Japan Intercultural Institute

If you strip away the layers of culture, do you reach a core human nature that’s the same everywhere? In this episode, Joseph Shaules and Ishita Ray argue that the answer is no—human nature is cultural to the core. We learn what the science says and hear the story of Vico Giambattista, one of the first thinkers who explored this idea. We learn that foreign experiences are a powerful way to discover our cultural nature, with personal stories from Sanne Bosma, Torhild Liane Haars Skarnes, Yuto Aki, Jessica Janda and Grasiella Harb.