Karan Mahajan Quotes

You have to see and smell and feel the circumstances of people to really understand them.

I can empathise with different cultural expressions and am open to things that seem strange at first sight.

Travelling as extensively as I do... the take away for me has made me very humble and very sympathetic to other people's plight in the world and very desirous of being proactive in being part of a solution somehow and not part of a problem. It's made me very patient and very grateful for where I live.

The spirit of seeking understanding through personal contact with people of other nations and other cultures deserves the respect and support of all.

We do not need to understand other people and their customs fully to interact with them and learn in the process; it is making the effort to interact without knowing all the rules, improvising certain situations, which allows us to grow.

We have a relational problem with those who are suffering or who are different from us. All of us are most comfortable around people who are like us culturally and economically.

Learn to understand the culture of those that you wish to influence.

The growth of race relations management, diversity training and 'promoting good relations' has come at a cost. We are more sensitized to racism, yet far less confident in talking to each other as human beings with similar hopes, problems and aspirations.

I get messages from Palestinians and from Iranians... everyone is, like, the same.

I find that I often forget that people come from all over. In interfaces, products, experiences, and building for people, we always forget that people are not us.

We tend to gravitate towards our tribes; the challenge is to understand the people of other tribes.

As designers, we are the interface. Trying to make things understandable. That requires involving oneself with what's going on in the world. One must understand what people are, what they're up to, what they care about, how they feel.

Art civilizes us and it connects us and activates us. And so it's really important to connect with compassion, with stories about people who are different from us.

Americans really don't understand the Japanese nature, but it's not an easy thing to understand.

So long as we continued to attach more importance to our own narrow group membership than to the 'global village' we would propagate prejudice and ignorance. There was absolutely no harm in being part of a small group - indeed, with our hunter-gatherer band mentality it gave comfort, provided us with an inner circle of friends who could be utterly trusted, who were absolutely reliable. It helped give us peace of mind. The danger came only from drawing that sharp line, digging that ditch, laying that minefield, between our own group and any other group that thought differently.

I fear that we are living in a society, living in a world where forgiving people is becoming more and more difficult to do.

Sometimes I wonder about the people who can do very reflective work about their own ethnic group or their own families, or comedies that take place in the life that they've grown up in. That's a very special fortitude. Other brains have a curiosity for what they don't know - the life they're not leading.

I don't see tribalism ever really disappearing entirely. I just think that people are almost hardwired to identify as groups. And that sort of group identity always runs the risk of being chauvinistic.

We must teach the next generation to not just learn languages, but whole cultures and belief systems. We will then make more of an effort to understand people and their different cultures.

I think people are sometime reluctant to read outside of their own race. This is heartbreaking.

The real power of tribes has nothing to do with the Internet and everything to do with people.

Music has as many roles as people make it. I traveled to Burma once years ago to witness the people's struggle for democracy, meet some people and learn some stuff. And I had this incredible experience over and over again in the Burmese jungle or refugee camps or health clinics with very oppressed, very devastated people. I show up, and I'm white and I'm American and I'm privileged and I have an experience that these people can't fathom and vice versa. There was this huge chasm when I met people for all good reasons.

I'm not opposed to reaching out Hispanics. I'm all for reaching out to everybody! As Americans. Not as members of groups, and not treating people as though they're legitimate members of some grievance group, but reaching out to them as human beings.

Everyone can help. We can educate ourselves and our children about other countries and cultures. We have a responsibility to be aware of others and I believe this will inspire the individual way each person can make their difference.

Acknowledged differences may create mutual respect, but hazy misunderstandings bring forth nothing but prejudice and rejection.