat in fear and
  • 00:00:48
    willful ignorance
  • 00:00:52
    my first rug pulling moment of which of
  • 00:00:54
    course there are many
  • 00:00:56
    was when i was 11
  • 00:00:58
    and i was visiting the garden of the
  • 00:01:00
    gods which if you don't know is this
  • 00:01:02
    amazing beautiful park uh south of here
  • 00:01:05
    in colorado springs and it also happens
  • 00:01:07
    to be a very sacred and important site
  • 00:01:09
    to the indigenous people of this region
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    now i grew up
  • 00:01:14
    in a suburb south of philadelphia it was
  • 00:01:17
    a very segregated area
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    in fact i think maybe there was one
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    student of color
  • 00:01:23
    in our entire class and so my exposure
  • 00:01:26
    to history and ideas were relatively
  • 00:01:29
    limited
  • 00:01:30
    i didn't really think about diversity at
  • 00:01:32
    all being a white male
  • 00:01:36
    and so when i walked into the garden of
  • 00:01:37
    god's visitors center i had and i don't
  • 00:01:39
    know how i got this idea but but somehow
  • 00:01:42
    i had come to believe through my
  • 00:01:44
    education and my experiences and the
  • 00:01:46
    things i've watched on tv thus far
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    that all indigenous people in this
  • 00:01:50
    country were gone
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    but they were a thing of a past
  • 00:01:56
    and then here was this navajo woman
  • 00:01:59
    standing in the visitor center and my
  • 00:02:01
    little 11 year old brain was kind of
  • 00:02:03
    like error error error does not compute
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    and i didn't know what to do with this
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    experience
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    and so this planted a seed in me
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    a seed that
  • 00:02:15
    took a long time to take root really not
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    until college
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    but that seed started to get me to ask
  • 00:02:22
    questions
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    and i believe it's this seed that is the
  • 00:02:25
    reason i became an anthropologist
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    the reason i became a writer
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    see
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    we live in the world of the imagination
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    we imagine
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    the past
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    because
  • 00:02:42
    a quick survey who in this audience has
  • 00:02:44
    a time machine does anyone have a time
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    machine
  • 00:02:47
    anyone
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    i'm so disappointed
  • 00:02:50
    no one ever has a time machine right so
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    we have to imagine our past we have math
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    to imagine history
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    and so we're told our lives what we're
  • 00:03:00
    supposed to imagine
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    by watching media
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    by reading history by hearing stories we
  • 00:03:07
    live in that imagination but it doesn't
  • 00:03:09
    just stop with history does it
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    you imagine that perfect person in your
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    future the perfect career
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    you have so many hopes that you imagine
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    so many dreams you imagine but you also
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    have fears and anxieties and worries
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    we live so deeply in our imagination
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    constantly
  • 00:03:31
    we never really leave it do we
  • 00:03:34
    we're always living in the past or the
  • 00:03:36
    future or imagining even you know what's
  • 00:03:39
    for lunch
  • 00:03:42
    and this is why me and my co-author
  • 00:03:44
    kiera wellstrom
  • 00:03:46
    decided to write a book called build
  • 00:03:49
    better worlds an introduction to
  • 00:03:50
    anthropology for game designers fiction
  • 00:03:53
    writers and filmmakers because we
  • 00:03:55
    started to see
  • 00:03:56
    that it's really important how you build
  • 00:03:58
    that imagination
  • 00:04:00
    that it matters for the purposes of
  • 00:04:02
    diversity for the purposes of
  • 00:04:04
    communication for the purposes of
  • 00:04:06
    storytelling
  • 00:04:08
    how we imagine things
  • 00:04:10
    matters
  • 00:04:11
    so her being a biological anthropologist
  • 00:04:14
    and me being a cultural anthropologist
  • 00:04:16
    kind of joined forces because she knows
  • 00:04:17
    all like the icky body stuff way better
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    than i do
  • 00:04:20
    uh and we sat down and we looked at a
  • 00:04:23
    lot of these fictional worlds
  • 00:04:26
    and we realized if they just understood
  • 00:04:30
    a little bit about cultural systems a
  • 00:04:32
    little bit about how difference works
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    then maybe the stories told in the
  • 00:04:36
    future can be even better
  • 00:04:39
    and our imagination
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    can run wild
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    and maybe we can solve more problems in
  • 00:04:44
    the world because we're thinking
  • 00:04:47
    with our imagination in a better way
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    so in this book of course
  • 00:04:53
    we do you know the standard intro to
  • 00:04:55
    cultural anthropology stuff where you
  • 00:04:56
    learn about race class gender evolution
  • 00:05:00
    you know religion all of these different
  • 00:05:02
    aspects of our identities and cultures
  • 00:05:04
    and how they form and how they change
  • 00:05:06
    and move but another thing we did was we
  • 00:05:08
    built a model and this model was
  • 00:05:10
    specifically and originally created for
  • 00:05:13
    building better characters and this
  • 00:05:15
    model is called the three c's
  • 00:05:17
    context
  • 00:05:18
    conditions
  • 00:05:20
    and choices
  • 00:05:23
    so using this model
  • 00:05:25
    understanding a character's context
  • 00:05:27
    their conditions and their choices you
  • 00:05:28
    can build really interesting
  • 00:05:30
    three-dimensional characters and then
  • 00:05:32
    you can pit them against another
  • 00:05:33
    character who's really well constructed
  • 00:05:34
    and it's just a great it's really
  • 00:05:36
    interesting but we realized very quickly
  • 00:05:38
    that this was also a model for
  • 00:05:40
    understanding one another
  • 00:05:43
    context what is context
  • 00:05:46
    context is the cultural system into
  • 00:05:49
    which you're born it includes all the
  • 00:05:51
    different religions all the languages
  • 00:05:54
    and dialects all the ways that we tell
  • 00:05:56
    stories of the past and the present and
  • 00:05:58
    how we imagine the future it is
  • 00:06:00
    everything in your cultural sphere
  • 00:06:02
    including the time you're born in
  • 00:06:04
    history
  • 00:06:06
    because you are a contextual being
  • 00:06:09
    you're born in a specific moment in a
  • 00:06:11
    specific time in a specific place and
  • 00:06:14
    those things matter because they shape
  • 00:06:16
    the way we think
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    so we're going to use a metaphor a
  • 00:06:20
    context would be a neighborhood it would
  • 00:06:22
    be an entire neighborhood full of
  • 00:06:23
    different people with different ideas
  • 00:06:25
    and experiences
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    and then if we move on to conditions
  • 00:06:29
    it's your house
  • 00:06:30
    in the neighborhood
  • 00:06:32
    your specific gender your specific
  • 00:06:34
    sexuality your specific religion and
  • 00:06:37
    dialect
  • 00:06:38
    and class status
  • 00:06:41
    so within the neighborhood you have a
  • 00:06:43
    house of your own experience
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    and that house of course includes your
  • 00:06:48
    happiest memories
  • 00:06:50
    and your worst tragedies
  • 00:06:53
    and if you take these two things context
  • 00:06:56
    and conditions
  • 00:06:58
    you can then begin to understand the
  • 00:07:00
    choices that someone makes you're never
  • 00:07:03
    going to understand all those choices of
  • 00:07:04
    course not but you can understand a
  • 00:07:07
    great deal of these choices
  • 00:07:10
    and you can use this
  • 00:07:12
    to do things
  • 00:07:13
    like understand that jerk at work you
  • 00:07:15
    know the one right right oh i see yeah
  • 00:07:17
    yeah you know the one i'm talking about
  • 00:07:19
    right right and if you don't
  • 00:07:21
    know a jerk at work you might be the
  • 00:07:23
    jerk at work so you might need to use
  • 00:07:25
    this model anyway
  • 00:07:27
    so
  • 00:07:28
    you can use this model understand those
  • 00:07:30
    difficult people at work but you can use
  • 00:07:32
    it to understand immigrants you can use
  • 00:07:34
    it to understand refugees you can use it
  • 00:07:37
    to understand people who have political
  • 00:07:38
    differences than you or maybe a
  • 00:07:40
    different gender identity to you you can
  • 00:07:43
    use this model of context conditions and
  • 00:07:46
    choices to try to make some space
  • 00:07:49
    to understand difference
  • 00:07:52
    now
  • 00:07:52
    you might be asking yourself
  • 00:07:54
    why should you care
  • 00:07:56
    why does it matter to reach out to
  • 00:07:58
    people and try to understand or why is
  • 00:08:00
    this diversity thing you always hear
  • 00:08:01
    this push for this diversity thing
  • 00:08:03
    diversity is important diversity is
  • 00:08:04
    important right why
  • 00:08:06
    and the answer is
  • 00:08:08
    because diversity is the greatest tool
  • 00:08:11
    that humans have
  • 00:08:14
    if you don't believe me
  • 00:08:15
    use that imagination again go back into
  • 00:08:18
    history
  • 00:08:19
    and look at the times of the greatest
  • 00:08:21
    medical developments scientific
  • 00:08:24
    developments the greatest poetry
  • 00:08:26
    literature artwork everything all the
  • 00:08:29
    things that humans do best
  • 00:08:32
    rose the greatest
  • 00:08:34
    in times when different populations were
  • 00:08:37
    in different places
  • 00:08:39
    and we're open to discussing with one
  • 00:08:41
    another
  • 00:08:43
    and right now
  • 00:08:45
    we face some of the greatest problems
  • 00:08:47
    humanity has ever encountered
  • 00:08:50
    and so we need each other we need to
  • 00:08:52
    blend our imaginations
  • 00:08:55
    we need to build
  • 00:08:57
    better and more interesting universes in
  • 00:09:00
    fiction
  • 00:09:02
    but also we need to bring all those
  • 00:09:04
    ideas to the present so
  • 00:09:06
    two things for you to take away from
  • 00:09:08
    this
  • 00:09:09
    the first
  • 00:09:10
    is practicing empathy and this has two
  • 00:09:12
    parts so you get kind of like a two and
  • 00:09:14
    two here right so two parts
  • 00:09:16
    practicing empathy
  • 00:09:18
    begins by reading
  • 00:09:20
    by listening by playing
  • 00:09:23
    and by consuming things that are made by
  • 00:09:25
    people who are different than you
  • 00:09:28
    whether that be a different race a
  • 00:09:30
    different religion a different gender
  • 00:09:32
    a different location
  • 00:09:34
    wherever it might be
  • 00:09:36
    if they're different than you their
  • 00:09:38
    imagination will be different
  • 00:09:40
    and maybe you can source those ideas
  • 00:09:44
    for problem solving
  • 00:09:46
    and the other part of this of course is
  • 00:09:47
    use the three c's right context
  • 00:09:49
    conditions
  • 00:09:50
    and choices
  • 00:09:52
    and you can do that even while you're
  • 00:09:54
    reading or consuming fiction you can say
  • 00:09:55
    look
  • 00:09:56
    what's this person's context
  • 00:09:58
    it's actually much more easy in some
  • 00:10:00
    ways to do it with the villains of
  • 00:10:02
    stories for some reason i don't know why
  • 00:10:04
    but it is
  • 00:10:05
    because then you can say
  • 00:10:07
    how do you understand what this person's
  • 00:10:08
    doing what were the conditions of their
  • 00:10:10
    life and now why are they trying to take
  • 00:10:12
    over the world and you know dominate
  • 00:10:13
    everything right
  • 00:10:14
    so you can use that and the second thing
  • 00:10:18
    you should do
  • 00:10:20
    is take a breath once in a while so
  • 00:10:22
    everybody take a breath with me really
  • 00:10:23
    quick you ready
  • 00:10:29
    that breath is really important when
  • 00:10:31
    you're dealing with someone
  • 00:10:33
    who is different than you and especially
  • 00:10:35
    if they're difficult
  • 00:10:36
    that breath can give you just enough
  • 00:10:39
    space so that you can listen
  • 00:10:41
    not to respond or inject your opinion
  • 00:10:43
    but listen to understand
  • 00:10:47
    you have to find an opening with people
  • 00:10:49
    who are different than you and listening
  • 00:10:51
    to understand
  • 00:10:53
    can give you that one space
  • 00:10:55
    that one breath
  • 00:10:57
    to try and create a doorway for better
  • 00:11:00
    understanding one another
  • 00:11:02
    and hopefully
  • 00:11:03
    with that space
  • 00:11:06
    we can work together to build a better
  • 00:11:08
    world
  • 00:11:10
    thank you
  • 00:11:15
    [Music]
  • 00:11:27
    you
Tags
  • diversity
  • empathy
  • imagination
  • anthropology
  • cultural understanding
  • storytelling
  • education
  • innovation