Q. Do you think that Westerners, in general, have trouble with intellectual and/or cultural humility?
Intellectual humility means being honest about not knowing everything about everything and being open to the idea that each person we meet knows something that we do not know, including people who do not look like we do, or come from countries that are impoverished through the continual, deliberate denial of resources.
Cultural humility is the opposite of cultural “competence”. It is the understanding that our understanding of other cultures is extremely limited (particularly when we can’t speak the language of that culture) and being open to learning from others about their culture, embracing the differences as neither “good” or “bad”-just different, and continuous self-reflection on how our own culture affects our understanding of the world.