What do you think?
Rate this book
The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why
Everyone knows that while different cultures may think about the world differently, they use the same equipment for doing their thinking. Everyone knows that whatever the skin color, nationality, or religion, every human being uses the same tools for perception, for memory, and for reasoning. Everyone knows that a logically true statement is true in English, German, or Hindi. Everyone knows that when a Chinese and an American look at the same painting, they see the same painting.<BR><BR>But what if everyone is wrong?<BR><BR>When psychologist Richard E. Nisbett showed an animated underwater scene to his American students, they zeroed in on a big fish swimming among smaller fish. Japanese subjects, on the other hand, made observations about the background environment -- and the different "seeings" are a clue to profound underlying cognitive differences between Westerners and East Asians. For, as Professor Nisbett shows in <I>The Geography of Thought,</I> people actually think about -- and even see -- the world differently because of differing ecologies, social structures, philosophies, and educational systems that date back to ancient Greece and China and that have survived into the modern world. As a result, East Asian thought is "holistic" -- drawn to the perceptual field as a whole and to relations among objects and events within that field. By comparison to Western modes of reasoning, East Asian thought relies far less on categories or on formal logic; it is fundamentally dialectic, seeking a "middle way" between opposing thoughts. By contrast, Westerners focus on salient objects or people, use attributes to assign them to catergories, and apply rules of formal logic to understand their behavior. <BR><BR><I>The Geography of Thought</I> documents Professor Nisbett's groundbreaking international research in cultural psychology, a series of comparative studies both persuasive in their rigor and startling in their conclusions, addressing questions such as:<BR><BR>• Why did the ancient Chinese excel at algebra and arithmetic, but not geometry, the brilliant achievement of such Greeks as Euclid?<BR><BR>• Why do East Asians find it so difficult to disentangle an object from its surroundings?<BR><BR>• Why do Western infants learn nouns more rapidly than verbs, when it is the other way around in East Asia?<BR><BR>• What are the implications of these cognitive differences for the future of international politics? Do they support a Fukuyamaesque "end of history" scenario or a Huntingtonian "clash of civilizations"?<BR><BR>From feng shui to metaphysics, from comparative linguistics to economic history, a gulf separates the children of Aristotle from the descendants of Confucius. At a moment in history when the need for cross-cultural understanding and collaboration have never been more important, <I>The Geography of Thought</I> offers both a map to that gulf and a blueprint for a bridge that might be able to span it.
292 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 25, 2003
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 382 reviews
September 22, 2013
While this book certainly sheds a lot of light on the different approaches in the thinking of Easterners and Westerners (and the origins of both), that does not necessarily add up to an enjoyable or engaging read. This book comes off a bit like a graduate thesis and certainly has done the homework to back everything up.
Having lived in South Korea for the last two years, I have often wondered about (and even laughed out loud at) the subtle cultural differences in my day-to-day life here that touch many aspects of life. What has up until now seemed to me like a case of inconsiderate behavior, can now be more easily explained and understood in the context of Eastern thought as outlined early on in this book. I have often times referred to Koreans as completely UN-considerate (sic) as a whole while at the same time being polite (often to a fault) on an individual or professional basis.
For example, my ability to enter or exit elevators, escalators, and public transportation easily is sublimated (i.e. trampled) for the greater good of everyone else to get on or off quickly and with little fanfare. What I have for so long perceived as a rude and thoughtless lack of common courtesy is actually a much larger perspective of societal harmony at work. Ironically, this is something I had always thought I wanted. Once I learned to literally go with the flow and not take the overall absence of any awareness of me as an individual, I began to not only release my anger and outrage, but I have been able to use their Eastern logic to my advantage moving forward. It is everyone for themselves, so if you are late for the elevator or too slow in grabbing a seat, too bad.
What the book does not address, however, and what I still cannot understand is the paradox that results when traditional Eastern philosophy clashes with South Korea's extreme focus on appearance and the unabashed vanity that results from it. Traditional appearances masked by rampant plastic surgery, excessive make-up, and all-out worship of brand-name fashions seem to directly contradict Eastern logic and instead embrace the Greek-based idea of agency or individuality. I also have likened it to an entire country of purebreds that sadly want to remove distinctive traces of their genetic heritage and in fact be mutts modeled after the unattainable ideal of Western beauty.
My line of thought before reading this book was a desire to understand what real difference appearance makes if you are all simply cogs in the machine, forever linked to your part in society? Why is individual attractiveness important when Asians do not view people out of the context of the particular role they happen to be in? It seems to me now it is actually the result of a desire to not stand out and therefore going to drastic lengths to NOT be different from anyone else.
I have also felt that South Korea as a country suffers from a massive inferiority complex and that chip lives largest on the shoulders of the post-war generation. Given the tumultuous history of the peninsula, this is understandable, and may have been the driving force behind the amazing success of their economy since then. However, the second-class status of women in this society and the don't ask-don't tell taboo and double standards of sexuality and prostitution, makes the generalizations of this book all the more confusing.
What's even more interesting is that neither philosophy seems to have led to a society filled with happy and contented citizens. Koreans seem work very hard to live lives centered on the good of the family. While overall, Korea does seem to be harmonious as a society, most of my co-workers seem to dread time spent with their family and truly resent the expectations that erase their individual desires and freedom. Most Salary Men (life-long corporate employees) and people I encounter walk around like tortured mindless zombies, incapable of even imagining an escape from their sad destinies.
Westerners on the other hand maintain relationships with their families in relation to their status as free thinking and self-motivated individuals. As a result, American society is in the final stages of a massive collapse as a result of greed, corruption, and unchecked selfishness. Depression, health issues, obesity, and massive consumer debt are all the direct result of the failure to think of the good of the whole versus the rights and perspective of the individual.
Ultimately, I came away with the feeling that both sides have something to learn from each other, especially with regard to what some would call "common sense." It turns out that depending on how you were raised and where you are from, this term can mean two completely different things, and that explains why my particular version of it is always in short supply while traveling throughout Asia. It also explains why now I will have a whole new definition of it should I ever return to the United States.
Having lived in South Korea for the last two years, I have often wondered about (and even laughed out loud at) the subtle cultural differences in my day-to-day life here that touch many aspects of life. What has up until now seemed to me like a case of inconsiderate behavior, can now be more easily explained and understood in the context of Eastern thought as outlined early on in this book. I have often times referred to Koreans as completely UN-considerate (sic) as a whole while at the same time being polite (often to a fault) on an individual or professional basis.
For example, my ability to enter or exit elevators, escalators, and public transportation easily is sublimated (i.e. trampled) for the greater good of everyone else to get on or off quickly and with little fanfare. What I have for so long perceived as a rude and thoughtless lack of common courtesy is actually a much larger perspective of societal harmony at work. Ironically, this is something I had always thought I wanted. Once I learned to literally go with the flow and not take the overall absence of any awareness of me as an individual, I began to not only release my anger and outrage, but I have been able to use their Eastern logic to my advantage moving forward. It is everyone for themselves, so if you are late for the elevator or too slow in grabbing a seat, too bad.
What the book does not address, however, and what I still cannot understand is the paradox that results when traditional Eastern philosophy clashes with South Korea's extreme focus on appearance and the unabashed vanity that results from it. Traditional appearances masked by rampant plastic surgery, excessive make-up, and all-out worship of brand-name fashions seem to directly contradict Eastern logic and instead embrace the Greek-based idea of agency or individuality. I also have likened it to an entire country of purebreds that sadly want to remove distinctive traces of their genetic heritage and in fact be mutts modeled after the unattainable ideal of Western beauty.
My line of thought before reading this book was a desire to understand what real difference appearance makes if you are all simply cogs in the machine, forever linked to your part in society? Why is individual attractiveness important when Asians do not view people out of the context of the particular role they happen to be in? It seems to me now it is actually the result of a desire to not stand out and therefore going to drastic lengths to NOT be different from anyone else.
I have also felt that South Korea as a country suffers from a massive inferiority complex and that chip lives largest on the shoulders of the post-war generation. Given the tumultuous history of the peninsula, this is understandable, and may have been the driving force behind the amazing success of their economy since then. However, the second-class status of women in this society and the don't ask-don't tell taboo and double standards of sexuality and prostitution, makes the generalizations of this book all the more confusing.
What's even more interesting is that neither philosophy seems to have led to a society filled with happy and contented citizens. Koreans seem work very hard to live lives centered on the good of the family. While overall, Korea does seem to be harmonious as a society, most of my co-workers seem to dread time spent with their family and truly resent the expectations that erase their individual desires and freedom. Most Salary Men (life-long corporate employees) and people I encounter walk around like tortured mindless zombies, incapable of even imagining an escape from their sad destinies.
Westerners on the other hand maintain relationships with their families in relation to their status as free thinking and self-motivated individuals. As a result, American society is in the final stages of a massive collapse as a result of greed, corruption, and unchecked selfishness. Depression, health issues, obesity, and massive consumer debt are all the direct result of the failure to think of the good of the whole versus the rights and perspective of the individual.
Ultimately, I came away with the feeling that both sides have something to learn from each other, especially with regard to what some would call "common sense." It turns out that depending on how you were raised and where you are from, this term can mean two completely different things, and that explains why my particular version of it is always in short supply while traveling throughout Asia. It also explains why now I will have a whole new definition of it should I ever return to the United States.
November 3, 2023
I think it is interesting to scientifically examine the well-known myths about how the East and the West think differently. However, the book fails (or neglects) to address that much of these myths were originated in the 19th century to justify European dominance in the world over the 'lesser' races in terms of racial and cultural standpoints (recommend reading Keevak (2011) Becoming Yellow). And indeed, the book reads very much like something written by a 19th century anthropologist. Interestingly, America was in a similar position (though not to the same extend, thank heaven) that the European powers were in, at the time when this book was published.
For a start, what is the West and what is the East? It is not well defined in the book. Cultural differences between the Chinese, the Korean and the Japanese changed over time. And each of these countries differed to each other significantly, in terms of size, racial makeup, geography, etc in one way or the other, which led to different socio-economics. One can argue that Greek culture influenced the Western world significantly, but so was the many cultures that the West was exposed to; For example, European lost most of Ancient Greek discoveries during the Dark Age and only relearned them from the Islamic world, does that mean Europeans are also Islamic? Can Anglo-Amercian and Continental Europe be generalised in one single category?
The book claims from the start Westerners (whatever that means) are better at logical thinking than Easterners (again, whatever that means), because of the differences in socio-economics in ancient times. Then it starts comparing Chinese political thinkers from the Spring-and-Autume-period with Western philosophers, mathematicians.... *facepalm* It is true that ancient Chinese inventors, philosophers, mathematicians and logicians were not highly celebrated for their work, but that does not mean that they didn't exist nor inferior to their Western counterparts. For example, a mathematical book written in China between 200BC-100AD already discussed squaring, squared roots and quadratic equations. As another example, during Jin dynasty, Chinese mathematicians discovered the Pythagorean theorem and the Pi number to the 7th decimal place. Arguing that point would need a more comprehensive review of ancient Asian scientific work than what is offered in the book. But that would require a high level understanding of classical Chinese, which I don't think Nisbett possessed.
The experiments mentioned in the second part of the book are mostly, anecdotal psychology nonsense that cannot be replicated or have problems in selection bias and simply small samples amongst other things. For example, can you generalise East Asian languages? Written Chinese is not phonetic, Japanese and Korean are. And how do you compare these languages to Western languages, which language is the most representative of Western culture? Or indeed, how do you even ensure that it is only cultural differences that drove the results? How could one use a sample of 30 people from a class in America and argue that it represented an entire population of billions!
I really don't think it is a book to be taken seriously, I think it is overly ambitious and fails in every discipline it tries to use to justify its point. In terms of history, it is not comprehensive; a chinese primary school pupil could give stronger evidence than this book does. In terms of psychology, the motivation is unclear and doesn't seem to justify making the argument. In terms of research methodology, it is really lacking, it doesn't define the parameters well, experiments do not seem to be scientific at all.
I think this book is really great if your table or chair has a leg that is shorter than the rest, or if you really can't find anything else put in the book shelve and your friends are not serious scientists, or the inevitable nuclear winter has finally come and you have to burn something to keep warm.
For a start, what is the West and what is the East? It is not well defined in the book. Cultural differences between the Chinese, the Korean and the Japanese changed over time. And each of these countries differed to each other significantly, in terms of size, racial makeup, geography, etc in one way or the other, which led to different socio-economics. One can argue that Greek culture influenced the Western world significantly, but so was the many cultures that the West was exposed to; For example, European lost most of Ancient Greek discoveries during the Dark Age and only relearned them from the Islamic world, does that mean Europeans are also Islamic? Can Anglo-Amercian and Continental Europe be generalised in one single category?
The book claims from the start Westerners (whatever that means) are better at logical thinking than Easterners (again, whatever that means), because of the differences in socio-economics in ancient times. Then it starts comparing Chinese political thinkers from the Spring-and-Autume-period with Western philosophers, mathematicians.... *facepalm* It is true that ancient Chinese inventors, philosophers, mathematicians and logicians were not highly celebrated for their work, but that does not mean that they didn't exist nor inferior to their Western counterparts. For example, a mathematical book written in China between 200BC-100AD already discussed squaring, squared roots and quadratic equations. As another example, during Jin dynasty, Chinese mathematicians discovered the Pythagorean theorem and the Pi number to the 7th decimal place. Arguing that point would need a more comprehensive review of ancient Asian scientific work than what is offered in the book. But that would require a high level understanding of classical Chinese, which I don't think Nisbett possessed.
The experiments mentioned in the second part of the book are mostly, anecdotal psychology nonsense that cannot be replicated or have problems in selection bias and simply small samples amongst other things. For example, can you generalise East Asian languages? Written Chinese is not phonetic, Japanese and Korean are. And how do you compare these languages to Western languages, which language is the most representative of Western culture? Or indeed, how do you even ensure that it is only cultural differences that drove the results? How could one use a sample of 30 people from a class in America and argue that it represented an entire population of billions!
I really don't think it is a book to be taken seriously, I think it is overly ambitious and fails in every discipline it tries to use to justify its point. In terms of history, it is not comprehensive; a chinese primary school pupil could give stronger evidence than this book does. In terms of psychology, the motivation is unclear and doesn't seem to justify making the argument. In terms of research methodology, it is really lacking, it doesn't define the parameters well, experiments do not seem to be scientific at all.
I think this book is really great if your table or chair has a leg that is shorter than the rest, or if you really can't find anything else put in the book shelve and your friends are not serious scientists, or the inevitable nuclear winter has finally come and you have to burn something to keep warm.
April 1, 2008
i think the crux of the book is
(1) object-based thinking vs (2) context-based thinking and how through the years, the Westerners and the Easterners have differed in their thinking process
i think the idea can be equally applied to all of us, as some are more bound to object-based thinking vs context-based.
if you have to choose 2 things out of the following 3 things:
(1) monkey
(2) banana
(3) lion
and you choose
(1) monkey and banana - u are more likely a context-based thinking person
(2) monkey and lion - object-based
(1) object-based thinking vs (2) context-based thinking and how through the years, the Westerners and the Easterners have differed in their thinking process
i think the idea can be equally applied to all of us, as some are more bound to object-based thinking vs context-based.
if you have to choose 2 things out of the following 3 things:
(1) monkey
(2) banana
(3) lion
and you choose
(1) monkey and banana - u are more likely a context-based thinking person
(2) monkey and lion - object-based
August 21, 2018
For much of my life, I've been a bridge: trying to connect people into communities and communities into networks, helping our world hold together. I was born with/grew into a dislike for arguments (of the quarrel variety) and an affinity for transforming conflicts. Often, I've felt uneasy with the values of my own country or other parts of the West I've been to.
This book helped me understand why.
Among the brighter insights were:
- why I say 'I' so much--and often still feel disconnected from others: the independent and interdependent mindsets
- why so many people around me try to control the(ir) world, or believe they know much more about it than I'd ever dare claim: the analytic and holistic approaches
- why simple explanations of human (inter)actions leave me staring at the background, straining to see more
Another highly recommended read.
Also, I'm looking for recommendations about other studies that compare world cultures and thinking paradigms. I'm especially interested in inclusive research: for instance, bringing in African cultures, or discussing the differences between Indian, Chinese and Japanese perceptions.
This book helped me understand why.
Among the brighter insights were:
- why I say 'I' so much--and often still feel disconnected from others: the independent and interdependent mindsets
- why so many people around me try to control the(ir) world, or believe they know much more about it than I'd ever dare claim: the analytic and holistic approaches
- why simple explanations of human (inter)actions leave me staring at the background, straining to see more
Another highly recommended read.
Also, I'm looking for recommendations about other studies that compare world cultures and thinking paradigms. I'm especially interested in inclusive research: for instance, bringing in African cultures, or discussing the differences between Indian, Chinese and Japanese perceptions.
October 15, 2019
جغرافية الفكر.. كيف يفكر الغربيون والأسيويون علي نحو مختلف... ولماذا؟
عالم المعرفة
...................
هل الناس أينما كانوا وأيا ما كانت ثقافتهم يفكرون ويستقرئون ويستدلون وفق منهج ومنطق واحد؛ ويصنفون الوجود ويرونه ويدركونه علي نحو نمطي واحد؟
بهذا السؤال يبدأ المؤلف كتابه الفذ والقوي جدا عن جغرافية الفكر، يحاول فيه الكاتب البحث عن قوانين الفكر وقواعد المنطق التي يحتكم إليها العقل الإنساني، هل هذه القواعد واحدة لدي كل الناس؟ هل المنطق هو عادات تفكير وليس قوانين كلية؟ استطاع الكاتب الوصول _ من خلال قراءة عدد كبير من البحوث النفسية _ إلي إجابات واضحة لهذه الأسئلة، وهي إجابات تكاد تكون مؤيدة بأدلة شبه قطعية أو علي الأقل مطمئنة في نتائجها.
في مقارنة بين الشرق والغرب استطاع الكاتب الوصول إلي قناعة بأن الشرق والغرب كليهما يتعامل بقواعد عقلية مختلفة تماما عن الآخر، ويؤكد بأن الدراسات تشير إلي أن الغربيين والأسيويين يرون حرفيا عالمين مختلفين. ففي الوقت الذي يتعامل فيه الشرقي مع العالم علي أساس العلاقات القائمة بين أجزاؤه فإن الغربي يتعامل مع العالم عن طريق تقسيمه إلي فئات، مثلا: إذا عرضنا علي طفل ياباني صور لمجموعة من الكائنات فإنه يجمع بين البقرة واللبن والبرسيم؛ لأن بينهم علاقة، بينما يجمع الطفل الأمريكي البقرة مع الأسد مع الخروف لأنهم ينتمون لنفس الفئة، وهكذا يعيش الغربي والشرقي بطريقتين مختلفتين لفهم العالم والتعامل معه.
يري الكاتب أن العقل ليس مفطورا علي العمل وفق قواعد ثابتة لدي كل البشر، وليست له طريقة واحدة للفهم والتفكير لدي كل الناس، بل إن العقل له أصول اجتماعية دفعت بتطوره في اتجاهات معينة، فعمليات الفكر المميزة لدي الجماعات المختلفة يختلف بعضها عن بعض اختلافا بينا، وما ظنناه قواعد وقوانين الفكر هي عادات وليست قوانين كلية فطرية. إنها منظومات أو أنساق ترسخت قرونا بفضل هذا التفاعل، وتباينت شرقا وغربا بسبب تباين هذا التفاعل زمانا ومكانا ومحتوي ونهجا.
ضرب الكاتب نموذجين لتطور العقل باتجاهين مختلفين هما: الصين وأمريكا، ففي الصين يعيش الفلاحون في إطار العمل الزراعي الذي يلزمهم بالبحث دائما عن الانسجام والتوافق الاجتماعي ونبذ الخلاف لمصلحة الجماعة ككل، بينما في أمريكا لم يكن الحال كذلك، فنشأ عن هذه الحياة التي دامت لعشرات القرون طريقة لرؤية العالم وأسلوب للتفكير فيه والتعامل العقلي معه تختلف في كل بلد عن الآخر.
طريقة التربية للأطفال تختلف من بلد لبلد ��بينما نري الأطفال الأمريكيون يتعلمون أن العالم مكان به موضوعات وأشياء، نري الأطفال اليابانيون يتعلمون أن العالم في الغالب الأعم هو علاقات. فيختلف بذلك قياس الذكاء بين الشرق والغرب حسب طريقة نمو العقل وأسلوب تفكيره بين البلدين.
من بين الاختلافات التي تؤيد اختلاف العقل بين المنطقتين أن اللغات الغربية تشجع استخدام الأسماء الذي يفضي إلي تصنيف الموضوعات إلي فئات، أما لغات شرق اسيا فتشجع استخدام الأفعال مما يؤدي إلي التأكيد علي العلاقات. وتختلف كذلك طرق تنشئة الأطفال بين الشرق والغرب، فقصص الأطفال تتجه اتجاهات مختلفة تؤيد اختلاف طريقة الفهم وتعامل العقل مع العالم بين الشرق والغرب.
في النهاية يري الكاتب اننا نري العالم بطرق مختلفة تختلف بحسب البيئة التي نشأ فيها الفرد وبحسب الثقافة التي نشأ فيها وتشرب قيمها، واختلافاتنا هذه قد تكون منذرة بالسوء بسبب اختلاف طريقة عمل عقولنا، وقد تكون باب للتفاهم بين المختلفين.
عالم المعرفة
...................
هل الناس أينما كانوا وأيا ما كانت ثقافتهم يفكرون ويستقرئون ويستدلون وفق منهج ومنطق واحد؛ ويصنفون الوجود ويرونه ويدركونه علي نحو نمطي واحد؟
بهذا السؤال يبدأ المؤلف كتابه الفذ والقوي جدا عن جغرافية الفكر، يحاول فيه الكاتب البحث عن قوانين الفكر وقواعد المنطق التي يحتكم إليها العقل الإنساني، هل هذه القواعد واحدة لدي كل الناس؟ هل المنطق هو عادات تفكير وليس قوانين كلية؟ استطاع الكاتب الوصول _ من خلال قراءة عدد كبير من البحوث النفسية _ إلي إجابات واضحة لهذه الأسئلة، وهي إجابات تكاد تكون مؤيدة بأدلة شبه قطعية أو علي الأقل مطمئنة في نتائجها.
في مقارنة بين الشرق والغرب استطاع الكاتب الوصول إلي قناعة بأن الشرق والغرب كليهما يتعامل بقواعد عقلية مختلفة تماما عن الآخر، ويؤكد بأن الدراسات تشير إلي أن الغربيين والأسيويين يرون حرفيا عالمين مختلفين. ففي الوقت الذي يتعامل فيه الشرقي مع العالم علي أساس العلاقات القائمة بين أجزاؤه فإن الغربي يتعامل مع العالم عن طريق تقسيمه إلي فئات، مثلا: إذا عرضنا علي طفل ياباني صور لمجموعة من الكائنات فإنه يجمع بين البقرة واللبن والبرسيم؛ لأن بينهم علاقة، بينما يجمع الطفل الأمريكي البقرة مع الأسد مع الخروف لأنهم ينتمون لنفس الفئة، وهكذا يعيش الغربي والشرقي بطريقتين مختلفتين لفهم العالم والتعامل معه.
يري الكاتب أن العقل ليس مفطورا علي العمل وفق قواعد ثابتة لدي كل البشر، وليست له طريقة واحدة للفهم والتفكير لدي كل الناس، بل إن العقل له أصول اجتماعية دفعت بتطوره في اتجاهات معينة، فعمليات الفكر المميزة لدي الجماعات المختلفة يختلف بعضها عن بعض اختلافا بينا، وما ظنناه قواعد وقوانين الفكر هي عادات وليست قوانين كلية فطرية. إنها منظومات أو أنساق ترسخت قرونا بفضل هذا التفاعل، وتباينت شرقا وغربا بسبب تباين هذا التفاعل زمانا ومكانا ومحتوي ونهجا.
ضرب الكاتب نموذجين لتطور العقل باتجاهين مختلفين هما: الصين وأمريكا، ففي الصين يعيش الفلاحون في إطار العمل الزراعي الذي يلزمهم بالبحث دائما عن الانسجام والتوافق الاجتماعي ونبذ الخلاف لمصلحة الجماعة ككل، بينما في أمريكا لم يكن الحال كذلك، فنشأ عن هذه الحياة التي دامت لعشرات القرون طريقة لرؤية العالم وأسلوب للتفكير فيه والتعامل العقلي معه تختلف في كل بلد عن الآخر.
طريقة التربية للأطفال تختلف من بلد لبلد ��بينما نري الأطفال الأمريكيون يتعلمون أن العالم مكان به موضوعات وأشياء، نري الأطفال اليابانيون يتعلمون أن العالم في الغالب الأعم هو علاقات. فيختلف بذلك قياس الذكاء بين الشرق والغرب حسب طريقة نمو العقل وأسلوب تفكيره بين البلدين.
من بين الاختلافات التي تؤيد اختلاف العقل بين المنطقتين أن اللغات الغربية تشجع استخدام الأسماء الذي يفضي إلي تصنيف الموضوعات إلي فئات، أما لغات شرق اسيا فتشجع استخدام الأفعال مما يؤدي إلي التأكيد علي العلاقات. وتختلف كذلك طرق تنشئة الأطفال بين الشرق والغرب، فقصص الأطفال تتجه اتجاهات مختلفة تؤيد اختلاف طريقة الفهم وتعامل العقل مع العالم بين الشرق والغرب.
في النهاية يري الكاتب اننا نري العالم بطرق مختلفة تختلف بحسب البيئة التي نشأ فيها الفرد وبحسب الثقافة التي نشأ فيها وتشرب قيمها، واختلافاتنا هذه قد تكون منذرة بالسوء بسبب اختلاف طريقة عمل عقولنا، وقد تكون باب للتفاهم بين المختلفين.
January 22, 2011
(نُشر هذا العرض في ملحق شرفات بجريدة عمان بتاريخ 14 أبريل 2010)
هناك نكتة تقول بأن الأمم المتحدة وزّعت استبانة حول العالم تسأل فيها السؤال التالي: "من فضلك هلاّ قدّمت لنا رأيك الشخصي الصادق حول الحلول لمشكلة نقص الغذاء في بقية أنحاء العالم؟"، وتبيّن من النتائج أنه في أفريقيا لم يفهموا كلمة "غذاء"، وفي الشرق الأوسط لم يفهموا كلمة "حلول" وفي الصين لم يفهموا معنى "الرأي الشخصي" وفي أميركا لم يفهموا معنى "بقية أنحاء العالم"! هي مجرد طرفة لا تعميمات تُرجى منها، ولكنها قد تشير إلى فر��قٍ كبيرة بين شعوب العالم على مستوى التفكير. هذا ما يُحاول أن يقوله كتاب "جغرافية الفكر: كيف يفكر الغربيون والآسيويون على نحو مختلف ولماذا؟" الذي صدر عام 2003 ونُشرت نسخته العربية عام 2005 في سلسلة عالم المعرفة بترجمة (شوقي جلال).
الكتاب من تأليف (ريتشارد إي نيسبت) البروفيسور في علم النفس الاجتماعي، ومدير مشارك في برنامج الثقافة والإدراك في جامعة ميتشيجان بالولايات المتحدة. صدرت له ثلاثة كتب كان آخرها "الذكاء وكيفية الحصول عليه: أهمية المدارس والثقافات" (2009) والعديد من الدراسات. ولقد حصل (نيسبت) على العديد من الجوائز العلمية والبحثية كان آخرها عام 2007 من جامعة فورزبرغ الألمانية. وفي الكتاب الذي نحن بصدده يحاول (نيسبت) إثبات أنّ التفكير ليس غريزة أو عادة ثابتة يشترك فيها جميع البشر في كل مكان، وإنما هناك عوامل ثقافية واجتماعية تؤثر فيه تأثيرًا كبيرًا وتشكّل طريقة عمله. وهكذا يقوم المؤلف بالمقارنة بين أساليب التفكير لدى الغربيين (وبخاصة سكّان أميركا وكندا) وتلك لدى الشرق-آسيويين، متتبعًا الجذور التاريخية والفلسفية والاجتماعية التي أنتجت هذين النمطين المتمايزين من التفكير.
يقارن الفصل الأول بين الأسس الفلسفية التي اتكأ عليها كل من المجتمع الغربي والمجتمع الشرق-آسيوي، فالمجتمع الغربي وريث الفلسفة الإغريقية التي اتسمت بتمجيد الحرية الشخصية والمسؤولية الذاتية عن الاختيار واستغلال الطاقات الفردية لتحقيق الإنجازات، ولم يكن غريبًا إذن أن يؤدي ذلك إلى نزعةٍ جدالية يحاول كل فردٌ بها إثبات تفوقه على الآخر، كما كان لدى الإغريق رخاء اقتصادي نسبي ساهم في تنمية فضولهم المعرفي وولعهم بإضفاء الصفات ووضع التصنيفات والقوانين. من الناحية الأخرى ورث الشرق-آسيويون الفلسفة الصينية التي تُعلي من قيمة التناغم والانتماء إلى الجماعة والالتزامات المتبادلة والحث على الإنتاج الجماعي، ولم يكن لدى الصينيين القدماء ولعٌ بالتجريد النظري المنفصل عن القيمة العملية، حيث أنتجوا الكثير من التقانات التي لم يعرفها الإغريق، ولكنهم لم يمتلكوا فضولا معرفيًا تجريديًا كبيرًا. العالم بالنسبة للإغريق بسيط يُمكن معرفته بالتركيز على صفات المواضيع ووضع قواعد كلية لها، في حين نظر الصينيون إلى العالم على أنه معقد يتكون من جواهر عديدة متفاعلة متبادلة التأثير، ولا سبيل إلى التعامل معه إلا بروح التناغم والتكافل والنظرة إلى السياق الكامل.
ولكنّ الفلاسفة الذين وضعوا هذه الأسس هم حقيقةً نتاج مجتمعهم لا صانعيه، وهكذا يُمكن رد الفوارق الفلسفية إلى فوارق اجتماعية تعود بدورها إلى فوارق بيئية جغرافية. في بلد مثل الصين حيث السهول الخصبة والأنهار تنشط الزراعة، مما يحتّم انتشار قيم التعاون والتكافل والانسجام، أما اليونان فمكونة من جبال وسفوح منحدرة نحو البحر شجّعت أعمال القنص والرعي والصيد والقرصنة، وهذه كلها لم تستوجب التعاون والانسجام. وهكذا فالمجتمع الزراعي يميل بطبعه إلى الاهتمام بالعلاقات الاجتماعية والمجال العام للأمور، بينما المجتمع الإغريقي يبرز الفردية والاهتمام بالموضوعات وصفاتها من غير حاجةٍ إلى النظر في تأثير الآخرين أو المجال العام عليها.
أما الفصل الثالث فيتطرق إلى بعض القيم الاجتماعية ويقارن بينها في المجتمعين الغربي والشرق-آسيوي. يوضّح المؤلف أنّ الغربيين يُعلون من قيمة الذات كثيرًا ويربّون أبناءهم عليها كي تكون لهم ذوات مستقلة متميزة متفردة، في حين لا نجد ذلك لدى الشرق-آسيويين، فـ"النجاح هدف منشود، باعتباره هدفًا جماعيًا، وليس وسام استحقاق شخصي" (ص62). والإنسان في شرق آسيا يرى ذاته متداخلة مع الجماعة التي ينتمي إليها في مقابل الجماعة الخارجية، فيما يرى الإنسان الغربي ذاته منفصلة مستقلة عن أي جماعة. الغربيون يهتمون بقيمة الاستقلالية وتنشئتها منذ الصغر، فنجد مثلا أن الطفل الغربي ينام في سرير مستقل، بينما ينام أطفال شرق آسيا على السرير نفسه مع أبويهم، ونجد أن الأبوين الغربيين يعلّمان طفلهما أن يستقل برأيه وخياراته، فيما يفضل الشرق-آسيوي أن يختار لطفله لأنه يعرف أكثر منه. من ناحيةٍ أخرى أبرز الاهتمام بالعلاقات الاجتماعية في شرق آسيا اهتمامًا بمشاعر الآخرين وقدرة على تقدير مواقفهم وتفهمها، وهذا غير بارز في الثقافة الغربية التي تؤمن بالقواعد الكلية الشاملة التي يجب تطبيقها على الجميع دون النظر إلى ملاءمة الحالات الفردية. ولا يفوت المؤلف أن يؤكد أنّ ذلك لا يعني أن جميع المجتمعات الغربية أو الشرق-آسيوية سواء في ممارستها لهذه القيم. ومن أكثر أجزاء هذا الفصل إثارة حديث المؤلف عن فن الخطابة والمحاججة وغيابه في الفكر الآسيوي، مما يؤثر على عدة ممارسات حياتية مثل النقاشات الديمقراطية وكتابة البحوث العلمية، وكل ذلك يعتمد بشكلٍ كبير على المحاججة.
وفي الفصل الرابع يحاول المؤلف التدليل على أن هذه الفوارق النابعة من الإرث القديم ما تزال موجودة في المجتمعات الحديثة، ويوضح أن الصينيين القدماء رأوا العالم مؤلفًا من جواهر متصلة ببعضها، بينما رأى الإغريق العالم مكونًا من جسيمات مختلفة، ويستشهد المؤلف بعددٍ من الدراسات والتجارب التي تثبت أثر هاتين النظرتين على المجتمعات الغربية والشرق-آسيوية، حيث ثبت أن الآسيويين لديهم اهتمام أكبر بالمجال والبيئة المحيطة بالأشياء وتفهّم العلاقات بينها، بينما يهتم الغربيون بالموضوع نفسه وصفاته منفصلا عن السياق العام. وإذا كان الأمر كذلك فمن المرجح أنّ المهتمين بالسياق سوف ينظرون إلى أحداث العالم على أنها ناتجة من تفاعل عدة عوامل في عدة سياقات، بينما ينظر الآخرون إلى الأحداث على أنها ناتجة من خواص الموضوع نفسه، وهذا ما يحاول الفصل الخامس إثباته. يروي المؤلف أن طالبًا صينيًا خسر في جائزة تقدّم لها فطعن في قرار لجنة التحكيم ولكن دون جدوى، فأطلق النار على الأستاذ المشرف عليه والشخص الذي نظر في رسالة الطعن وعدد من زملائه ثم قتل نفسه. وبمقارنة ما كتبته الصحف الصينية بالصحف الأميركية تبيّن أن الأخيرة تُرجع الأمر إلى صفات الطالب وشخصيته (سيء الطباع، سوداوي، لديه مشاكل نفسية)، بينما تحاول الصحف الصينية تفسير الأمر من خلال سياق الأحداث (غيرة الآخرين، عدم الانسجام مع المجتمع الصيني، خلاف مع المشرف، السماح بحمل الأسلحة). وكي يتأكد الباحثون من أن الفارق هذا لا يعود إلى نُصرة الصحف الصينية لمواطنها درسوا قضية مشابهة كان فيها القاتل أميركيا، فلم تختلف النتائج. ويخلص المؤلف في هذا الفصل إلى أن الصينيين يميلون إلى إرجاع الأسباب إلى السياق، فيما يميل الأميركيون إلى إرجاع الأسباب إلى السلوك الشخصي.
بعد ذلك يناقش المؤلف قضية تصنيف الأشياء، ويبيّن أن الصينيين القدماء لم يميلوا إلى تقسيم الأشياء إلى فئات حسب تشابه خواصها، وإنما إلى تأثير بعضها في الآخر، فقد كانوا يهتمون بعلاقة الجزء بالكل. أما الإغريق الذين كانوا يهتمون بالموضوعات فقد قسّموا الأشياء إلى فئات واهتموا بعلاقة الفرد بالفئة، بحيث يمكنهم بسهولة وضع قانون واحد ينطبق على جميع أفراد الفئة. وهناك تجربة طريفة أُجريت لتأكيد ذلك حيث عُرضت على المشاركين صورة لقرد ثم سُئِلوا أي الشيئين يلائم صورة القرد أكثر: الباندا أم الموز؟ أما الأميركان ففضلوا التصنيف الفئوي واختاروا الباندا لأنه يشترك مع القرد في فئة الحيوان، وأما الصينيون ففضلوا التصنيف على أساس العلاقات واختاروا الموز لأن القرد يأكل الموز. ويقول المؤلف بأن ميل الغربيين إلى الفئات وقصور ذلك لدى الشرق آسيويين يمكن ردّه إلى أسباب فلسفية ولغوية، فالصينيون القدماء لم يهتموا بالفئات (والتي تحتاج إلى أسماء)، بل ركزوا على العلاقات (والتي تبرز الأفعال). هذا ويسهل في اللغات الهند-أوروبية تحويل الصفات إلى أسماء، ومن السهل التفرقة بين المعرف والنكرة، بينما لا يوجد ذلك في الصينية واليابانية، والرمز الواحد فيهما له عدة معاني، لذلك يعتمد المستمع/القارئ على السياق. يتبيّن من ذلك أن هناك تأثيرًا واضحًا للغة على الفكر.
بعد ذلك يستعرض الكاتب الاستدلال العقلي في المجتمعين الغربي والشرق-آسيوي، ويوضّح أن المنطق حاضر بقوة في التفكير الغربي الذي يمجد المحاججة، فيما يقل الاهتمام به كثيرًا في التفكير الشرق-آسيوي الذي يمكن أن يطرح المنطق جانبًا إن كان لا يتوافق مع النماذج المعروفة (وهذا لا يعني أنهم لا يجيدون استخدامه). أما الفصل الأكثر إثارة وإمتاعًا فهو الفصل الثامن الذي يناقش أثر هذه الاختلافات الفكرية على المجتمعات الغربية والآسيوية (مثلا، في الطب الغربي نجد الاهتمام بالجزء المسبب للعلة وإزالته، فيما يهتم الطب الشرق-آسيوي بالعلاقات بين أعضاء الجسد والتوازن بينها) ويتحدث المؤلف عن تجليات هذه الاختلافات في القانون والجدل والعلم والخطابة والعقود وحقوق الإنسان والدين والعلاقات الدولية. وفي خاتمة الكتاب يناقش المؤلف إطروحة فوكوياما في نهاية التاريخ وتوقفه عند النموذج الغربي، وإطروحة هنتنغتون في صدام الحضارات، ويرفضهمها معًا مبينًا أن المجتمعات الحالية تنهج فكرًا غربيًا في بعض المجالات وفكرًا شرقيًا في مجالات أخرى، مؤمنًا أن النهجين سيلتقيان ويثريان عادات الفكر والإدراك البشري.
هناك نكتة تقول بأن الأمم المتحدة وزّعت استبانة حول العالم تسأل فيها السؤال التالي: "من فضلك هلاّ قدّمت لنا رأيك الشخصي الصادق حول الحلول لمشكلة نقص الغذاء في بقية أنحاء العالم؟"، وتبيّن من النتائج أنه في أفريقيا لم يفهموا كلمة "غذاء"، وفي الشرق الأوسط لم يفهموا كلمة "حلول" وفي الصين لم يفهموا معنى "الرأي الشخصي" وفي أميركا لم يفهموا معنى "بقية أنحاء العالم"! هي مجرد طرفة لا تعميمات تُرجى منها، ولكنها قد تشير إلى فر��قٍ كبيرة بين شعوب العالم على مستوى التفكير. هذا ما يُحاول أن يقوله كتاب "جغرافية الفكر: كيف يفكر الغربيون والآسيويون على نحو مختلف ولماذا؟" الذي صدر عام 2003 ونُشرت نسخته العربية عام 2005 في سلسلة عالم المعرفة بترجمة (شوقي جلال).
الكتاب من تأليف (ريتشارد إي نيسبت) البروفيسور في علم النفس الاجتماعي، ومدير مشارك في برنامج الثقافة والإدراك في جامعة ميتشيجان بالولايات المتحدة. صدرت له ثلاثة كتب كان آخرها "الذكاء وكيفية الحصول عليه: أهمية المدارس والثقافات" (2009) والعديد من الدراسات. ولقد حصل (نيسبت) على العديد من الجوائز العلمية والبحثية كان آخرها عام 2007 من جامعة فورزبرغ الألمانية. وفي الكتاب الذي نحن بصدده يحاول (نيسبت) إثبات أنّ التفكير ليس غريزة أو عادة ثابتة يشترك فيها جميع البشر في كل مكان، وإنما هناك عوامل ثقافية واجتماعية تؤثر فيه تأثيرًا كبيرًا وتشكّل طريقة عمله. وهكذا يقوم المؤلف بالمقارنة بين أساليب التفكير لدى الغربيين (وبخاصة سكّان أميركا وكندا) وتلك لدى الشرق-آسيويين، متتبعًا الجذور التاريخية والفلسفية والاجتماعية التي أنتجت هذين النمطين المتمايزين من التفكير.
يقارن الفصل الأول بين الأسس الفلسفية التي اتكأ عليها كل من المجتمع الغربي والمجتمع الشرق-آسيوي، فالمجتمع الغربي وريث الفلسفة الإغريقية التي اتسمت بتمجيد الحرية الشخصية والمسؤولية الذاتية عن الاختيار واستغلال الطاقات الفردية لتحقيق الإنجازات، ولم يكن غريبًا إذن أن يؤدي ذلك إلى نزعةٍ جدالية يحاول كل فردٌ بها إثبات تفوقه على الآخر، كما كان لدى الإغريق رخاء اقتصادي نسبي ساهم في تنمية فضولهم المعرفي وولعهم بإضفاء الصفات ووضع التصنيفات والقوانين. من الناحية الأخرى ورث الشرق-آسيويون الفلسفة الصينية التي تُعلي من قيمة التناغم والانتماء إلى الجماعة والالتزامات المتبادلة والحث على الإنتاج الجماعي، ولم يكن لدى الصينيين القدماء ولعٌ بالتجريد النظري المنفصل عن القيمة العملية، حيث أنتجوا الكثير من التقانات التي لم يعرفها الإغريق، ولكنهم لم يمتلكوا فضولا معرفيًا تجريديًا كبيرًا. العالم بالنسبة للإغريق بسيط يُمكن معرفته بالتركيز على صفات المواضيع ووضع قواعد كلية لها، في حين نظر الصينيون إلى العالم على أنه معقد يتكون من جواهر عديدة متفاعلة متبادلة التأثير، ولا سبيل إلى التعامل معه إلا بروح التناغم والتكافل والنظرة إلى السياق الكامل.
ولكنّ الفلاسفة الذين وضعوا هذه الأسس هم حقيقةً نتاج مجتمعهم لا صانعيه، وهكذا يُمكن رد الفوارق الفلسفية إلى فوارق اجتماعية تعود بدورها إلى فوارق بيئية جغرافية. في بلد مثل الصين حيث السهول الخصبة والأنهار تنشط الزراعة، مما يحتّم انتشار قيم التعاون والتكافل والانسجام، أما اليونان فمكونة من جبال وسفوح منحدرة نحو البحر شجّعت أعمال القنص والرعي والصيد والقرصنة، وهذه كلها لم تستوجب التعاون والانسجام. وهكذا فالمجتمع الزراعي يميل بطبعه إلى الاهتمام بالعلاقات الاجتماعية والمجال العام للأمور، بينما المجتمع الإغريقي يبرز الفردية والاهتمام بالموضوعات وصفاتها من غير حاجةٍ إلى النظر في تأثير الآخرين أو المجال العام عليها.
أما الفصل الثالث فيتطرق إلى بعض القيم الاجتماعية ويقارن بينها في المجتمعين الغربي والشرق-آسيوي. يوضّح المؤلف أنّ الغربيين يُعلون من قيمة الذات كثيرًا ويربّون أبناءهم عليها كي تكون لهم ذوات مستقلة متميزة متفردة، في حين لا نجد ذلك لدى الشرق-آسيويين، فـ"النجاح هدف منشود، باعتباره هدفًا جماعيًا، وليس وسام استحقاق شخصي" (ص62). والإنسان في شرق آسيا يرى ذاته متداخلة مع الجماعة التي ينتمي إليها في مقابل الجماعة الخارجية، فيما يرى الإنسان الغربي ذاته منفصلة مستقلة عن أي جماعة. الغربيون يهتمون بقيمة الاستقلالية وتنشئتها منذ الصغر، فنجد مثلا أن الطفل الغربي ينام في سرير مستقل، بينما ينام أطفال شرق آسيا على السرير نفسه مع أبويهم، ونجد أن الأبوين الغربيين يعلّمان طفلهما أن يستقل برأيه وخياراته، فيما يفضل الشرق-آسيوي أن يختار لطفله لأنه يعرف أكثر منه. من ناحيةٍ أخرى أبرز الاهتمام بالعلاقات الاجتماعية في شرق آسيا اهتمامًا بمشاعر الآخرين وقدرة على تقدير مواقفهم وتفهمها، وهذا غير بارز في الثقافة الغربية التي تؤمن بالقواعد الكلية الشاملة التي يجب تطبيقها على الجميع دون النظر إلى ملاءمة الحالات الفردية. ولا يفوت المؤلف أن يؤكد أنّ ذلك لا يعني أن جميع المجتمعات الغربية أو الشرق-آسيوية سواء في ممارستها لهذه القيم. ومن أكثر أجزاء هذا الفصل إثارة حديث المؤلف عن فن الخطابة والمحاججة وغيابه في الفكر الآسيوي، مما يؤثر على عدة ممارسات حياتية مثل النقاشات الديمقراطية وكتابة البحوث العلمية، وكل ذلك يعتمد بشكلٍ كبير على المحاججة.
وفي الفصل الرابع يحاول المؤلف التدليل على أن هذه الفوارق النابعة من الإرث القديم ما تزال موجودة في المجتمعات الحديثة، ويوضح أن الصينيين القدماء رأوا العالم مؤلفًا من جواهر متصلة ببعضها، بينما رأى الإغريق العالم مكونًا من جسيمات مختلفة، ويستشهد المؤلف بعددٍ من الدراسات والتجارب التي تثبت أثر هاتين النظرتين على المجتمعات الغربية والشرق-آسيوية، حيث ثبت أن الآسيويين لديهم اهتمام أكبر بالمجال والبيئة المحيطة بالأشياء وتفهّم العلاقات بينها، بينما يهتم الغربيون بالموضوع نفسه وصفاته منفصلا عن السياق العام. وإذا كان الأمر كذلك فمن المرجح أنّ المهتمين بالسياق سوف ينظرون إلى أحداث العالم على أنها ناتجة من تفاعل عدة عوامل في عدة سياقات، بينما ينظر الآخرون إلى الأحداث على أنها ناتجة من خواص الموضوع نفسه، وهذا ما يحاول الفصل الخامس إثباته. يروي المؤلف أن طالبًا صينيًا خسر في جائزة تقدّم لها فطعن في قرار لجنة التحكيم ولكن دون جدوى، فأطلق النار على الأستاذ المشرف عليه والشخص الذي نظر في رسالة الطعن وعدد من زملائه ثم قتل نفسه. وبمقارنة ما كتبته الصحف الصينية بالصحف الأميركية تبيّن أن الأخيرة تُرجع الأمر إلى صفات الطالب وشخصيته (سيء الطباع، سوداوي، لديه مشاكل نفسية)، بينما تحاول الصحف الصينية تفسير الأمر من خلال سياق الأحداث (غيرة الآخرين، عدم الانسجام مع المجتمع الصيني، خلاف مع المشرف، السماح بحمل الأسلحة). وكي يتأكد الباحثون من أن الفارق هذا لا يعود إلى نُصرة الصحف الصينية لمواطنها درسوا قضية مشابهة كان فيها القاتل أميركيا، فلم تختلف النتائج. ويخلص المؤلف في هذا الفصل إلى أن الصينيين يميلون إلى إرجاع الأسباب إلى السياق، فيما يميل الأميركيون إلى إرجاع الأسباب إلى السلوك الشخصي.
بعد ذلك يناقش المؤلف قضية تصنيف الأشياء، ويبيّن أن الصينيين القدماء لم يميلوا إلى تقسيم الأشياء إلى فئات حسب تشابه خواصها، وإنما إلى تأثير بعضها في الآخر، فقد كانوا يهتمون بعلاقة الجزء بالكل. أما الإغريق الذين كانوا يهتمون بالموضوعات فقد قسّموا الأشياء إلى فئات واهتموا بعلاقة الفرد بالفئة، بحيث يمكنهم بسهولة وضع قانون واحد ينطبق على جميع أفراد الفئة. وهناك تجربة طريفة أُجريت لتأكيد ذلك حيث عُرضت على المشاركين صورة لقرد ثم سُئِلوا أي الشيئين يلائم صورة القرد أكثر: الباندا أم الموز؟ أما الأميركان ففضلوا التصنيف الفئوي واختاروا الباندا لأنه يشترك مع القرد في فئة الحيوان، وأما الصينيون ففضلوا التصنيف على أساس العلاقات واختاروا الموز لأن القرد يأكل الموز. ويقول المؤلف بأن ميل الغربيين إلى الفئات وقصور ذلك لدى الشرق آسيويين يمكن ردّه إلى أسباب فلسفية ولغوية، فالصينيون القدماء لم يهتموا بالفئات (والتي تحتاج إلى أسماء)، بل ركزوا على العلاقات (والتي تبرز الأفعال). هذا ويسهل في اللغات الهند-أوروبية تحويل الصفات إلى أسماء، ومن السهل التفرقة بين المعرف والنكرة، بينما لا يوجد ذلك في الصينية واليابانية، والرمز الواحد فيهما له عدة معاني، لذلك يعتمد المستمع/القارئ على السياق. يتبيّن من ذلك أن هناك تأثيرًا واضحًا للغة على الفكر.
بعد ذلك يستعرض الكاتب الاستدلال العقلي في المجتمعين الغربي والشرق-آسيوي، ويوضّح أن المنطق حاضر بقوة في التفكير الغربي الذي يمجد المحاججة، فيما يقل الاهتمام به كثيرًا في التفكير الشرق-آسيوي الذي يمكن أن يطرح المنطق جانبًا إن كان لا يتوافق مع النماذج المعروفة (وهذا لا يعني أنهم لا يجيدون استخدامه). أما الفصل الأكثر إثارة وإمتاعًا فهو الفصل الثامن الذي يناقش أثر هذه الاختلافات الفكرية على المجتمعات الغربية والآسيوية (مثلا، في الطب الغربي نجد الاهتمام بالجزء المسبب للعلة وإزالته، فيما يهتم الطب الشرق-آسيوي بالعلاقات بين أعضاء الجسد والتوازن بينها) ويتحدث المؤلف عن تجليات هذه الاختلافات في القانون والجدل والعلم والخطابة والعقود وحقوق الإنسان والدين والعلاقات الدولية. وفي خاتمة الكتاب يناقش المؤلف إطروحة فوكوياما في نهاية التاريخ وتوقفه عند النموذج الغربي، وإطروحة هنتنغتون في صدام الحضارات، ويرفضهمها معًا مبينًا أن المجتمعات الحالية تنهج فكرًا غربيًا في بعض المجالات وفكرًا شرقيًا في مجالات أخرى، مؤمنًا أن النهجين سيلتقيان ويثريان عادات الفكر والإدراك البشري.
October 3, 2022
Doğulunun ve Batılının kafası birbirinden farklı çalışıyor. Dolayısıyle doğulunun ölçütleriyle batılıyı, batılının ölçütleriyle doğuluyu değerlendirmek hatalı sonuç verir. Her iki tarafın da düşünce biçimi birbirinden farklı çünkü. Mesela Amerikan üniversitelerine geçiş yapmak isteyen Japon gençlerinin başarısız olmasının nedeni bu düşünce biçimindeki farklılıktır. Yine bir uzak doğulunun ölçütleriyle bir batılı da yetersiz görülebilir, hatta zeka geriliği olduğu bile söylenebilir.
Richard E. Nisbett incelemesinde önce doğu ve batı felsefesini karşılaştırarak işe başlıyor. Daha sonra da günümüzün insanının farklı olay ve durumlar karşısındaki tepkisini, hem yaşanan süreçlerde, hem de deneysel çalışmalarla ölçmeye çalışıyor. Bunu yaparken de gelişim psikologlarından, sosyal psikologlardan da yardım alıyor.
Felsefe tarihine baktığımızda batı felsefenin temeli mantık ya da çelişmezlik ilkesi, doğu felsefesinin temeli ise diyalektiktir. Batılılar bir olayı ya da bir nesneyi diğer olay ve nesnelerden soyutlayarak neden-sonuç ilişkisi içinde çözümlemeye çalışırlar. Doğulularda ise bu tür determinizme rastlanmaz, onları her olaya bütüncül bakarlar, sürece bakar, ilişki va bağlamı önemserler. Nisbett hemen kitabının başında, bu kitabın yazılmasında esin kaynağı olan bir Çinli’nin sözlerini aktarır, “Biliyor musunuz, aramızdaki fark, benim dünyayı bir çember, sizinse bir çizgi olarak görmeniz.”
Batı ve Doğu felsefesi karşılaştırılırken su yüzüne çıkmış temel farklılıklar üzerinden hareket ediliyor; Yunanlılar geometride, Çinliler aritmetik ve cebirde daha başarılı; doğulular olaylar arasındaki ilişkiye daha iyi farkederken, batılılar nesneyi çevresinden bağımsız düşünme yeteneğine sahipler; doğulu çocuklar fiilleri daha önce öğrenirken, batılı çocuklar isimleri daha önce öğrenirler; doğulularda kollektif eyleyenlik ve uyum ön plandayken, batılılarda bağımsız bir birey olarak başarılı olmak mutluluğun ölçüsü sayılıyor; doğulular nesneye, batlılar da maddeye dikkat çekiyor vs…
Doğulular, batılılardan farklı olarak mutlak doğru ya da mutlak yanlış diye bir sonuca varmazlar, doğulular daha ziyade ‘orta yol’u bulmaya çalışırlar. Kitapta anlatılan şu hikaye bu bakımdan dikkatimi çekti, atı kaçan köylünün hikayesi: Köylüler atı kaçan köylüyü teselli etmeye gelirler, köylü ‘neyin iyi neyin kötü olduğunu kim bilebilir’ cevabını verir onlara. Bundan sonra, at tüm aramalara rağmen bulunamaz, fakat bir gün at geri döner hem de yanında bir vahşi atla. Tebrike gelen köylülere ‘neyin iyi neyin kötü olduğunu kim bilebilir’ cevabını verir köylü. Bu seferde oğlu olan genç, vahşi ata biner ve ayağı kırılır. Teselliye gelen köylülere, ‘neyin iyi neyin kötü olduğunu kim bilebilir’ der. Daha sonraki günlerde imparatorun askerleri, köyde sağlıklı olan gençleri askerlik hizmeti için toplar. Bu sayede köylünün oğlu kurtulur. Ve hikaye böyle bir döngüyle devam ediyor…
Batılı için liyakat, kariyer amaç iken, doğulu için bunlar üyesi olduğu grubun hedeflerine ulaşmak için birer araçtır. Batılıların, doğulular için “dışarı çıkan çivi geri çakılır” önyargısı nisbeten geçerlidir. Doğulular için, “Ben’in kutsal amacı, üstünlük veya benzersizlik yaratmaktan çok, destekleyici toplumsal ilişkiler ağı içinde uyum kurmak ve kolektif amaçları geliştirmekte kişinin kendi rolünü eksiksiz oynayabilmesidir,” ifadeleri kullanılıyor.
Batılılar kategorileştirmeye, sınıflandırmaya meyilli iken, doğulular kategoriye değil, daha ziyade ilişkiye ve bağlama bakıyorlar. Örneğin, hem batılılara hem de doğululara bir tavuk ve bir ot resmi gösterilmiş, daha sonra bir inek resmi gösterilmiş, her iki gruba da ineği, ya tavukla ya da otla eşleştirmeleri istenmiş. Batılılar ineği büyük oranda tavuk ile eşleştirirken, doğuluların neredeyse tamamı ineği otla eşleştirmiş…
Sonuç olarak Nisbett, her iki tarafın da diğerinin düşünme biçimini öğrenmesi gerektiğini söylüyor. Ama sanki batılıların doğululardan öğrenmesi gereken daha fazla şey olduğunu ima ediyor..
Richard E. Nisbett incelemesinde önce doğu ve batı felsefesini karşılaştırarak işe başlıyor. Daha sonra da günümüzün insanının farklı olay ve durumlar karşısındaki tepkisini, hem yaşanan süreçlerde, hem de deneysel çalışmalarla ölçmeye çalışıyor. Bunu yaparken de gelişim psikologlarından, sosyal psikologlardan da yardım alıyor.
Felsefe tarihine baktığımızda batı felsefenin temeli mantık ya da çelişmezlik ilkesi, doğu felsefesinin temeli ise diyalektiktir. Batılılar bir olayı ya da bir nesneyi diğer olay ve nesnelerden soyutlayarak neden-sonuç ilişkisi içinde çözümlemeye çalışırlar. Doğulularda ise bu tür determinizme rastlanmaz, onları her olaya bütüncül bakarlar, sürece bakar, ilişki va bağlamı önemserler. Nisbett hemen kitabının başında, bu kitabın yazılmasında esin kaynağı olan bir Çinli’nin sözlerini aktarır, “Biliyor musunuz, aramızdaki fark, benim dünyayı bir çember, sizinse bir çizgi olarak görmeniz.”
Batı ve Doğu felsefesi karşılaştırılırken su yüzüne çıkmış temel farklılıklar üzerinden hareket ediliyor; Yunanlılar geometride, Çinliler aritmetik ve cebirde daha başarılı; doğulular olaylar arasındaki ilişkiye daha iyi farkederken, batılılar nesneyi çevresinden bağımsız düşünme yeteneğine sahipler; doğulu çocuklar fiilleri daha önce öğrenirken, batılı çocuklar isimleri daha önce öğrenirler; doğulularda kollektif eyleyenlik ve uyum ön plandayken, batılılarda bağımsız bir birey olarak başarılı olmak mutluluğun ölçüsü sayılıyor; doğulular nesneye, batlılar da maddeye dikkat çekiyor vs…
Doğulular, batılılardan farklı olarak mutlak doğru ya da mutlak yanlış diye bir sonuca varmazlar, doğulular daha ziyade ‘orta yol’u bulmaya çalışırlar. Kitapta anlatılan şu hikaye bu bakımdan dikkatimi çekti, atı kaçan köylünün hikayesi: Köylüler atı kaçan köylüyü teselli etmeye gelirler, köylü ‘neyin iyi neyin kötü olduğunu kim bilebilir’ cevabını verir onlara. Bundan sonra, at tüm aramalara rağmen bulunamaz, fakat bir gün at geri döner hem de yanında bir vahşi atla. Tebrike gelen köylülere ‘neyin iyi neyin kötü olduğunu kim bilebilir’ cevabını verir köylü. Bu seferde oğlu olan genç, vahşi ata biner ve ayağı kırılır. Teselliye gelen köylülere, ‘neyin iyi neyin kötü olduğunu kim bilebilir’ der. Daha sonraki günlerde imparatorun askerleri, köyde sağlıklı olan gençleri askerlik hizmeti için toplar. Bu sayede köylünün oğlu kurtulur. Ve hikaye böyle bir döngüyle devam ediyor…
Batılı için liyakat, kariyer amaç iken, doğulu için bunlar üyesi olduğu grubun hedeflerine ulaşmak için birer araçtır. Batılıların, doğulular için “dışarı çıkan çivi geri çakılır” önyargısı nisbeten geçerlidir. Doğulular için, “Ben’in kutsal amacı, üstünlük veya benzersizlik yaratmaktan çok, destekleyici toplumsal ilişkiler ağı içinde uyum kurmak ve kolektif amaçları geliştirmekte kişinin kendi rolünü eksiksiz oynayabilmesidir,” ifadeleri kullanılıyor.
Batılılar kategorileştirmeye, sınıflandırmaya meyilli iken, doğulular kategoriye değil, daha ziyade ilişkiye ve bağlama bakıyorlar. Örneğin, hem batılılara hem de doğululara bir tavuk ve bir ot resmi gösterilmiş, daha sonra bir inek resmi gösterilmiş, her iki gruba da ineği, ya tavukla ya da otla eşleştirmeleri istenmiş. Batılılar ineği büyük oranda tavuk ile eşleştirirken, doğuluların neredeyse tamamı ineği otla eşleştirmiş…
Sonuç olarak Nisbett, her iki tarafın da diğerinin düşünme biçimini öğrenmesi gerektiğini söylüyor. Ama sanki batılıların doğululardan öğrenmesi gereken daha fazla şey olduğunu ima ediyor..
March 29, 2023
هذه قراءتي الثانية للكتاب. لم أسجل قرائتي الأولى، وهي قديمة.
ما زلت أجد في هذا الكتاب ما يثير الاهتمام والتقدير. وأنه قدّم الدليل العلمي على الفروق ما بين الشرق والغرب في آلية التفكير والنظر، وما يلحق ذلك من فروق في الرؤى والثقافات.
مشكلة الكتاب في أنه حدّيّ طرفي، وإن أشار لماماً إلى التدرج هنا وهناك. وهذا بالتحديد ما تميز به وغطّاه باقتدار كتاب "إيرن ماير" بعنوان "خارطة الثقافة".
ما زلت أجد في هذا الكتاب ما يثير الاهتمام والتقدير. وأنه قدّم الدليل العلمي على الفروق ما بين الشرق والغرب في آلية التفكير والنظر، وما يلحق ذلك من فروق في الرؤى والثقافات.
مشكلة الكتاب في أنه حدّيّ طرفي، وإن أشار لماماً إلى التدرج هنا وهناك. وهذا بالتحديد ما تميز به وغطّاه باقتدار كتاب "إيرن ماير" بعنوان "خارطة الثقافة".
January 25, 2019
Some interesting points made in here. Even though the overgeneralization seems to be sort of pervasive.
Q
A few years back, a brilliant student from China began to work with me on questions of social psychology and reasoning. One day early in our acquaintance, he said, “You know, the difference between you and me is that I think the world is a circle, and you think it’s a line.” Unfazed by what must have been a startled expression on my face, he expounded on that theme. “The Chinese believe in constant change, but with things always moving back to some prior state. They pay attention to a wide range of events; they search for relationships between things; and they think you can’t understand the part without understanding the whole. Westerners live in a simpler, more deterministic world; they focus on salient objects or people instead of the larger picture; and they think they can control events because they know the rules that govern the behavior of objects.” (c)
Q:
Science and Mathematics Why would the ancient Chinese have excelled at algebra and arithmetic but not geometry, which was the forte of the Greeks? Why do modern Asians excel at math and science but produce less in the way of revolutionary science than Westerners?
Attention and Perception Why are East Asians better able to see relationships among events than Westerners are? Why do East Asians find it relatively difficult to disentangle an object from its surroundings?
Causal Inference Why are Westerners so likely to overlook the influence of context on the behavior of objects and even of people? Why are Easterners more susceptible to the “hindsight bias,” which allows them to believe that they “knew it all along”?
Organization of Knowledge Why do Western infants learn nouns at a much more rapid rate than verbs, whereas Eastern infants learn verbs at a more rapid rate than nouns? Why do East Asians group objects and events based on how they relate to one another, whereas Westerners are more likely to rely on categories?
Reasoning Why are Westerners more likely to apply formal logic when reasoning about everyday events, and why does their insistence on logic sometimes cause them to make errors? Why are Easterners so willing to entertain apparently contradictory propositions and how can this sometimes be helpful in getting at the truth?
Where to look for the causes of such vastly different systems of thought? Do they lie in biology? Language? Economics? Social systems? What keeps them going today? Social practices? Education? Inertia? And where are we headed with the differences? Will they still be here fifty or five hundred years from now? (c)
Q:
The Greeks, more than any other ancient peoples, and in fact more than most people on the planet today, had a remarkable sense of personal agency—the sense that they were in charge of their own lives and free to act as they chose. One definition of happiness for the Greeks was that it consisted of being able to exercise their powers in pursuit of excellence in a life free from constraints. (c)
Q:
Exploring these principles was a source of pleasure for the Greeks. Our word “school” comes from the Greek-scholē, meaning “leisure.” Leisure meant for the Greeks, among other things, the freedom to pursue knowledge. The merchants of Athens were happy to send their sons to school so that they could indulge their curiosity. (c) This just might mean something else: maybe they just wanted to make it clear that school is place where you don’t work and obtain only knowledge that you would be expected to use elsewhere, at work. Though, of course, the ‘pleasure theory’ I like better.
Q:
As the British philosopher of science Geoffrey Lloyd has written, “In philosophy, in medicine, and elsewhere there is criticism of other points of view … [but] the Chinese generally conceded far more readily than did the Greeks, that other opinions had something to be said for them …” (c)
Q:
But, as philosopher Hajime Nakamura notes, the Chinese advances reflected a genius for practicality, not a penchant for scientific theory and investigation. And as philosopher and sinologist Donald Munro has written, “In Confucianism there was no thought of knowing that did not entail some consequence for action.” (c)
Q:
The Chinese approach to understanding the natural world was as different from that of the Greeks as their understanding of themselves. Early in their study of the heavens, the Chinese believed that cosmic events such as comets and eclipses could predict important occurrences on earth, such as the birth of conquerors. But when they discovered the regularities in these events, so far from building models of them, they lost interest in them. (c)
Q
A few years back, a brilliant student from China began to work with me on questions of social psychology and reasoning. One day early in our acquaintance, he said, “You know, the difference between you and me is that I think the world is a circle, and you think it’s a line.” Unfazed by what must have been a startled expression on my face, he expounded on that theme. “The Chinese believe in constant change, but with things always moving back to some prior state. They pay attention to a wide range of events; they search for relationships between things; and they think you can’t understand the part without understanding the whole. Westerners live in a simpler, more deterministic world; they focus on salient objects or people instead of the larger picture; and they think they can control events because they know the rules that govern the behavior of objects.” (c)
Q:
Science and Mathematics Why would the ancient Chinese have excelled at algebra and arithmetic but not geometry, which was the forte of the Greeks? Why do modern Asians excel at math and science but produce less in the way of revolutionary science than Westerners?
Attention and Perception Why are East Asians better able to see relationships among events than Westerners are? Why do East Asians find it relatively difficult to disentangle an object from its surroundings?
Causal Inference Why are Westerners so likely to overlook the influence of context on the behavior of objects and even of people? Why are Easterners more susceptible to the “hindsight bias,” which allows them to believe that they “knew it all along”?
Organization of Knowledge Why do Western infants learn nouns at a much more rapid rate than verbs, whereas Eastern infants learn verbs at a more rapid rate than nouns? Why do East Asians group objects and events based on how they relate to one another, whereas Westerners are more likely to rely on categories?
Reasoning Why are Westerners more likely to apply formal logic when reasoning about everyday events, and why does their insistence on logic sometimes cause them to make errors? Why are Easterners so willing to entertain apparently contradictory propositions and how can this sometimes be helpful in getting at the truth?
Where to look for the causes of such vastly different systems of thought? Do they lie in biology? Language? Economics? Social systems? What keeps them going today? Social practices? Education? Inertia? And where are we headed with the differences? Will they still be here fifty or five hundred years from now? (c)
Q:
The Greeks, more than any other ancient peoples, and in fact more than most people on the planet today, had a remarkable sense of personal agency—the sense that they were in charge of their own lives and free to act as they chose. One definition of happiness for the Greeks was that it consisted of being able to exercise their powers in pursuit of excellence in a life free from constraints. (c)
Q:
Exploring these principles was a source of pleasure for the Greeks. Our word “school” comes from the Greek-scholē, meaning “leisure.” Leisure meant for the Greeks, among other things, the freedom to pursue knowledge. The merchants of Athens were happy to send their sons to school so that they could indulge their curiosity. (c) This just might mean something else: maybe they just wanted to make it clear that school is place where you don’t work and obtain only knowledge that you would be expected to use elsewhere, at work. Though, of course, the ‘pleasure theory’ I like better.
Q:
As the British philosopher of science Geoffrey Lloyd has written, “In philosophy, in medicine, and elsewhere there is criticism of other points of view … [but] the Chinese generally conceded far more readily than did the Greeks, that other opinions had something to be said for them …” (c)
Q:
But, as philosopher Hajime Nakamura notes, the Chinese advances reflected a genius for practicality, not a penchant for scientific theory and investigation. And as philosopher and sinologist Donald Munro has written, “In Confucianism there was no thought of knowing that did not entail some consequence for action.” (c)
Q:
The Chinese approach to understanding the natural world was as different from that of the Greeks as their understanding of themselves. Early in their study of the heavens, the Chinese believed that cosmic events such as comets and eclipses could predict important occurrences on earth, such as the birth of conquerors. But when they discovered the regularities in these events, so far from building models of them, they lost interest in them. (c)
January 22, 2023
This is an important work in the undermining of the universalism that has afflicted private discourse and public policy in the West since the age of Plato.
Nisbett explores a simple issue - whether, how and why East Asians and Americans (though he insists on referring to them as Westerners) think in different ways.
It is more exploratory than decisive. There is no psychological experiment that is not contingent in time and space by the very nature of its subject matter but much of his material is persuasive.
In essence, Nisbett is suggesting that East Asians in general and Americans more particularly have different modes of thought and different ways of seeing the world that inform their actions.
The implications are important in international relations but also in the types of respect we accord the 'other'.
The book dates from 2003 and, of course, is a thesis not a proof. It demands more research from a social science perspective but anyone involved in inter-cultural relations does not have to wait on the intellectuals.
Common sense and praxis teaches us that, while the situation is always as variable as the number of persons in the world, systems do approach problems in different ways that are fundamentally cultural.
There is, of course, little or no evidence (perhaps some at the margins in rare cases not covered in this book) that actual brain structures have evolved differently. This is not the issue by any means.
Nisbett's evidence seems to suggest quite the contrary - that people from one culture aculturate to the norms of thought of another with some ease if obliged to by circumstances.
This leads to an interesting short debate at the end about the degree to which one mode of thought (Western or East Asian) is functionally superior. It also raises questions about the benefits of cultural hybridisation that he does not address.
Naturally, there is no simple answer to 'superiority' because the types of situation that humans find themselves in could suggest an either/or or perhaps a neither/nor. Nisbett does not look into European distinctiveness, 'Latin' or Russian or African thought processes.
However, what is clear is that, once we accept one simple universal - the huge variability in problem-solving and ways of seeing the world - most of the other claimed universals start to disappear.
A paradox intrudes here. The lack of universalism in ways of seeing and thinking reinforces mutual respect at the most basic level of humanity - we really are all equal just differently circumstanced.
It also condemns all forms of aggressive mental imperialism and forces each side to adapt to the other if it wants to solve a problem involving both.
Again, we must say that Nisbett is hypothesising for further research and the social sciences are not like the hard sciences in that they are contingent and probabilistic. We must always be cautious.
We are currently in the middle of a series of crises where international relations has not yet caught up with these findings. There is often a thirty year lag between knowing amongst the few and doing amongst the many.
Most senior American policymakers, for example, are still embedded in the enlightenment liberal universalism of their schooling in the 1970s and 1980s.
The result has been the twin lunacies of multiculturalism (which is patronising) and the exports of rights ideology, sometimes through the barrel of a gun.
The last has been a consistent foreign policy disaster where it is clear that its proponents are inadequately equipped to understand why. They simply continue, creating negative reactions that undermine their own security.
The coup in Egypt and the protests in Turkey that are happening as I write this suggest that there is no simple equation between rights, democracy and freedom where democracy simply aids the arrival of obscurantism and authoritarian soldiers may be defenders of freedom.
The Middle East is distinctive but it still part of the 'Western sphere' but East Asia is different again. Relations between China and its neighbours and between China and America are probably of far more global significance even than protection of Israel and energy flows.
Nisbett's research and that of others - Nisbett has also done important work on honour cultures which could usefully inform strategy in relation to the Arab world - must now be working through the system.
The rethinking of 'universalism' should start to inform the more intelligent Westerners within a decade or two. Sadly, a lot of people may have to die before it gets to the sort of person who may be President in 2016 or, more likely, 2020.
If so, however, we may see some interesting changes in approach, especially to negotiations - continued differences of ambition, stance and opinion but mutual appropriations of method, especially when use of artificial intelligence is added to the analytical pot.
It is my own belief that the difference between, say, European and American culture is no less significant in the long term and that constant hybridisation of cultural forms, far from creating the future prospect of universalisation of culture, promises the exact opposite - almost infinite variation and 'difference'.
I see this in my own family - difference within a common core way of seeing. More widely, this owes a great deal to the sheer range of mental inputs provided by the internet.
The way that the internet 'ennobles' difference that might have been forced into a 'norm' within more rigid cultural systems - whether Western or other - is liberatory in a way that elites seem unable to cope with because their mental models belong to the past already.
This all suggests that the human mid-century will be very different, not merely from the age of competing ideologies but also from the now-rapidly degenerating age of imperial liberal universalism.
There are universal values - mutual respect, equality of persons, very basic aspirations (not rights which are after the fact inventions), maybe one or two clear rights (to cognitive freedom, the means to live reasonably well and a good death) - but these are surprisingly few.
We just need a generation of rigid thinkers, raised on post-Marxism and the rejection of Marxism, to move on and for genuinely liberal minds to resist the reactionary rise of past obscurantisms and let them die out of their own accord with prosperity and education.
As for the book, it is obviously recommended but be aware, as a general reader, that the central sections are rather dry accounts of psychological and social scientific experimentation that it will be hard to evaluate if you are a layman or laywoman.
February 2, 2024
Într-o zi, profesorul universitar de psihologie Richard E. Nisbett a avut o discuție cu un student din China, care i-a spus, printre altele, că există diferențe fundamentale de gândire între occidentali și asiatici, diferențe care provin încă din antichitate, de la Grecia antică vs. China antică, de la Pitagora și alții vs. Confucius sau Buddha. Așa că s-a decis să cerceteze mai îndeaproape această problemă și apoi să scrie o carte care, din păcate, putea fi rezumată într-un eseu de 10 pagini și era poate mult mai concludent și proaspăt. Așa, se pierde în amănunte, studii, analize, sondaje, când putea să spună, pe scurt, asemenea lucruri:
- asiaticii trăiesc într-o lume interdependentă în care sinele este parte dintr-un întreg mai mare, în vreme ce occidentalii trăiesc într-o lume care mizează pe independență și libertate;
- asiaticii apreciază integrarea și folosesc autocritica pentru a se asigura că reușesc, în vreme ce occidentalii apreciază individualismul și încearcă să se facă plăcuți;
- asiaticii acceptă ierarhia și controlul grupului, iar occidentalii preferă egalitatea și posibilitatea de a prelua controlul propriilor acțiuni;
- asiaticii evită controversele și dezbaterile, în vreme ce occidentalii cred în retorica argumentării în domenii precum drept, politică sau știință.
- asiaticii trăiesc într-o lume interdependentă în care sinele este parte dintr-un întreg mai mare, în vreme ce occidentalii trăiesc într-o lume care mizează pe independență și libertate;
- asiaticii apreciază integrarea și folosesc autocritica pentru a se asigura că reușesc, în vreme ce occidentalii apreciază individualismul și încearcă să se facă plăcuți;
- asiaticii acceptă ierarhia și controlul grupului, iar occidentalii preferă egalitatea și posibilitatea de a prelua controlul propriilor acțiuni;
- asiaticii evită controversele și dezbaterile, în vreme ce occidentalii cred în retorica argumentării în domenii precum drept, politică sau știință.
April 27, 2012
Too general, and lots of the research, as an Asian, I found to be untrue.
Moreover, the books does many of its research on Asian Americans, which is quite different from Asians.
Moreover, the books does many of its research on Asian Americans, which is quite different from Asians.
July 13, 2013
Fascinating book! While reading another book by a guy who had moved to Thailand, this was recommended. I ended up putting aside the Thailand book in favor of this one. It was just so thought-provoking. Here we are, immersed in a huge country, with this culture that has infiltrated most areas of the world, and most of us are quite unaware that not everyone has the same underlying assumptions that we do as they look at life. In essence, the West is based on the philosophical ideas of the Greeks, who, because they had a rocky land of mountains that fall right down to the sea, were mostly herders, maritime traders, or even pirates. Theirs was a culture based on individualism. The Chinese were influenced by Confucianism, and lived in large, mostly agricultural communities, so their culture emphasized harmony with the whole. This has so many interesting implications. Science in the West developed by categorizing and ordering. Surgery was nonexistent in Eastern medicine until the 19th century because every part was deemed important to the whole. I guess you could say, in the West we are looking at the trees, and in the East, they are looking at the forest. The author illustrated the text with examples from many, many studies. He points out that the most popular beginning readers of the twentieth century, "Dick and Jane", had short sentences that focused on the individual characters: "See Dick run. See Dick play. See Dick run and play." The equivalent Chinese primer showed a picture of a smaller boy on the shoulders of a bigger boy and said: "Big brother takes care of little brother. Big brother loves little brother. Little brother loves big brother. " The focus is on the relationship. (page 50)
Also interesting is his assertion that "the further to the West a given country lies, the greater, in general, that country's endorsement of independent values." (page 70) Even within our own country, there are gradations in the valuing of independence and individualism. He says, "We generally find that it is the white Protestants among the Americans participants in our studies who show the most 'Western' patterns of behavior and that Catholics and minority group members, including African Americans and Hispanics, are shifted somewhat toward Eastern patterns." (page 70-71)
An example he gives illustrates this:
"I once knew a very distinguished and well-placed social scientist, a crusty Scottish-American Presbyterian steeped in Calvinist rectitude. He had a son who was also a social scientist and who had to struggle from time to time to sustain his career during the 1970s, when jobs were scarce in the U.S. My colleague would sometimes state proudly that, although it would have been easy for him to do so, he had never intervened to help his son's situation. The colleague's Anglo-Saxon Protestant friends would nod their approval of the justice of this stance in the face of personal pain they knew the colleague had experienced. His Jewish and Catholic colleagues, with their more Continental values, would stare in shocked disbelief at his lack of family feeling." (page 70)
Here is another interesting finding:
"...to the Asian, the world is a complex place, composed of continuous substances, understandable in terms of the whole rather than in terms of the parts, and subject more to collective than to personal control. To the Westerner, the world is a relatively simple place, composed of discrete objects that can be understood without undue attention to context, and highly subject to personal control. Very different worlds indeed." (page 100)
Because Western culture is more focused on objects, children tend to learn nouns first and more quickly than verbs. In Eastern cultures, children learn nouns and verbs at the same rate. In a study that watched mothers interact with their very young children, he relates:
"American mothers used twice as many object labels as Japanese mothers ("piggie", "doggie") and Japanese mothers engaged in twice as many social routines of teaching politeness norms (empathy and greetings, for example). An American mother's patter might go like this: "That's a car. See the car? You like it? It's got nice wheels." A Japanese mother might say: "Here! It's a vroom, vroom. I give it to you. Now give this to me. Yes! Thank you." American children are learning that the world is mostly a place with objects, Japanese children that the world is mostly about relationships." (page 150)
The Greeks, the author says, "were fond of categories and used them as the basis for discovery and application of rules. They also believed in stability and understood both the physical and social worlds in terms of fixed attributes or dispositions.....the ancient Chinese were uninterested in categories, believed in change, and understood the behavior of both physical and social objects as being due to the interaction of the object with a surrounding field of forces." (pages 152-3)
These ideas play out in interesting ways, such as in how the culture views the education of children, as seen here:
"...the dispositions of objects are not necessarily stable for Easterners. In the West, a child who performs poorly in mathematics is likely to be regarded as having little math ability or perhaps even as being "learning disabled". In the East, such a child is viewed as needing to work harder, or perhaps her teacher should work harder, or maybe the setting for learning should be changed." (page 153)
There is a provocative sentence at the close of the book:
"... the results are strongly suggestive that cognitive processes can be modified by dint of merely living for a time in another culture." (page 228)
This is such an interesting book! I guarantee it will make you think.
Also interesting is his assertion that "the further to the West a given country lies, the greater, in general, that country's endorsement of independent values." (page 70) Even within our own country, there are gradations in the valuing of independence and individualism. He says, "We generally find that it is the white Protestants among the Americans participants in our studies who show the most 'Western' patterns of behavior and that Catholics and minority group members, including African Americans and Hispanics, are shifted somewhat toward Eastern patterns." (page 70-71)
An example he gives illustrates this:
"I once knew a very distinguished and well-placed social scientist, a crusty Scottish-American Presbyterian steeped in Calvinist rectitude. He had a son who was also a social scientist and who had to struggle from time to time to sustain his career during the 1970s, when jobs were scarce in the U.S. My colleague would sometimes state proudly that, although it would have been easy for him to do so, he had never intervened to help his son's situation. The colleague's Anglo-Saxon Protestant friends would nod their approval of the justice of this stance in the face of personal pain they knew the colleague had experienced. His Jewish and Catholic colleagues, with their more Continental values, would stare in shocked disbelief at his lack of family feeling." (page 70)
Here is another interesting finding:
"...to the Asian, the world is a complex place, composed of continuous substances, understandable in terms of the whole rather than in terms of the parts, and subject more to collective than to personal control. To the Westerner, the world is a relatively simple place, composed of discrete objects that can be understood without undue attention to context, and highly subject to personal control. Very different worlds indeed." (page 100)
Because Western culture is more focused on objects, children tend to learn nouns first and more quickly than verbs. In Eastern cultures, children learn nouns and verbs at the same rate. In a study that watched mothers interact with their very young children, he relates:
"American mothers used twice as many object labels as Japanese mothers ("piggie", "doggie") and Japanese mothers engaged in twice as many social routines of teaching politeness norms (empathy and greetings, for example). An American mother's patter might go like this: "That's a car. See the car? You like it? It's got nice wheels." A Japanese mother might say: "Here! It's a vroom, vroom. I give it to you. Now give this to me. Yes! Thank you." American children are learning that the world is mostly a place with objects, Japanese children that the world is mostly about relationships." (page 150)
The Greeks, the author says, "were fond of categories and used them as the basis for discovery and application of rules. They also believed in stability and understood both the physical and social worlds in terms of fixed attributes or dispositions.....the ancient Chinese were uninterested in categories, believed in change, and understood the behavior of both physical and social objects as being due to the interaction of the object with a surrounding field of forces." (pages 152-3)
These ideas play out in interesting ways, such as in how the culture views the education of children, as seen here:
"...the dispositions of objects are not necessarily stable for Easterners. In the West, a child who performs poorly in mathematics is likely to be regarded as having little math ability or perhaps even as being "learning disabled". In the East, such a child is viewed as needing to work harder, or perhaps her teacher should work harder, or maybe the setting for learning should be changed." (page 153)
There is a provocative sentence at the close of the book:
"... the results are strongly suggestive that cognitive processes can be modified by dint of merely living for a time in another culture." (page 228)
This is such an interesting book! I guarantee it will make you think.
April 9, 2018
Loved this book! I am certainly Western, and yet... there are aspects of my thinking that conform to Eastern trends and sometimes make me feel out of place, but I couldn't have quite put into words what was going on.
For example, I am probably somewhat more holistic than the average Westerner - I do tend to think that many theories are hopelessly oversimplified. Is this because I was a statistics minor, and have developed an interest in complexity? I also am deeply ambivalent about intuitive notions of causality - is this because of my readings on quantum physics (and Gödel!)? Or was I that way before college(the fact that I am asking this suggest some immunity to hindsight bias - something Easterners are more susceptible to)? Is it because I'm female (We are generally considered more empathetic, like Easterners)? Is it because I did not have a standardized public-school primary education (Though not public or standardized, I still think it was Western!)? Could I have a more right-brained orientation than many Westerners (*Is* Western thinking more "left-brained"?)? I also wonder if position in the social hierarchy could affect one's cognitive orientation (Sapolsky?)? Have my years of marriage to an Eastern European had an impact on my thinking (I'd be shocked if they didn't - but he is quite conscious of having become very much more Westernized since moving here and prefers it)? Some books leave you with more questions than answers. These are the thought-provoking books that I enjoy!
Some of the reviews of this book have questioned whether or not the research in the book was done in a valid manner. I am not enough of a social scientist to know, but even if it wasn't, even if there is no such thing as s "Western mind" or "Eastern mind", or if the characteristics discussed in this book poorly capture the differences... I find it truly fascinating to consider the potential perspectives that were presented in this book.
Favorite passage (He is discussing how rule-based categorisation is foundational to Western thought patterns, but not to Eastern):
For example, I am probably somewhat more holistic than the average Westerner - I do tend to think that many theories are hopelessly oversimplified. Is this because I was a statistics minor, and have developed an interest in complexity? I also am deeply ambivalent about intuitive notions of causality - is this because of my readings on quantum physics (and Gödel!)? Or was I that way before college(the fact that I am asking this suggest some immunity to hindsight bias - something Easterners are more susceptible to)? Is it because I'm female (We are generally considered more empathetic, like Easterners)? Is it because I did not have a standardized public-school primary education (Though not public or standardized, I still think it was Western!)? Could I have a more right-brained orientation than many Westerners (*Is* Western thinking more "left-brained"?)? I also wonder if position in the social hierarchy could affect one's cognitive orientation (Sapolsky?)? Have my years of marriage to an Eastern European had an impact on my thinking (I'd be shocked if they didn't - but he is quite conscious of having become very much more Westernized since moving here and prefers it)? Some books leave you with more questions than answers. These are the thought-provoking books that I enjoy!
Some of the reviews of this book have questioned whether or not the research in the book was done in a valid manner. I am not enough of a social scientist to know, but even if it wasn't, even if there is no such thing as s "Western mind" or "Eastern mind", or if the characteristics discussed in this book poorly capture the differences... I find it truly fascinating to consider the potential perspectives that were presented in this book.
Favorite passage (He is discussing how rule-based categorisation is foundational to Western thought patterns, but not to Eastern):
Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine writer, tells us that there is an ancient Chinese encyclopedia entitled Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge in which the following classification of animals appears: “(a) those that belong to the emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush, l.) others, m.) those that have just broken a flower vase, n.) those that resemble flies from a distance.
Read
July 22, 2021The TLDR of this is that 1. I wish I'd read it when it was newer. 2. I kept marking passages with bookdarts. 3. I kept talking about it to my husband and 25 yo son, who are also intrigued. 4. I recommend it, if you can read it as something to think about (as he intended) instead of as if it's a textbook statement with all the answers.
---
Thoughts as I go along first:
People have different points of view, but also surprisingly different strategies for problem solving. And learning from each other is a good thing not only for better communication but for more tools to help us with the big problems of climate change, world peace, etc.
Common sense isn't common because there's less universality to human nature than many assume.
One can make the divider East/West as he justifiably does. And/or one can recognize, as I do, the traits within groups of ppl within the US, for example ppl who identify as moderate are more like the East in that they are after a Middle Way and understand that context & harmony are important, whereas extremists (liberal or conservative both) are more like the West in that ambition is more individuated.
Lots of support for the author's position: anecdotes plus studies plus history...
But not counter-examples, not actual arguments to explain exceptions we might see, other fallacies.... Well, except for little bits, including a Note re' p. 170 that is interesting, & that concludes "I have no idea why."
I found it an engaging, accessible read... but there are a few bits that get a bit too academic (so I just had to keep going past them) and there's some repetition.
I note that our reading of diverse (esp. children's) literature needs to take these things into account, like the extended family that dotes on little East Asian children is teaching them harmony not spoiling them, and the second-generation Chinese immigrants break their grannies' hearts because they're not just sort of different, but to the core don't understand independence/interdependence.
In some respects it's stuff we've been thinking about for years/forever. In Shield, by Poul Anderson, from 1963, for example, we have a character (probably speaking for the author), say, "Man is not capable of being an autonomous individual.... He needs to be part of a whole culture, with duties as well as privileges." But Nisbett brings the idea front & center, making us think it about it hard enough to see it clearly enough to be able to incorporate into our understanding of human nature & how the world works.... Well, at least those of us who read the book... which I hope is lots of people!
Note that he's not saying every Chinese person thinks only about hierarchy and contextual harmony, and every American is obedient to pure logic of separate ambitions or whatever. But my musings lead me to suggest: I bet if he did interviews of respective subjects he'd discover that more East Asians think it might be cool to live as a member of a bee colony and that more Americans & northern Europeans would get the willies at the thought.
Another thing I'm personally getting out of this is one of the reasons I don't fit in, in a lot of ways, in communities in the US. I am already more Zen than a lot of people who pay to go on yoga retreats. I'm not into dog-eat-dog, or rat-race, or winner vs. loser, or revenge. I am much more into one w/nature, we're all in this together, let's work towards a win-win. (But I admit, I do like formal Aristotelian logic.)
---
Ok done. I found the speech to text function on my PC so Imagonna give you *all* my bookdarts right now:
“There is an adage holding that every Chinese is a Confucianist when he is successful and a Taoist when he is a failure.”
“Algebra did not become deductive until Descartes. Our educational system retains the memory trace of their separation by teaching algebra and geometry as separate subjects.”
“Japanese schoolchildren are taught how to practice self-criticism both in order to improve their relations with others and to become more skilled in solving problems.“
“It should be noted that for the studies described in this section, and for all studies conducted by our research teams in which some participants were tested in English and some in another language, we used the method of “back translation” to ensure comparability.”
A visiting Japanese student attended a football game and was surprised when fans stood up out of their seats. “The American students indifference to the people behind him seemed unfathomably rude to him.”
“Surveys show that Asians feel themselves to be in less control than their western counterparts. and rather than attempting to control situations they are likely to try to adjust to them.”
Which of these two things goes with the cow? Chicken or grass? Ask yourself, then see comment below.
“Chinese remain far more committed to reasonableness than to reason.”
I want to find a book of Chinese proverbs, quotations, and or fables of the Aesop variety. Because Nisbett did and found differences between East and West.
An example of Eastern thought is the perspective that it's possible for one to posit 'A is right and B is not wrong either' even when those of us steeped in Aristotlean logic see A and B as contradictory. “This stance is captured by the Zen Buddhist dictum that 'The opposite of a great two is also true.'”
“The dialectical approach would favor finding some truth in both in a search for the Middle Way.”
“One can be a Confucion, a Buddhist, and a Christian in Korea and Japan (and in China prior to the revolution).”
“Robert Abelson Has written a lovely book describing statistics essentially as rhetoric. I believe the metaphors are deep and correct.” Statistics As Principled Argument, I assume.
---
I will look for more recent works by the author, and check the GR Listopias to try to find other more recent & related books.
---
Thoughts as I go along first:
People have different points of view, but also surprisingly different strategies for problem solving. And learning from each other is a good thing not only for better communication but for more tools to help us with the big problems of climate change, world peace, etc.
Common sense isn't common because there's less universality to human nature than many assume.
One can make the divider East/West as he justifiably does. And/or one can recognize, as I do, the traits within groups of ppl within the US, for example ppl who identify as moderate are more like the East in that they are after a Middle Way and understand that context & harmony are important, whereas extremists (liberal or conservative both) are more like the West in that ambition is more individuated.
Lots of support for the author's position: anecdotes plus studies plus history...
But not counter-examples, not actual arguments to explain exceptions we might see, other fallacies.... Well, except for little bits, including a Note re' p. 170 that is interesting, & that concludes "I have no idea why."
I found it an engaging, accessible read... but there are a few bits that get a bit too academic (so I just had to keep going past them) and there's some repetition.
I note that our reading of diverse (esp. children's) literature needs to take these things into account, like the extended family that dotes on little East Asian children is teaching them harmony not spoiling them, and the second-generation Chinese immigrants break their grannies' hearts because they're not just sort of different, but to the core don't understand independence/interdependence.
In some respects it's stuff we've been thinking about for years/forever. In Shield, by Poul Anderson, from 1963, for example, we have a character (probably speaking for the author), say, "Man is not capable of being an autonomous individual.... He needs to be part of a whole culture, with duties as well as privileges." But Nisbett brings the idea front & center, making us think it about it hard enough to see it clearly enough to be able to incorporate into our understanding of human nature & how the world works.... Well, at least those of us who read the book... which I hope is lots of people!
Note that he's not saying every Chinese person thinks only about hierarchy and contextual harmony, and every American is obedient to pure logic of separate ambitions or whatever. But my musings lead me to suggest: I bet if he did interviews of respective subjects he'd discover that more East Asians think it might be cool to live as a member of a bee colony and that more Americans & northern Europeans would get the willies at the thought.
Another thing I'm personally getting out of this is one of the reasons I don't fit in, in a lot of ways, in communities in the US. I am already more Zen than a lot of people who pay to go on yoga retreats. I'm not into dog-eat-dog, or rat-race, or winner vs. loser, or revenge. I am much more into one w/nature, we're all in this together, let's work towards a win-win. (But I admit, I do like formal Aristotelian logic.)
---
Ok done. I found the speech to text function on my PC so Imagonna give you *all* my bookdarts right now:
“There is an adage holding that every Chinese is a Confucianist when he is successful and a Taoist when he is a failure.”
“Algebra did not become deductive until Descartes. Our educational system retains the memory trace of their separation by teaching algebra and geometry as separate subjects.”
“Japanese schoolchildren are taught how to practice self-criticism both in order to improve their relations with others and to become more skilled in solving problems.“
“It should be noted that for the studies described in this section, and for all studies conducted by our research teams in which some participants were tested in English and some in another language, we used the method of “back translation” to ensure comparability.”
A visiting Japanese student attended a football game and was surprised when fans stood up out of their seats. “The American students indifference to the people behind him seemed unfathomably rude to him.”
“Surveys show that Asians feel themselves to be in less control than their western counterparts. and rather than attempting to control situations they are likely to try to adjust to them.”
Which of these two things goes with the cow? Chicken or grass? Ask yourself, then see comment below.
“Chinese remain far more committed to reasonableness than to reason.”
I want to find a book of Chinese proverbs, quotations, and or fables of the Aesop variety. Because Nisbett did and found differences between East and West.
An example of Eastern thought is the perspective that it's possible for one to posit 'A is right and B is not wrong either' even when those of us steeped in Aristotlean logic see A and B as contradictory. “This stance is captured by the Zen Buddhist dictum that 'The opposite of a great two is also true.'”
“The dialectical approach would favor finding some truth in both in a search for the Middle Way.”
“One can be a Confucion, a Buddhist, and a Christian in Korea and Japan (and in China prior to the revolution).”
“Robert Abelson Has written a lovely book describing statistics essentially as rhetoric. I believe the metaphors are deep and correct.” Statistics As Principled Argument, I assume.
---
I will look for more recent works by the author, and check the GR Listopias to try to find other more recent & related books.
February 7, 2018
This is a short book with a sweeping thesis. In essence, the thesis of "The Geography of Mind" is that many important cognitive processes dominant in East Asian (i.e., Chinese, Japanese and Korean) cultures are substantially different from those processes in Western (i.e., American and European) cultures. This proposition explains a variety of dissimilarities in how people from each culture approach the world and each other, and it is also a partial explanation of the Great Divergence—why the modern world was created by the West, and by nobody else, to the lasting (so far) benefit of the West. While the author, Richard Nisbett, goes to great lengths to not ascribe superiority to one type of cognition over another, his cultural analyses show why the Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution could not have happened in East Asia. As they say, though, past performance is no guarantee of future results, and perhaps the relative value of Western ways of thought has passed its use-by date.
As can be inferred from its title, this book is an exercise in the continuation and reinforcement of a particular stereotype. There is nothing wrong with that; the majority of stereotypes have at least some element of truth, and sometimes a very large degree of truth. That is one reason they tend to have staying power; they are a form of meme. But a problem, or limitation, with this book is that while its conclusions are obviously mostly or all true, the scientific evidence it offers is on the thin side. Nisbett focuses on a variety of psychological studies, mostly involving small groups of college students. Chinese peasants and American ironworkers do not seem very prevalent in his subjects, which suggests that perhaps there is more to the story than Nisbett offers. As a result, the book is interesting, but hardly scientifically determinative or all-encompassing. On the other hand, perhaps it’s a mistake to try to pin down the essence of a culture to points on a graph; familiarity with history, and to a lesser extent literature, is a better way to grasp a culture, even if the resulting analysis is not one that can be quantified.
Nisbett goes to significant pains to define “Asian” as East Asian—“China and the countries that were heavily influenced by its culture, most notably Japan and Korea.” Whatever Japanese and Korean nationalists may like to think, this is a reasonable grouping, and it of course excludes Indian subcontinent cultures (what the English confusingly call “Asian,” at least the English who are being polite), and Pacific cultures like the Philippines and Indonesia. And Nisbett makes the basic point, again inarguable but something those of low intellect find impossible to grasp, that the existence of differences among members of a cultural grouping does not obviate that accurate generalizations can be made, specifically of the “modal” person in a culture, in Raphael Patai’s helpful terminology.
Nisbett begins with what the social science shows, and everybody who is honest knows—that Asians and Westerners differ significantly in many areas. He lists five non-exclusive ones: science and mathematics (Asians excel, but produce far fewer advances); attention and perceptions (Asians and Westerners view most events and objects differently); causal inference (Westerners ignore context; Asians are all about context); organization of knowledge (Westerners focus on categories; Asians on relations among objects and events); and reasoning (Westerners use formal logic; Asians are comfortable with logical fallacies like contradictions). His point is not that one way is necessarily better than the other, in any given instance, but that the ways are very different. I have no idea if the social science actually shows these differences, but looking at negative reviews at the time (this book was published in 2003), none claim that the social science shows anything else, so it seems reasonable to conclude that the experiments that are the backbone of the book produce the results Nisbett says they do.
From this general introduction, Nisbett jumps backward two and half millennia. He endorses the longstanding recognition (not least by the Greeks themselves) that the ancient Greeks had a keen sense of individualism lacked by people in the autocracies of the ancient East, a difference most vividly shown in the conduct of the Greco-Persian Wars. He posits that the ancient Greeks embodied “personal agency—the sense that they were in charge of the their own lives and free to act as they chose.” (Of course, this freedom was not at all like the atomized freedom that is the natural end point of Enlightenment thought, but this is a tangent Nisbett doesn’t explore.) This sense of agency led to an individualism where the individual was the same across all social settings, as well as to open and aggressive debate, and curiosity about the world leading to viewing it as composed of categories with underlying principles—that is, viewing the world through abstractions. Contemporaneous Chinese civilization, on the other hand, embodied “harmony,” where “every Chinese was first and foremost a member of a collective, or rather of several collectives—the clan, the village, and especially the family.” Individualism was foreign to China; the individual was the totality of the roles he had in relation to specific other people. Not that people lacked agency—but they had collective agency, instead of individual agency, which deprioritized debate and curiosity (as well as individual rights), and elevated obligations. This did not (necessarily) mean conformity, but rather a harmonious society, as the goal.
Assuming all this is true (and there is a little bit too much surface skimming and “just-so” of this narrative, even for me, who thinks the basic conclusions are hard to dispute), why do these differences exist? Nisbett ascribes it culture—to “the social origins of mind.” Greeks had city-states, maritime trading, and a geographic location at the crossroads of the world, leading to exposure to a great diversity of people and thoughts. China had an ethnic monoculture (Han), generally centralized political control, and no exposure to diversity. These explanations Nisbett calls “materialistic.” Not deterministic, but based on differences of each culture in the real, material world. At a higher level of abstraction, according to Nisbett, what drives culture is a chain: ecology drives the economy and social structure; which drive attention, metaphysics and epistemology; which drive cognitive processes. Voilà!—huge differences in thought resulting from different starting points, with the modern West as the direct heirs of Greek ways of thought (which is quite a jump to make in a purely conclusory fashion, even if true), and China as essentially unchanged for millennia (not so much of a jump).
The rest of the book is devoted to fleshing out these basic claims (the differences, not the history) by using a combination of anecdotes and small-scale academic studies. Nisbett covers, among other things, perceptions of “in-groups” and “out-groups”; the Asian distaste for decisions reached through debate; the Western tendency to view substances as separate objects as opposed to the Asian view of continuous materials (leading to a Chinese failure to view nature in a scientific way); and Westerners’ inability, relative to Asians, to quickly grasp the background matter in, and context between items in, images (presumably, Asians score better on the famous “gorilla walking among people playing basketball” test, though Nisbett doesn’t mention that particular experiment). Perhaps most importantly, he examines how Asians have mostly rejected formal logic of the kind that is the absolute bedrock of Western thought (with the exception of abortive movements in China such as Mohism, swamped by Confucianism and Taoism), in favor of contextual analysis without rigid boundaries. “East Asians, then, are more likely to set logic aside in favor of typicality and plausibility of conclusions. They are also more likely to set logic aside in favor of the desirability of conclusions.” (The same characteristic, to a much more extreme degree, is found in Arab cultures, though Nisbett does not discuss Arabs at any point.) And, at the end, Nisbett concludes, “People hold the beliefs they do because of the way they think and they think the way they do because of the nature of the societies they live in.” (In many ways, including this conclusion, "The Geography of Thought" is a complement to Jonathan Haidt’s incredibly good "The Righteous Mind," which explored cultural differences in the way morality is perceived, focusing on intuitions as cognition.)
As I read through the book, I wondered whether Nisbett would address the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis—that different languages influence the ways their speakers think. And he does, noting the prevalence, relative to Chinese, in Western languages of “generic” nouns, which allow categorization without relying on context, and the lack in Chinese of the English suffix “-ness,” which similarly allows easy abstraction of a concept. Along the same lines, Western languages tend to focus on the agent and most sentences rely on a subject who is doing an act; Eastern languages much less so. Nisbett supports this analysis with studies of bilingual speakers, who respond dramatically differently to certain kinds of testing when tested in different languages, and he offers a cautious endorsement of Sapir-Whorf. Again, not determinative, but interesting and probative.
The critical result of these differences, in practical terms, for the relative success of Western and Asian cultures was that, in China, abstract scientific curiosity was not encouraged—rather, some practical tinkering was socially permitted, though not necessarily encouraged and never systematized, leading to many scientific inventions that were either not used at all (the compass, if the Chinese did indeed invent it) or not used to their potential (gunpowder). Nisbett claims, and offers support for his claim, that Chinese failure to develop concepts of abstraction necessarily crippled Chinese scientific advancement. Similarly, Chinese rejection of formal logic in favor of the “middle way” of harmonious compromise, pushed by both Taoism and Confucianism, such that Chinese philosophers accept that “A” and “not-A” can sometimes both be true, produces travel down totally different avenues of thought than does abstraction, in both science and in many other areas. The exact opposite forms of thought in the West produced the Scientific Revolution, and then the Industrial Revolution. And the scientific and developmental effects of these differences continue to today. For example, Nisbett points out that, in the 1990s, American scientists earned forty-four Nobel Prizes; Japanese scientists, with fully half the funding, one. Another way to say this is that without the Western ways of thought, we would all be living in the sixteenth century, at best.
So what we really want to know, academics be damned, is which ways of thought are better? Or, put more bluntly, is the thought of China or America better? We Americans reflexively conclude, even if we are too nice or too cowed to say so, that of course Western ways of thoughts are better. Look on our works, we say, and look at the modern world, made by the West, and only by the West. So far as it goes, that’s true, but what if we look more closely at the modern world? Yes, Western thought made the Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, but it also morphed into Enlightenment thought, taking the Greek and earlier Western focus on the individual and molding it into the central idol of our times, a turning that has probably sowed the seeds of our destruction. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Chinese have taken their communitarian harmony, or their tolerance for authoritarianism, depending on how you view it, as well as their non-susceptibility to the siren call of atomizing Enlightenment thought, and married it to Western technology and economic practices, without the hangups and self-hatred that characterizes the ruling classes of the West. It’s not going to matter if the Chinese are any good at debate and formal logic if they now have hypersonic missiles mounted on their cruisers, while we today spend our money and time on brainwashing sailors to pretend their new transgender crewmates are really the sex they claim to be today (and to pretend that mixed-sex combat vessels are anything but the triumph of ideology over common sense). Sure, in the long run the triumph of any non-Western civilization means stagnation, as we revert to the mean of human progress, which has always been glacially slow, at best, without the West. But that’s the long run, and in the short and medium term, the Chinese turtle is looking pretty good, if you like to gamble.
As can be inferred from its title, this book is an exercise in the continuation and reinforcement of a particular stereotype. There is nothing wrong with that; the majority of stereotypes have at least some element of truth, and sometimes a very large degree of truth. That is one reason they tend to have staying power; they are a form of meme. But a problem, or limitation, with this book is that while its conclusions are obviously mostly or all true, the scientific evidence it offers is on the thin side. Nisbett focuses on a variety of psychological studies, mostly involving small groups of college students. Chinese peasants and American ironworkers do not seem very prevalent in his subjects, which suggests that perhaps there is more to the story than Nisbett offers. As a result, the book is interesting, but hardly scientifically determinative or all-encompassing. On the other hand, perhaps it’s a mistake to try to pin down the essence of a culture to points on a graph; familiarity with history, and to a lesser extent literature, is a better way to grasp a culture, even if the resulting analysis is not one that can be quantified.
Nisbett goes to significant pains to define “Asian” as East Asian—“China and the countries that were heavily influenced by its culture, most notably Japan and Korea.” Whatever Japanese and Korean nationalists may like to think, this is a reasonable grouping, and it of course excludes Indian subcontinent cultures (what the English confusingly call “Asian,” at least the English who are being polite), and Pacific cultures like the Philippines and Indonesia. And Nisbett makes the basic point, again inarguable but something those of low intellect find impossible to grasp, that the existence of differences among members of a cultural grouping does not obviate that accurate generalizations can be made, specifically of the “modal” person in a culture, in Raphael Patai’s helpful terminology.
Nisbett begins with what the social science shows, and everybody who is honest knows—that Asians and Westerners differ significantly in many areas. He lists five non-exclusive ones: science and mathematics (Asians excel, but produce far fewer advances); attention and perceptions (Asians and Westerners view most events and objects differently); causal inference (Westerners ignore context; Asians are all about context); organization of knowledge (Westerners focus on categories; Asians on relations among objects and events); and reasoning (Westerners use formal logic; Asians are comfortable with logical fallacies like contradictions). His point is not that one way is necessarily better than the other, in any given instance, but that the ways are very different. I have no idea if the social science actually shows these differences, but looking at negative reviews at the time (this book was published in 2003), none claim that the social science shows anything else, so it seems reasonable to conclude that the experiments that are the backbone of the book produce the results Nisbett says they do.
From this general introduction, Nisbett jumps backward two and half millennia. He endorses the longstanding recognition (not least by the Greeks themselves) that the ancient Greeks had a keen sense of individualism lacked by people in the autocracies of the ancient East, a difference most vividly shown in the conduct of the Greco-Persian Wars. He posits that the ancient Greeks embodied “personal agency—the sense that they were in charge of the their own lives and free to act as they chose.” (Of course, this freedom was not at all like the atomized freedom that is the natural end point of Enlightenment thought, but this is a tangent Nisbett doesn’t explore.) This sense of agency led to an individualism where the individual was the same across all social settings, as well as to open and aggressive debate, and curiosity about the world leading to viewing it as composed of categories with underlying principles—that is, viewing the world through abstractions. Contemporaneous Chinese civilization, on the other hand, embodied “harmony,” where “every Chinese was first and foremost a member of a collective, or rather of several collectives—the clan, the village, and especially the family.” Individualism was foreign to China; the individual was the totality of the roles he had in relation to specific other people. Not that people lacked agency—but they had collective agency, instead of individual agency, which deprioritized debate and curiosity (as well as individual rights), and elevated obligations. This did not (necessarily) mean conformity, but rather a harmonious society, as the goal.
Assuming all this is true (and there is a little bit too much surface skimming and “just-so” of this narrative, even for me, who thinks the basic conclusions are hard to dispute), why do these differences exist? Nisbett ascribes it culture—to “the social origins of mind.” Greeks had city-states, maritime trading, and a geographic location at the crossroads of the world, leading to exposure to a great diversity of people and thoughts. China had an ethnic monoculture (Han), generally centralized political control, and no exposure to diversity. These explanations Nisbett calls “materialistic.” Not deterministic, but based on differences of each culture in the real, material world. At a higher level of abstraction, according to Nisbett, what drives culture is a chain: ecology drives the economy and social structure; which drive attention, metaphysics and epistemology; which drive cognitive processes. Voilà!—huge differences in thought resulting from different starting points, with the modern West as the direct heirs of Greek ways of thought (which is quite a jump to make in a purely conclusory fashion, even if true), and China as essentially unchanged for millennia (not so much of a jump).
The rest of the book is devoted to fleshing out these basic claims (the differences, not the history) by using a combination of anecdotes and small-scale academic studies. Nisbett covers, among other things, perceptions of “in-groups” and “out-groups”; the Asian distaste for decisions reached through debate; the Western tendency to view substances as separate objects as opposed to the Asian view of continuous materials (leading to a Chinese failure to view nature in a scientific way); and Westerners’ inability, relative to Asians, to quickly grasp the background matter in, and context between items in, images (presumably, Asians score better on the famous “gorilla walking among people playing basketball” test, though Nisbett doesn’t mention that particular experiment). Perhaps most importantly, he examines how Asians have mostly rejected formal logic of the kind that is the absolute bedrock of Western thought (with the exception of abortive movements in China such as Mohism, swamped by Confucianism and Taoism), in favor of contextual analysis without rigid boundaries. “East Asians, then, are more likely to set logic aside in favor of typicality and plausibility of conclusions. They are also more likely to set logic aside in favor of the desirability of conclusions.” (The same characteristic, to a much more extreme degree, is found in Arab cultures, though Nisbett does not discuss Arabs at any point.) And, at the end, Nisbett concludes, “People hold the beliefs they do because of the way they think and they think the way they do because of the nature of the societies they live in.” (In many ways, including this conclusion, "The Geography of Thought" is a complement to Jonathan Haidt’s incredibly good "The Righteous Mind," which explored cultural differences in the way morality is perceived, focusing on intuitions as cognition.)
As I read through the book, I wondered whether Nisbett would address the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis—that different languages influence the ways their speakers think. And he does, noting the prevalence, relative to Chinese, in Western languages of “generic” nouns, which allow categorization without relying on context, and the lack in Chinese of the English suffix “-ness,” which similarly allows easy abstraction of a concept. Along the same lines, Western languages tend to focus on the agent and most sentences rely on a subject who is doing an act; Eastern languages much less so. Nisbett supports this analysis with studies of bilingual speakers, who respond dramatically differently to certain kinds of testing when tested in different languages, and he offers a cautious endorsement of Sapir-Whorf. Again, not determinative, but interesting and probative.
The critical result of these differences, in practical terms, for the relative success of Western and Asian cultures was that, in China, abstract scientific curiosity was not encouraged—rather, some practical tinkering was socially permitted, though not necessarily encouraged and never systematized, leading to many scientific inventions that were either not used at all (the compass, if the Chinese did indeed invent it) or not used to their potential (gunpowder). Nisbett claims, and offers support for his claim, that Chinese failure to develop concepts of abstraction necessarily crippled Chinese scientific advancement. Similarly, Chinese rejection of formal logic in favor of the “middle way” of harmonious compromise, pushed by both Taoism and Confucianism, such that Chinese philosophers accept that “A” and “not-A” can sometimes both be true, produces travel down totally different avenues of thought than does abstraction, in both science and in many other areas. The exact opposite forms of thought in the West produced the Scientific Revolution, and then the Industrial Revolution. And the scientific and developmental effects of these differences continue to today. For example, Nisbett points out that, in the 1990s, American scientists earned forty-four Nobel Prizes; Japanese scientists, with fully half the funding, one. Another way to say this is that without the Western ways of thought, we would all be living in the sixteenth century, at best.
So what we really want to know, academics be damned, is which ways of thought are better? Or, put more bluntly, is the thought of China or America better? We Americans reflexively conclude, even if we are too nice or too cowed to say so, that of course Western ways of thoughts are better. Look on our works, we say, and look at the modern world, made by the West, and only by the West. So far as it goes, that’s true, but what if we look more closely at the modern world? Yes, Western thought made the Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, but it also morphed into Enlightenment thought, taking the Greek and earlier Western focus on the individual and molding it into the central idol of our times, a turning that has probably sowed the seeds of our destruction. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Chinese have taken their communitarian harmony, or their tolerance for authoritarianism, depending on how you view it, as well as their non-susceptibility to the siren call of atomizing Enlightenment thought, and married it to Western technology and economic practices, without the hangups and self-hatred that characterizes the ruling classes of the West. It’s not going to matter if the Chinese are any good at debate and formal logic if they now have hypersonic missiles mounted on their cruisers, while we today spend our money and time on brainwashing sailors to pretend their new transgender crewmates are really the sex they claim to be today (and to pretend that mixed-sex combat vessels are anything but the triumph of ideology over common sense). Sure, in the long run the triumph of any non-Western civilization means stagnation, as we revert to the mean of human progress, which has always been glacially slow, at best, without the West. But that’s the long run, and in the short and medium term, the Chinese turtle is looking pretty good, if you like to gamble.
August 21, 2022
Oh boy... Nothing new, since the Greeks...
This was recommended to me. And I really thought the premise was so interesting, having lived in Europe, North America and Asia. The read was amazingly frustrating.
The author fails to give any satisfying definitions for the words he constantly misuses. He even notes early on that findings show that people from different European countries and the United States (I assume he is meaning that when he says "Americans" although some results seem to be from Canada - so who knows) sometimes think "more Eastern" or "more Western". But he still lumbs them all together as "Western", because... convenience?
Eastern are apparently Chinese, Japanese and Korean, although sometimes he seems to include the entire Middle East and India without any plausible explanation. I also found it borderline offensive that he kept claiming that "Easterners" were not used to apply logic. And that with some of his example sentences lacking logic in my view.
He draws conclusions and creates explanations that I found very doubious. All European cultures only go back to Greece. Rome apparently never happened and there was no other influence on culture anywhere in Europe or America. Also the whole of Eastern Asia has no cultural diversity at all. It's all Acient China... All European languages are the same as well as the East Asian languanges... As a non-English native speaker from Europe I am inclined to disagree. His examples do not meet the Grammar in my Native languange at least.
The confirmation bias in this book is ridiculous. Sometimes he does point out some differences in the groups that he lables as homogenious, only to dismiss them immediately.
I really hope the author takes more care in phrasing when he is writing a scientific paper. I wish he had narrowed his thoughts to the Cultures he had actually preformed studies on himself which were apparently US American, Chinese and Korean culture.
As you might have gathered, I would not recommend this book.
This was recommended to me. And I really thought the premise was so interesting, having lived in Europe, North America and Asia. The read was amazingly frustrating.
The author fails to give any satisfying definitions for the words he constantly misuses. He even notes early on that findings show that people from different European countries and the United States (I assume he is meaning that when he says "Americans" although some results seem to be from Canada - so who knows) sometimes think "more Eastern" or "more Western". But he still lumbs them all together as "Western", because... convenience?
Eastern are apparently Chinese, Japanese and Korean, although sometimes he seems to include the entire Middle East and India without any plausible explanation. I also found it borderline offensive that he kept claiming that "Easterners" were not used to apply logic. And that with some of his example sentences lacking logic in my view.
He draws conclusions and creates explanations that I found very doubious. All European cultures only go back to Greece. Rome apparently never happened and there was no other influence on culture anywhere in Europe or America. Also the whole of Eastern Asia has no cultural diversity at all. It's all Acient China... All European languages are the same as well as the East Asian languanges... As a non-English native speaker from Europe I am inclined to disagree. His examples do not meet the Grammar in my Native languange at least.
The confirmation bias in this book is ridiculous. Sometimes he does point out some differences in the groups that he lables as homogenious, only to dismiss them immediately.
I really hope the author takes more care in phrasing when he is writing a scientific paper. I wish he had narrowed his thoughts to the Cultures he had actually preformed studies on himself which were apparently US American, Chinese and Korean culture.
As you might have gathered, I would not recommend this book.
June 2, 2011
طالما شغلني التفكير عن أسباب تقدّم الغرب وتخلفنا.
وكانت قراءاتي لمن حاول الإجابة عن هذا السؤال, أو حتى اجتهاداتي الذاتية, لا تسمن ولا تغني من جوع.
حتى وقع في يدي هذا الكتاب الرائع, وقرأته حينها, ثم أعدت قراءته مرّة أخرى قريباً.
في هذا الكتاب يشرح الكاتب أنّ طرق التفكير المتباينة عند الشرق والغرب, ليست نابعة عن أي الجانبين أفضل, بل نابعة
عن الاختلاف بين أساليب التفكير, فليس هناك أفضل أو أدنى, بل ندّية ناشئة عن الاختلاف في البيئات والمجتمعات وغير ذلك.
يتحدّث "نيسبت" عن الطريقة "الجماعية" للتفكير في الشرق, مقابل "الفردية" في الغرب.
يفتتح الكاتب كتابه بمقولة رائعة لأحد تلاميذه الصينيين, مخاطباً أستاذه"نيسبت", حيث يقول بما معناه:
إنّ الفرق بين طريقة تفكيري, وبين طريقة تفكيرك, هو كالفرق بين الدائرة والخط المستقيم!!
الكتاب يفتح باباً للنقاش الواسع والمثمر, وعلى القارئ حمل رؤيته الخاصّة به
وكانت قراءاتي لمن حاول الإجابة عن هذا السؤال, أو حتى اجتهاداتي الذاتية, لا تسمن ولا تغني من جوع.
حتى وقع في يدي هذا الكتاب الرائع, وقرأته حينها, ثم أعدت قراءته مرّة أخرى قريباً.
في هذا الكتاب يشرح الكاتب أنّ طرق التفكير المتباينة عند الشرق والغرب, ليست نابعة عن أي الجانبين أفضل, بل نابعة
عن الاختلاف بين أساليب التفكير, فليس هناك أفضل أو أدنى, بل ندّية ناشئة عن الاختلاف في البيئات والمجتمعات وغير ذلك.
يتحدّث "نيسبت" عن الطريقة "الجماعية" للتفكير في الشرق, مقابل "الفردية" في الغرب.
يفتتح الكاتب كتابه بمقولة رائعة لأحد تلاميذه الصينيين, مخاطباً أستاذه"نيسبت", حيث يقول بما معناه:
إنّ الفرق بين طريقة تفكيري, وبين طريقة تفكيرك, هو كالفرق بين الدائرة والخط المستقيم!!
الكتاب يفتح باباً للنقاش الواسع والمثمر, وعلى القارئ حمل رؤيته الخاصّة به
May 11, 2015
I hated reading this book. Not because the topic isn't interesting, but because the book was filled with anecdotes, parentheticals, generalizations, and reports of studies without ever answering the question 'how is this information useful?'
For example, the author talks about one study where respondents were asked to group two out of three things together: panda, monkey, banana. He argued that Westerners group panda and monkey together because they are both mammals, but Asians group monkey and banana together because of the relationship that monkeys eat bananas. All of my American kids, and my spouse picked monkey and banana. But the question is, so what? The book disappoints because although the title implies insight, it delivers none.
For example, the author talks about one study where respondents were asked to group two out of three things together: panda, monkey, banana. He argued that Westerners group panda and monkey together because they are both mammals, but Asians group monkey and banana together because of the relationship that monkeys eat bananas. All of my American kids, and my spouse picked monkey and banana. But the question is, so what? The book disappoints because although the title implies insight, it delivers none.
July 26, 2017
Repetitive and simplistic, it bored me to the point that I had to stop reading it. If you do read chapter one, do yourself a favour and skip to the last chapter so you don't have to waste your life on the rest of the book.
July 19, 2022
Does where you come from influence how you think?
We know that different cultures have different values – I’m thinking of Lee Kuan Yew talking about ‘Asian Values’ for Singapore and the region – but do our differences go beyond values? Do we, quite literally, see the world in different ways because of the way we think? Since I’m writing my thesis on how feelings affect behaviour in a Confucian-influenced environment, I wanted to learn more about how we think and therefore process our feelings.
An experiment discussed in this book explores how we see the world. Participants were asked to choose which group a flower should belong to - Group 1, which looked more similar overall, or Group 2, which had one common trait. In other words, the Koreans and other Asians consider the overall look of the flowers in each group and tend to put the target object in Group 1, while European Americans tend to find a categorisation rule (in this case, curved vs straight stems) and put the target object in Group 2.
This experiment is just one of the many mentioned in The Geography of Thought. Nisbett mixes history and social science experiments to illuminate the differences between East-Asian and Western thought. The subtitle rather broadly categorises things into “How Asians and Westerners think differently” but that is too much of a generalisation for me. The Asians that Nisbett focuses on are mostly Asians from countries influenced by Confucianism and Taoism, in other words, influenced by Chinese culture. This would include China, Japan, Korea, and in Southeast Asia, Singapore. The Westerners that Nisbett talks about are those who are influenced by Ancient Greek culture, which is to say, North Americans and Europeans. I think it’s important to make this distinction because while Confucianism cast a long shadow, it did not influence all Asian cultures – India, for example, strikes me as a country where we might not find the influence of Confucianism, though it did influence China through the introduction of Buddhism. I also didn’t see much on the Middle East as well as the Latin American countries (and perhaps Eastern European as well? I’m not sure but I suspect they might have had a slightly different cultural influence as well).
For the rest of my review, I’ll refer to “Asian” as “East Asian” and Western as “Anglo-Western” just to be slightly more accurate and so I don’t feel like I’m overgeneralising and dividing the world into two when there are probably a few other large groups we should be considering.
The book starts with an overview of the historical and cultural influences of East Asia and Anglo-Western thought, namely Ancient Greek and Chinese culture, before looking at aspects of how we view the world, such as whether we look at the background or a focal object first, what we think about stability vs change, interdependent vs independent societies, and how societal values can affect behaviour. There is, as you may expect, a lot of information in these chapters. While some of the information, such as Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, were things I’d learnt about, others were new. Three nuggets of information that caught my attention:
- Societal cues can influence behaviour – you may be raised in an independent society, but live long enough in an interdependent society and your behaviour may change. We can also be primed to act in independent or interdependent ways
- Females of both East-Asian and Anglo-Western cultures tend to be more holistic in their orientation than males, but experiments conducted by social scientists find that “gender differences are always small than the cultural differences.”
- There are two types of bilinguals: coordinate bilinguals, people who learn a second language relatively late in life, and compound bilinguals, who learn their second language early. As you might expect, the language you test coordinate bilinguals in does affect their response (an example of how language can affect thought) but for compound bilinguals, the language used in tests does not matter. In fact, for compound bilinguals from Hong Kong and Singapore, their groupings shifted in a Western direction, with a weaker preference for relationships over taxonomic grouping. The book did not talk about it, but I wonder if this shift towards a Western-style of thought is, for Singaporeans, due to the fact that most of us learn English as a first language and consume most of our media in English as well.
Although I think this book is not perfect, given my misgivings about how broadly the term “Asians” has been applied, I think it’s a valuable work. Too often, people writing in English tend to assume that others think the way they do. I’m currently reading a book called The Insta-Food Diet; it’s about how social media is shaping what we eat and how we eat, and it’s very obvious that the author has defaulted to a Western, specifically American, worldview and thinks that it’s universal. One thing that stood out to me was her talking about the “medicine as food” movement – she was very clear that she cannot see food as medicine and that medicine is medicine. This was pretty weird for me because the Chinese way of thinking of the body is a lot more holistic and we quite naturally change our diet when sick, in other words, foods as medicine (in conjunction with pills/syrups). A friend of mine also pointed out that a lot of the medicine we get is derived from plants that we also eat, so it’s strange to separate medicine from food completely.
It’s so easy to fall into what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls “the danger of a single story” which is why it’s important for us to be concious of the fact that other people don’t just have different backgrounds from us, they can also think and see the world differently. Reading stories from other cultures is an amazing way to broaden our worldview, and I think books like The Geography of Thought can also be very helpful in this endeavour.
This review was first posted at Eustea Reads
We know that different cultures have different values – I’m thinking of Lee Kuan Yew talking about ‘Asian Values’ for Singapore and the region – but do our differences go beyond values? Do we, quite literally, see the world in different ways because of the way we think? Since I’m writing my thesis on how feelings affect behaviour in a Confucian-influenced environment, I wanted to learn more about how we think and therefore process our feelings.
An experiment discussed in this book explores how we see the world. Participants were asked to choose which group a flower should belong to - Group 1, which looked more similar overall, or Group 2, which had one common trait. In other words, the Koreans and other Asians consider the overall look of the flowers in each group and tend to put the target object in Group 1, while European Americans tend to find a categorisation rule (in this case, curved vs straight stems) and put the target object in Group 2.
This experiment is just one of the many mentioned in The Geography of Thought. Nisbett mixes history and social science experiments to illuminate the differences between East-Asian and Western thought. The subtitle rather broadly categorises things into “How Asians and Westerners think differently” but that is too much of a generalisation for me. The Asians that Nisbett focuses on are mostly Asians from countries influenced by Confucianism and Taoism, in other words, influenced by Chinese culture. This would include China, Japan, Korea, and in Southeast Asia, Singapore. The Westerners that Nisbett talks about are those who are influenced by Ancient Greek culture, which is to say, North Americans and Europeans. I think it’s important to make this distinction because while Confucianism cast a long shadow, it did not influence all Asian cultures – India, for example, strikes me as a country where we might not find the influence of Confucianism, though it did influence China through the introduction of Buddhism. I also didn’t see much on the Middle East as well as the Latin American countries (and perhaps Eastern European as well? I’m not sure but I suspect they might have had a slightly different cultural influence as well).
For the rest of my review, I’ll refer to “Asian” as “East Asian” and Western as “Anglo-Western” just to be slightly more accurate and so I don’t feel like I’m overgeneralising and dividing the world into two when there are probably a few other large groups we should be considering.
The book starts with an overview of the historical and cultural influences of East Asia and Anglo-Western thought, namely Ancient Greek and Chinese culture, before looking at aspects of how we view the world, such as whether we look at the background or a focal object first, what we think about stability vs change, interdependent vs independent societies, and how societal values can affect behaviour. There is, as you may expect, a lot of information in these chapters. While some of the information, such as Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, were things I’d learnt about, others were new. Three nuggets of information that caught my attention:
- Societal cues can influence behaviour – you may be raised in an independent society, but live long enough in an interdependent society and your behaviour may change. We can also be primed to act in independent or interdependent ways
- Females of both East-Asian and Anglo-Western cultures tend to be more holistic in their orientation than males, but experiments conducted by social scientists find that “gender differences are always small than the cultural differences.”
- There are two types of bilinguals: coordinate bilinguals, people who learn a second language relatively late in life, and compound bilinguals, who learn their second language early. As you might expect, the language you test coordinate bilinguals in does affect their response (an example of how language can affect thought) but for compound bilinguals, the language used in tests does not matter. In fact, for compound bilinguals from Hong Kong and Singapore, their groupings shifted in a Western direction, with a weaker preference for relationships over taxonomic grouping. The book did not talk about it, but I wonder if this shift towards a Western-style of thought is, for Singaporeans, due to the fact that most of us learn English as a first language and consume most of our media in English as well.
Although I think this book is not perfect, given my misgivings about how broadly the term “Asians” has been applied, I think it’s a valuable work. Too often, people writing in English tend to assume that others think the way they do. I’m currently reading a book called The Insta-Food Diet; it’s about how social media is shaping what we eat and how we eat, and it’s very obvious that the author has defaulted to a Western, specifically American, worldview and thinks that it’s universal. One thing that stood out to me was her talking about the “medicine as food” movement – she was very clear that she cannot see food as medicine and that medicine is medicine. This was pretty weird for me because the Chinese way of thinking of the body is a lot more holistic and we quite naturally change our diet when sick, in other words, foods as medicine (in conjunction with pills/syrups). A friend of mine also pointed out that a lot of the medicine we get is derived from plants that we also eat, so it’s strange to separate medicine from food completely.
It’s so easy to fall into what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls “the danger of a single story” which is why it’s important for us to be concious of the fact that other people don’t just have different backgrounds from us, they can also think and see the world differently. Reading stories from other cultures is an amazing way to broaden our worldview, and I think books like The Geography of Thought can also be very helpful in this endeavour.
This review was first posted at Eustea Reads
March 28, 2020
america, sit your ass down and listen.
December 19, 2013
It took me nearly 8 months to finish this book, as I often got annoyed (by its repeating concepts, unstructured content and sometimes wrong arguments) and put it down for a while before picking it up again.
The book was published in 2003 and most of the “findings” were not very new even at that time, in my humble opinion. The more “interesting” part for me was the psychological tests the author and his assistants did with “easterners” and “westerners” to prove their arguments. However, descriptions were long and dull.
Anyway, when I finally finished it and reviewed the book, I found that beside my doubting question marks and argument note, I did have some underline sentences showing my agreement and confirmation. So as a summary, I would like to list down the concepts from the book that I think are meaningful or interesting:
In general:
• Differences in linguistic structure reflect in people’s thinking process.
• Child training results people’s focuses and their understanding about the world.
• The worldviews prompt their perception and reasoning process.
• People hold the beliefs because of the way they think and they think the way they do because of the nature of the societies they live in.
• Economic forces operation to maintain social structures.
East vs. West:
Easterners (most far East Asian countries, such as Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese and Koreans)
• See themselves living in an interdependent world in which the self is part of a larger whole
• tend to see substances in their appropriate context, are embedded in a meaningful whole (High-context)
• with social existence based on harmony would not develop confrontation or debate habits
• handle confrontations by intermediaries
• would be oriented toward resolving the contradiction or finding a middle way
• prefer for compromises
• attend to environment and detect relationship
• believe “the peg that stands out will be pounded down”
• less concern about their personal goals than group goals and individual’s related responsibilities
• rate themselves much lower, self-criticize that they have negative qualities
• assume complexity
• strive for maintaining harmonious social relations and self-improvement
• likely become well-rounded
• learn first the nouns
• are taught to understand what is being said
• know more accurately aware of others’ feelings and attitudes
• negotiate in long, to invest time for laying groundwork for future trust and cooperation
Westerners (most north-American, such as Canada and the USA)
• See themselves live in a world in which the self is a unitary free agent
• attend to objects and often isolate the object from its context (Low-context)
• search for simple principles that will justify beliefs
• seek on correctness of one side from the conflicts, are prepared to sacrifice harmony for fairness
• handle confrontations by legal judgments
• infer what categories the object is and consider how logical rules can apply or to control
• believe men can freely manipulate environment for certain purposes
• prefer simplicity
• emphasize individuals with distinctive attributes
• believe in setting goals, control of own behaviors, making choices and preference would determine desirable outcomes
• think relationship gets in the way
• strive to feel good about themselves and work hard for self-fulfillment, positive personal qualities are important to the sense of well-being
• learn first the verbs
• likely become good as specialist
• are taught to express self well
• negotiate in short and to the points, not to waste time reaching goals
At the last chapter, the author devote himself to debate whether the world tomorrow being a east and west converged or not. He believe they should move in the direction of each other and transform like the individual ingredients in a stew that are recognizable but are altered as a whole. And I agree with him despite many other disagreements.
The book was published in 2003 and most of the “findings” were not very new even at that time, in my humble opinion. The more “interesting” part for me was the psychological tests the author and his assistants did with “easterners” and “westerners” to prove their arguments. However, descriptions were long and dull.
Anyway, when I finally finished it and reviewed the book, I found that beside my doubting question marks and argument note, I did have some underline sentences showing my agreement and confirmation. So as a summary, I would like to list down the concepts from the book that I think are meaningful or interesting:
In general:
• Differences in linguistic structure reflect in people’s thinking process.
• Child training results people’s focuses and their understanding about the world.
• The worldviews prompt their perception and reasoning process.
• People hold the beliefs because of the way they think and they think the way they do because of the nature of the societies they live in.
• Economic forces operation to maintain social structures.
East vs. West:
Easterners (most far East Asian countries, such as Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese and Koreans)
• See themselves living in an interdependent world in which the self is part of a larger whole
• tend to see substances in their appropriate context, are embedded in a meaningful whole (High-context)
• with social existence based on harmony would not develop confrontation or debate habits
• handle confrontations by intermediaries
• would be oriented toward resolving the contradiction or finding a middle way
• prefer for compromises
• attend to environment and detect relationship
• believe “the peg that stands out will be pounded down”
• less concern about their personal goals than group goals and individual’s related responsibilities
• rate themselves much lower, self-criticize that they have negative qualities
• assume complexity
• strive for maintaining harmonious social relations and self-improvement
• likely become well-rounded
• learn first the nouns
• are taught to understand what is being said
• know more accurately aware of others’ feelings and attitudes
• negotiate in long, to invest time for laying groundwork for future trust and cooperation
Westerners (most north-American, such as Canada and the USA)
• See themselves live in a world in which the self is a unitary free agent
• attend to objects and often isolate the object from its context (Low-context)
• search for simple principles that will justify beliefs
• seek on correctness of one side from the conflicts, are prepared to sacrifice harmony for fairness
• handle confrontations by legal judgments
• infer what categories the object is and consider how logical rules can apply or to control
• believe men can freely manipulate environment for certain purposes
• prefer simplicity
• emphasize individuals with distinctive attributes
• believe in setting goals, control of own behaviors, making choices and preference would determine desirable outcomes
• think relationship gets in the way
• strive to feel good about themselves and work hard for self-fulfillment, positive personal qualities are important to the sense of well-being
• learn first the verbs
• likely become good as specialist
• are taught to express self well
• negotiate in short and to the points, not to waste time reaching goals
At the last chapter, the author devote himself to debate whether the world tomorrow being a east and west converged or not. He believe they should move in the direction of each other and transform like the individual ingredients in a stew that are recognizable but are altered as a whole. And I agree with him despite many other disagreements.
May 28, 2012
The differences in thoughts between Asians and westerners have often been elaborated from the perspectives of history, culture, politics, and philosophy. Therefore, it's good to read on a psychology approach on this analysis.
The author developed his argument on the basis of case studies carried out among Asians, Asian-Americans, and westerners. Of course, the results of each case study is never conclusive, but in the end, as a whole, the author's work should be commended. Indeed, he merely reconfirms many of the stereotypes existing on Asians and westerners. However, it's refreshing to learn that these stereotypes can and have been proven through controlled psychological experiments.
Certain parts of the book is enlightening; I actually enjoyed it quite immensely. When reading about the questions posed during his case studies, I often find myself trying to answer the questions posed in the case studies, trying to identify whether I am more of an Asian of a westerner. The verdict on this remains inconclusive, but at least I have a better idea of the differences in perceptions between the two sides.
For my own personal purposes, the book has definitely enrich my perspective on how Asians and westerners perceive diplomacy. Asians will most likely believe that we must surrender ourselves to the dynamic changes in situations (basically "go with the flow") and appreciate the process more than the result. Meanwhile, Westerners would make us believe that if factors to a situation are analyzed well, then situations can be controlled to produce a desired result.
The author claims that in the future, there will most likely be two end results to the differences in thoughts between Asians and westerners. The first assumption, like Samuel Huntington's, is that there will be a clash of thoughts that is inherently irreconcilable. In the end, conflict may surface as a result of such clash. The second assumption, however, would see the development of a "third way" which draws lessons from the positive values imbedded in both ways of thinking.
For the longest time, I've thought myself as an Asian with western thinking. In doing so, I've more than often fallen into the trap of looking at the Asian way of thinking in a condescending manner. However, the more I live in Indonesia, and the more I'm surrounded by my people, the more I'm beginning to see that there is virtue in the Asian way of thinking. That, maybe, the end of history is not here yet, and that the western way of thinking is not the apex of mankind.
The author developed his argument on the basis of case studies carried out among Asians, Asian-Americans, and westerners. Of course, the results of each case study is never conclusive, but in the end, as a whole, the author's work should be commended. Indeed, he merely reconfirms many of the stereotypes existing on Asians and westerners. However, it's refreshing to learn that these stereotypes can and have been proven through controlled psychological experiments.
Certain parts of the book is enlightening; I actually enjoyed it quite immensely. When reading about the questions posed during his case studies, I often find myself trying to answer the questions posed in the case studies, trying to identify whether I am more of an Asian of a westerner. The verdict on this remains inconclusive, but at least I have a better idea of the differences in perceptions between the two sides.
For my own personal purposes, the book has definitely enrich my perspective on how Asians and westerners perceive diplomacy. Asians will most likely believe that we must surrender ourselves to the dynamic changes in situations (basically "go with the flow") and appreciate the process more than the result. Meanwhile, Westerners would make us believe that if factors to a situation are analyzed well, then situations can be controlled to produce a desired result.
The author claims that in the future, there will most likely be two end results to the differences in thoughts between Asians and westerners. The first assumption, like Samuel Huntington's, is that there will be a clash of thoughts that is inherently irreconcilable. In the end, conflict may surface as a result of such clash. The second assumption, however, would see the development of a "third way" which draws lessons from the positive values imbedded in both ways of thinking.
For the longest time, I've thought myself as an Asian with western thinking. In doing so, I've more than often fallen into the trap of looking at the Asian way of thinking in a condescending manner. However, the more I live in Indonesia, and the more I'm surrounded by my people, the more I'm beginning to see that there is virtue in the Asian way of thinking. That, maybe, the end of history is not here yet, and that the western way of thinking is not the apex of mankind.
August 24, 2019
Superb. There is no need for me to add another summary to the excellent summaries submitted by other readers. This book had me gripped from beginning to end. Occasionally I had to raise my eyebrow at the use of the term Westerner, when clearly the author meant American, and was describing cultural experiences I cannot relate to at all as an English woman. Also there were many discussions which I felt could have benefitted from feminist analysis - experiences and descriptions of cultures appear very gendered to me, and some modern feminism has done a good job of deconstructing assumed universalisms within western thought.
However, it was a joy exploring this topic, which feels so relevant to the place I find myself in. I enjoyed the background speculations, the explanations of methodology, the sense of journeying with the issues, the honest questioning and dialogue created between these very different ways of constructing the world.
I am learning mandarin at the moment and I often find myself reflecting on the different world constructed within the language. It is a strain on my brain trying to construct my thoughts with the context first. My thoughts appear in my head in the wrong order. I find myself reaching for far too many words, to make meaning specific in ways that are irrelevant. I look for rules that will help me systematise, categorise ... my teacher gives me that patient mystified look which tells me I am not in England now ...! This book made so much sense of this experience, lol! But also of the everyday differences that permeate daily life and business here.
However, it was a joy exploring this topic, which feels so relevant to the place I find myself in. I enjoyed the background speculations, the explanations of methodology, the sense of journeying with the issues, the honest questioning and dialogue created between these very different ways of constructing the world.
I am learning mandarin at the moment and I often find myself reflecting on the different world constructed within the language. It is a strain on my brain trying to construct my thoughts with the context first. My thoughts appear in my head in the wrong order. I find myself reaching for far too many words, to make meaning specific in ways that are irrelevant. I look for rules that will help me systematise, categorise ... my teacher gives me that patient mystified look which tells me I am not in England now ...! This book made so much sense of this experience, lol! But also of the everyday differences that permeate daily life and business here.
July 3, 2021
I think this is an important topic yet horrendously treated by people who really should work harder at it, given their tenure and wide readership. You always need to be careful with a premise like Nisbett investigates in this book. One litmus test: “what does the author mean by Asian and Western?”
For Nisbett, “Asian” appears to mean Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. “Chinese”, in turn, means Han. All other nationalities and ethnicities within each modern nation state are ignored.
Likewise, “Western” primarily means Anglophone. Nisbett starts with a tepid discussion of “Greek thought” — better described as Athenian and Aristotelian thought as received through the Italian Renaissance and English Premoderns, again ignoring hundreds of distinct ideological lineages — and jumps to the Italian merchant states and then again into the late 20th century.
So, it seems Nisbett means, by the words “Asian” and “Western”, those stereotypes that already have a prevalent hold on armchair psychology. There’s nothing revealing here, all bias reinforcement, and literally billions of other peoples cultural and psychological experiences are completely ignored.
I do NOT mean to indict Nisbett for being insufficiently woke. He had a good opportunity in this book to highlight some important cultural differences and compare them with a common human description of psychology— but he went pretty hard down the boring old, meaningless road of “Westerners are individualist and Asians are collectivists” instead
For Nisbett, “Asian” appears to mean Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. “Chinese”, in turn, means Han. All other nationalities and ethnicities within each modern nation state are ignored.
Likewise, “Western” primarily means Anglophone. Nisbett starts with a tepid discussion of “Greek thought” — better described as Athenian and Aristotelian thought as received through the Italian Renaissance and English Premoderns, again ignoring hundreds of distinct ideological lineages — and jumps to the Italian merchant states and then again into the late 20th century.
So, it seems Nisbett means, by the words “Asian” and “Western”, those stereotypes that already have a prevalent hold on armchair psychology. There’s nothing revealing here, all bias reinforcement, and literally billions of other peoples cultural and psychological experiences are completely ignored.
I do NOT mean to indict Nisbett for being insufficiently woke. He had a good opportunity in this book to highlight some important cultural differences and compare them with a common human description of psychology— but he went pretty hard down the boring old, meaningless road of “Westerners are individualist and Asians are collectivists” instead
October 3, 2016
Horrible, this is what happens when psychologists try to do philosophy, sloppy, over generalized, with examples hand picked to support the authors life work, not with the time.
July 30, 2013
الصفحة الأولى من المقدمة تختصر الكتاب بأجمعه، قال الأستاذ الجامعي الأمريكي فيها أن طالبًا صينيًا قال له يومًا:
هل تعرف أن الفارق بيني وبينك أنني أرى العالم دائرة وأنت تراه خطًا مستقيمًا؟
ثم استطرد موضحًا الفكرة بعد أن لاحظ دهشة الأستاذ الجامعي مؤلف هذا الكتاب:
يؤمن الصينيون بالتغير المطرد أبدًا، لكن مع إيمان بأن الأشياء دائمًا وأبدًا تتحرك مرتدة إلى حالة ما كانت في البدء، إنهم يولون اهتمامهم لنطاق واسع من الأحداث، يبحثون عن العلاقات بين الأشياء، ويظنون أن لا سبيل أمامهم إلى فهم الجزء من دون فهم الكل، هذا بينما يعيش الغربيون في عالم أبسط حالاً وأقل خضوعًا للحتمية، إنهم يركزون انتباههم على موضوعات أو أناس لهم وجودهم الفردي البارز دون الصورة الأكبر، ويظنون أن في وسعهم التحكم في الأحداث لأنهم يعرفون القواعد والقوانين الحاكمة لسلوك الأشياء
هذا هو ما قاله الطالب الصيني عفوًا وفي شيءٍ أشبه بالارتجال وفي ثوانٍ معدودة، فيأتي المؤلف ليقنن ويمنهج هذه العبارة ويضعها داخل إطار القضايا البحثية التي يدرسها لتلاميذه كأستاذ في علم النفس بجامعة ميتشيجان، فبعد أن قرأ أبحاث ودراسات علماء النفس في الغرب والشرق الأقصى، وقام بنفسه بتكوين فرق بحثية مختلفة مكونة من طلبة شرق آسيويين (صينيين، يابانيين، كوريين) من ناحية، وغربيين (من أمريكا وكندا غالبًا) من ناحية أخرى، قال أن الغربيين لديهم قناعات فردية مثل أن:
كل فرد يتصف بمجموعة من الصفات المتمايزة والمميزة له، وأكثر من هذا يريد الناس أن يكونوا متمايزين، أي مختلفين عن الآخرين من نواح مهمة
الناس متحكمون إلى حد كبير في سلوكهم، ويشعرون بأنهم في حالة أفضل حين يكونون في مواقف من شأنها أن تجعل الاختيار والتفضيل الشخصي هما العامل المحدد للنتائج
الناس يتجهون صوب أهداف شخصية تمثل نجاحًا وإنجازًا، ويرون أن العلاقات والانتماء عضويًا إلى جماعةٍ ما يتوافقان أحيانًا مع نهج المرء لبلوغ هذه الأهداف
يجاهد الناس بغية الإحساس بالرضا عن أنفسهم، وتمثل النجاحات الشخصية والضمانات التي تؤكد هذه الخاصيات الإيجابية عنصرًا مهمًا لتوليد هذا الإحساس بالرضا والرفاه
وما شابه ذلك من القناعات "الغربية"، التي لا يوجد لها ثقل أو وزن عند الجانب الشرقي!، ففي اللغة الصينية ليست هناك كلمة ترادف كلمة "النزعة الفردية"، كاتجاه شخصي استقلالي، وإنما أقرب كلمة صينية إليها يمكن استخدامها في الترجمة هي كلمة "الأنانية"، وأن هذه التفرقة تبدأ حتى منذ أول عهد الأطفال بالقراءة، فكتاب القراءة الأساسي الأول في أمريكا حتى الستينيات، كان اسمه "ديك وجين"، ويبدأ بصورة طفل يجري بين المروج مكتوب أسفلها: انظر، "ديك" يجري!، وصورة أخرى له وهو يلعب مكتوب أسفلها: انظر، "ديك" يلعب!، وكثيرًا من أمثال هذه الصور والعبارات، وهكذا تتأصّل فيهم مظاهر الجانب الفردي في الحياة، فكل فرد مستقل له أفعال وصفات، بينما كان كتاب القراءة الأساسي الأول في الصين في الحقبة نفسها، كان يمثل في صفحته الأولى صورة طفل صغير يجلس على كتفي ولد أكبر، ومكتوب أسفلها: الأخ الكبير يعتني بالأخ الصغير!، الأخ الكبير يحنو على الأخ الصغير!، الأخ الصغير يحب الأخ الكبير!، فيقول المؤلف أننا هنا لا نجد سلوكًا فرديًا بل علاقات بين الناس، ولاحظ مثلا أنه عندما يسأل أمريكيًا ويطلب منه أن يحدثه عن نفسه، فإنه يستخدم هذه المفردات غالبًا:
أنا أعمل في شركة كذا، وسأذهب إلى رحلة لمدة أسبوع إلى كذا، وأكلتُ بالأمس كذا وكذا
بينما إذا طلب من شخص آسيوي أن يحدثه عن نفسه، فإن مفرداته غالبًا ما تكون مثل:
أنا صديق فلان وفلان، وسأذهب في رحلة معهما، وطهيت بالأمس الطعام مع أختي
أي أن المجتمع وعلاقات الناس تظهر بشكل واضح وبيّن في حديث الشرق آسيويين، بينما النزعة الفردية مسيطرة في حديث الغربيين إلى حد ما، فعندما حدثت جريمة قتل، قال الطلاب الأمريكيين أن القاتل كان سيرتكب جريمته عاجلا أو آجلا، فشخصيته إجرامية بالفطرة!، بينما مال الآسيويون إلى أن هذا كان مرتبطًا بالظروف والعلاقات المحيطة بهذه اللحظة التي دفعته لاستخدام سلاحه، وإذا تغيرت الظروف فمن المحتم إنه ما كان سيحدث شيء
وكذلك فإنه رأى أن الغربيون مع تخصص الطب ومن ضرورة علاج الجزء المصاب وحده ولو أدى الأمر إلى بتره، بينما الشرق آسيويين يرون أن "من السذاجة وخفة العقل التفكير في إن إزالة عضو أو جزء مريض أو مصاب بخلل وظيفي وبتره عن الجسم أمرٌ مفيد من دون اعتبار لعلاقته بالأجزاء الأخرى من الجسم"، وكذلك يقول الكتاب أن الغربيين في حالة اختيار سلعة ذات ألوان متعددة، فإنهم يختارون اللون الأندر "المميز!"، بينما الآسيويون سيختارون بكل بساطة الألوان الشائعة أي الشعبية
ويرى أن الأمريكيين أو الغربيين أميل إلى استخدام المنطق الشكلي وأنهم يصنفون الأشياء إلى فئات وأسماء، فلما عرض عليهم ثلاثة صور وسألهم أيّ اثنين من الثلاثة أكثر تقاربًا، (قرد – باندا – موز)، فاختار الآسيويون غالبًا: (القرد والموز) لأن القرد يأكل الموز، واختار أغلب الغربيون: (القرد والباندا) لأنهما من فئة واحدة وهي فئة الحيوان، وكذلك (دجاجة – بقرة – عشب)، فالفريق الأول اختار: البقرة والعشب (علاقة غذاء)، والثاني: الدجاجة والبقرة كحيوانين من حيوانات المزرعة
وحتى أثناء لعب الأم مع طفلها بسيارة لعبة، فإنهم لاحظوا أن الأم الأمريكية تقول: انظر إلى هذه اللعبة!، إنها سيارة، هل تحبها؟ أنظر لعجلاتها كم هي كبيرة!، وما شابه هذه العبارات فإنها هنا تهتم بالإشارة إلى "الموضوعات"، وذكر أسماءها وتقديم معلومات عنها، بينما لاحظوا أن الأم اليابانية تقول لطفلها في ذات الموقف:
هاي!، هذه "دوك دوك!"، أعطيها لكَ، الآن أعطها لي!، نعم!، شكرًا
فالأم اليابانية تنزع إلى كلمات وثيقة الصلة بالعلاقات والمشاعر، فلو ��فض طفلها تناول الطعام، فستقول:
الفلاح سوف يستاء إذا لم تأكل كلّ ما طهته ماما لك
وإذا ألقى اللعبة على الأرض أو ضربها بالحائط!، فستقول:
اللعبة تبكي لأنك ألقيتها على الارض
أو
الحائط يقول: آي
تذكرت هنا ما تقوله الأمهات المصريات – حفظهن الله – عادة في المواقف الشبيهة
:D
ويقول المؤلف هنا:
يتعلم الأطفال الأمريكيون أن العالم مكان به موضوعات وأشياء، ويتعلم الأطفال اليابانيون أن العالم في الأغلب الأعم هو علاقات
.
.
والأمر أمسى غريبًا قليلا، والمؤلف إن لم ين�� كتابه بهذه الكلمات، لما كان هناك معنى لهذا التفريق الواضح بين النمطين المذكورين في هذا الكتاب، وبين الواقع المشوش في العالم الحقيقي، فالتداخل بين هذين النمطين في الفرد الواحد شائع جدًا، لذلك فهو يقول إنه يضع الأساسيات فقط وخصائص كل نمط منهما، وإننا جميعًا "ثنائيو الثقافة" ونكون في مجالات ما أكثر شبهًا بأبناء شرق آسيا حينًا، وأكثر شبهًا بالغربيين حينًا آخر
ولهذا أؤمن بأن الاثنين سيلتقيان بفضل تحرك كل منهما في اتجاه الآخر، الشرق والغرب يمكن أن يسهما في نشوء عالم مزيج حيث تتمثل الجوانب الاجتماعية والمعرفية لكلٍّ من الإقليمين، ولكن في صورة متحولة، تمامًا مثل المكونات الفردية لطعامٍ ما، حيث يمكن تمييزها وإن تغيرت وتغير معها الكل، ولعلنا لا نبالغ في الأمل بأن هذا الطعام سيحتوي على أفضل ما في الثقافتين
وهذا كله مطّ لكلمة الطالب الصيني الذي أوردها في الصفحة الأولى من المقدمة، وكان في إمكان هذا الكتاب أن يصبح مقالاً شيقًا ورشيقًا في مجلة ما، ولكن قُدّر له – ولا راد لقدر الله - أن يصبح كتابًا، وأن يزداد وزنه أيضًا إلى 246 كيلوجرامًا
:D
July 24, 2023
يدخل كتاب Geography of thought لمؤلفه عالم النفس المجدد ريتشارد نيسبت في دائرة اهتمام العلماء و المفكرين حول توسيع مجالات التعليم و العلم و الصحة و المشاريع الفكرية الثقافية. إنه يشكل منهج تأصيلي في دراسة البنيات الذهنية و النفسية التي تؤثر في نمط التفكير لدى الشعوب الشرقية و الغربية و من تم المقارنة بين الفوراق الفكرية في البنيات الناظمة لسلوكهم.
عندما تستطيع تفكيك الاختلاف في أنماط التفكير يسهل آنذاك تفسير السلوك و تحليل العوامل المؤثرة فيه.
عندما تستطيع تفكيك الاختلاف في أنماط التفكير يسهل آنذاك تفسير السلوك و تحليل العوامل المؤثرة فيه.
April 4, 2013
The book's main value comes at the end where it justifies the value of the studies contained therein. The book's second major value comes from the various and diverse experiments cited. All in all, I would not recommend this book.
Many things about this book disappointed me. For one thing, I found that the author incorrectly characterizes much of the Western thinkers and thoughts in this book. He claims that Eastern Asians are at fault for discrediting action at a distance, whereas Einstein's discoveries have all but disproved the concept to the benefit of mankind. He claims that Zeno wanted to prove that motion did not exist; however many commentators, namely Plato, subtly saw Zeno's paradoxes as meditations on mathematics and philosophy that transcended the either/or that the author implies guided Zeno's outlook.
Past that, there were many more shortcomings of the book, most of which were merely due to my high expectations regarding the book's genre in an age of stellar and comprehensive non-fiction. For example, the use of the word "Geography" in the title gave me the impression that I was going to get a Jared Diamond vibe from the book, something that assumed too much about the circumstances of human geography that callously entertained an original theory. I was sorely disappointed. Also, I expected that the book would have helped me with my living situation at the time that I bought it. I bought the book in South Korea when I worked there briefly. I expected that the book would tell me something new that I had not already experienced firsthand. I was a bit disappointed that it could not further my adaptation to the culture. Furthermore, I expected more analysis of how gender enters the outlook of East and West; I wanted to see more of how the intersections between gender and cultural outlook played out. I was sorely disappointed by the single dismissive paragraph on the topic that handily deemed culture more powerful than gender. Lastly, it feels like the author is trying to say that East Asia is right-brained and Western countries are left-brained while vainly trying not to essentialize.
My biggest problem with this book was my own personal anticipation. I could have gathered the same conclusions drawn by the author through reading paraphrased wikiquote pages for Confucius and Aristotle, which it feels the author did quite frequently between citing studies. The only legitimate criticism I have toward this book comes from the author's very poor reading of Western philosophy.
I would only ever recommend reading the final few chapters of this book.
Many things about this book disappointed me. For one thing, I found that the author incorrectly characterizes much of the Western thinkers and thoughts in this book. He claims that Eastern Asians are at fault for discrediting action at a distance, whereas Einstein's discoveries have all but disproved the concept to the benefit of mankind. He claims that Zeno wanted to prove that motion did not exist; however many commentators, namely Plato, subtly saw Zeno's paradoxes as meditations on mathematics and philosophy that transcended the either/or that the author implies guided Zeno's outlook.
Past that, there were many more shortcomings of the book, most of which were merely due to my high expectations regarding the book's genre in an age of stellar and comprehensive non-fiction. For example, the use of the word "Geography" in the title gave me the impression that I was going to get a Jared Diamond vibe from the book, something that assumed too much about the circumstances of human geography that callously entertained an original theory. I was sorely disappointed. Also, I expected that the book would have helped me with my living situation at the time that I bought it. I bought the book in South Korea when I worked there briefly. I expected that the book would tell me something new that I had not already experienced firsthand. I was a bit disappointed that it could not further my adaptation to the culture. Furthermore, I expected more analysis of how gender enters the outlook of East and West; I wanted to see more of how the intersections between gender and cultural outlook played out. I was sorely disappointed by the single dismissive paragraph on the topic that handily deemed culture more powerful than gender. Lastly, it feels like the author is trying to say that East Asia is right-brained and Western countries are left-brained while vainly trying not to essentialize.
My biggest problem with this book was my own personal anticipation. I could have gathered the same conclusions drawn by the author through reading paraphrased wikiquote pages for Confucius and Aristotle, which it feels the author did quite frequently between citing studies. The only legitimate criticism I have toward this book comes from the author's very poor reading of Western philosophy.
I would only ever recommend reading the final few chapters of this book.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 382 reviews