This activity actually answers my one criticism of Milton Bennett's blog post about the iceberg metaphor (see the blog "Culture is not like an Iceberg" entry in the Toolbox for my review of that). In a nutshell, it is important to explore as many metaphors of culture as possible in order to better understand this extremely complex concept. All metaphors are simplifications of complex concepts that are intended to help us wrap our heads around them using something familiar and simple. Rather than abandoning this one metaphor, as Bennett suggests, this activity includes it as one among many--a far superior solution. This activity is a great conversation starter and allows everyone to contribute precisely because it touches on so many metaphors. This increases the chances that participants have experience with and can comment on at least one of these metaphors.

This tool helps communicate the complexity and omnipresence of culture. It's helpful to have different metaphors, none of which is ever perfectly representational (the limits of both metaphor and analogy) yet all of which can be mobilized to help people understand themselves and all others as cultural beings.