Anthropology
Gordon Dickson has this great book called "None But Man", where there's this alien race that lays claim to a system of colony worlds. When Earth tells them that they can have them, the race declares war.
A group of colonists, along with a fellow who lived among the aliens for a while, understand that the aliens, the Mouldog, don't think about things in terms of "Wrong" and "Right", but in terms of "Respectable" and "Unrespectable", and that everything they do is in terms of what improves things for their race, because they don't have individuals, just groups of 3.
They proceed to engage in some guerilla events in alien space, including kidnapping the heirs to the throne, who they then return. The aliens expect that they are returning the dead bodies, as kidnapping live people makes no sense, and then the humans returned the kidnapped heirs, and they explain that while they have understood the Mouldog...claiming ownership of the colony worlds was an expectations that humans, being respectable, intelligent beings, would say "no, those world are ours, you can't have them" but instead by saying that the Mouldog could have them, were being tricky and deceitful...
But at the same time, the Mouldog had made no attempt to understand humans, that things like wrong and right, and individuality, took precedence over respectability.
A core value is the idea that you can't assume that other people are like you, or go around demanding that other people change to be more like you, to be more understandable to you.
But in fact, we often do precisely that. I'm dealing with a number of people right now who want me to change how I do things to be more understandable to them, but they aren't really offering to do the same for me. They don't see the need to change, they perceive themselves as normal, and if I just change some, then we'll all be able to get along better.
But I'm not clear on the benefit of changing. There are people who get me just fine as I am, and we accommodate each other. When people begin demanding that I change for them, and it doesn't improve my ability to communicate them or be at home with them, I grow suspicious.
If I always get to be the alien, the heathen, then there's no buy in for me. It's just an endless list of "why can't you be like everybody else", and I gave up on that a long time ago.
A group of colonists, along with a fellow who lived among the aliens for a while, understand that the aliens, the Mouldog, don't think about things in terms of "Wrong" and "Right", but in terms of "Respectable" and "Unrespectable", and that everything they do is in terms of what improves things for their race, because they don't have individuals, just groups of 3.
They proceed to engage in some guerilla events in alien space, including kidnapping the heirs to the throne, who they then return. The aliens expect that they are returning the dead bodies, as kidnapping live people makes no sense, and then the humans returned the kidnapped heirs, and they explain that while they have understood the Mouldog...claiming ownership of the colony worlds was an expectations that humans, being respectable, intelligent beings, would say "no, those world are ours, you can't have them" but instead by saying that the Mouldog could have them, were being tricky and deceitful...
But at the same time, the Mouldog had made no attempt to understand humans, that things like wrong and right, and individuality, took precedence over respectability.
A core value is the idea that you can't assume that other people are like you, or go around demanding that other people change to be more like you, to be more understandable to you.
But in fact, we often do precisely that. I'm dealing with a number of people right now who want me to change how I do things to be more understandable to them, but they aren't really offering to do the same for me. They don't see the need to change, they perceive themselves as normal, and if I just change some, then we'll all be able to get along better.
But I'm not clear on the benefit of changing. There are people who get me just fine as I am, and we accommodate each other. When people begin demanding that I change for them, and it doesn't improve my ability to communicate them or be at home with them, I grow suspicious.
If I always get to be the alien, the heathen, then there's no buy in for me. It's just an endless list of "why can't you be like everybody else", and I gave up on that a long time ago.