Babel
A Guide to the East-West Encounter
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2012
Each person has a “Thinking Vector” the direction and magnitude of which can be assessed by using the questionnaire that appears in the book. For people with a western paradigm of mind, who locate their self at the center, the “Thinking Vector” is inwardly oriented. People with an eastern paradigm of mind, who are focused on the group, have an outward-oriented “Thinking Vector”. The encounter with an individual whose “Thinking Vector” is opposed to ours creates a cross-cultural gap that hinders communication. Babylon – a Guide to the East-West Encounter surveys the laws underlying each paradigm of the mind in such a way that the reader may be aware of his/her characteristics of thought as well as those of the other, and also of the laws that enable “translation” of his/her messages from one paradigm of mind to the other.
This book is based on fascinating stories of negotiations between Israel and America and the Arab world collected from a large number of major books in Hebrew, English and Arabic which describe the negotiation process.
We all live under the illusion that a member of another culture thinks like us. This is because each one of us knows only his/her way of thinking. Is it possible to break through this vicious circle and to learn the principles of other’s way of thinking? Is it possible to tone down the defensive and hypocritical rule of the “Politically Correct”, to acknowledge the differences between us and perhaps even to value these differences? Babylon points the way to how we might all – sons and daughters of East and West – turn from strangers to close friends and provides a positive end to the Biblical story in which people could not cooperate because they spoke different languages
Review by the American Journal of Psychology
Interview about “Babylon” in Channel one “Erev Hadash”
An article in the Austrian Press Agency
Printed/Digital Book