MysteriousFaith

The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently … and Why

Depending on the size of your world, this book will either refresh you in its challenge to accept the perspectives and ways of thinking of other cultures, or it will frustrate you for the very same reason. To label this book as purely a cultural commentary would be a mistake; rather, this book is about the development of thought in Eastern and Western cultures.

Book Review - The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently … and Why - by Richard E. Nisbett

Depending on the size of your world, this book will either refresh you in its challenge to accept the perspectives and ways of thinking of other cultures, or it will frustrate you for the very same reason. To label this book as purely a cultural commentary would be a mistake; rather, this book is about the development of thought in Eastern and Western cultures. While it is certainly historical, it has a pragmatism that is unusual and refreshing when considering the book’s academic inception. Whether you are a politician, statesman, businessman, or theologian, the implications to Dr. Nisbett’s work are profound.

Beginnings

Dr. Nisbett sets a strong foundation for his book in his discussion on the origins of the Western and Eastern cultures of thought. Greek thought, the point of origination for Western thinking, is very linear. Such cultures seek to focus on means by which they can isolate items and objects to a very singular distinction. Greek thinkers would debate the “whiteness” or “solidity” of an object - careful to pick very specific words that were concrete in their description. Abstraction is to be avoided in Greek thought; metaphorical thinking is discouraged. Reductionism, that belief that all things can be better understood by separating one from another and getting closer to singularities, is very Greek in its origination.

In contrast, Eastern thinkers use language that is less precise, reflecting a mind that is more comfortable with abstract thought. This comfort with abstract thought drives a willingness to view most issues within the lens of complexity, not reductionism. As a result of this willingness to accommodate complexity, Eastern thinking is comfortable with paradox, supposed contradictions, and more easily picks out organic inter-relationships and complex causalities in lines of reasoning and situational reasoning.

One of the primary teachings of Confucianism, the Golden Mean, summarizes the Eastern perspective on reasoning: “to be excessive in nothing and to assume that between two propositions, and between two contending individuals, there is truth on both sides.” As a result of this willingness to live with tension in the development of ideas, Eastern science and mathematics did not develop along the lines of Greek science and math. For one example, the development of geometry suffered in the Eastern world since the use of theorems (statements of essential logic) were not understood by Eastern mathematicians. This is not to say Eastern culture has not contributed to the development of mathematics; no, the Eastern mind gave us the concept of zero. Such a number was inconceivable in the Greek mind as they believed zero was non-being. As non-being could not logically exist, the development of any mathematic principle upon which zero would be an operand was impossible.

Either/Or versus Both/And

For the Western mind, no part of the book is more difficult to grasp than the section where Dr. Nisbett discusses the differences between Western “either-or” and Eastern “both-and” reasoning. This was particularly important for me as a project I am currently working on is exploring the implications to religion, spirituality and theology under the assumption that Western Christianity suffers from a terrible “either-or” position when it’s canon of Scripture was composed by scribes who were singularly “both-and” in their world-view.

Because Eastern thought assumes that within any one situation, no single cause can be assigned to the issue, Eastern thought views complexity as normative. In opposition to this perspective, Western thought will not accept tension or complexity. Western thought is the ultimate in reductionism. It believes that only where a singularity can exist can we understand anything. This is a mechanistic view, and does not look at the organic complexity common in most biological systems. Where Western thought has driven the harnessing of thermodynamics and the methods of machine design, Eastern thought will ultimately deliver the best medicine because Eastern thinking is organic and inter-related. Western medicine will always fixate on two things: the best tool to fix a problem and the willingness to treat a symptom without treating the cause. Eastern medicine is yet, in my opinion, to see its brightest day: when some great mind compiles the meaningful medical studies done in the recent years it will find that the key to health is the inter-relationship between a number of life and diet choices.

When arguing the perspective of how Westerners struggle with “both-and” statements, Dr. Nisbett illustrates directly how profoundly Westerners view singularities as the primary means of knowledge and how, in contrast, Easterners view inter-relationships as the only means of identifying causality. Under a section of the book labeled “Implications For Thought In The Modern World”, Dr. Nisbett lays out eight statements. Of these, I found five of them very provocative. They are:

• “Patterns of attention and perception, with Easterners attending more to environments and Westerners more to objects, and Easterners being more likely to detect relationships among events than Westerners.
• Beliefs about controllability of the environment, with Westerners believing in controllability more than Easterners.
• Tacit assumptions about stability versus change, with Westerners seeing stability where Easterners see change.
• Preferred patters of explanations for events, with Westerners focusing on objects and Easterners casting a broader net to include the environment.
• Application of dialectical approaches, with Easterners being more inclined to seek the Middle Way when confronted with apparent contradiction and Westerners being more included to insist on the correctness of one belief vs. another.” (pgs. 44-45 - bold type emphasis mine)

One can see in Dr. Nisbett’s fourth point, Easterners have a perspective that looks at things from a much more holistic and organic inter-relational view. I am fairly certain that in Western academia the use of “holistic” or “organic” is not encouraged.

Organic Complexity versus Reductionist Isolationism

This book has profoundly moved me in that it seems to quietly suggest that my nagging suspicion and mistrust of reductionism is not entirely off base. Prior to going any further let me make this point: Dr. Nisbett does an excellent job in showing the value and shortcomings to both ways of thinking. To make the assumption that this book is apologetic for Western culture and thinking is simply and profoundly wrong. What I do feel is that my life, my line of reasoning, my ability to function in this increasingly complex world, will be aided more if I can adopt a way of thinking that appreciates complexity and lives with tension.

Is this willingness to live with tension, with organic complexity, the hallmark of laziness, stupidity, or disinterest? Absolutely not; but such an assumption is easy to understand. You would not be the first to struggle with such a question. “This lack of curiosity was characteristic of China … there has never been a strong interest in knowledge for its own sake in China. Even modern Chinese philosophers have always been far more interested in the pragmatic application of knowledge than with abstract theorizing for its own sake.” (pg. 40) In Western society, we tend to value knowledge as we value money. It is something to be acquired (typically so that we can obtain something material).

It would seem to me that where such divergent ways of valuing knowledge exist, the likelihood that real symmetry and co-existence can develop is not great. Perhaps we can hold out hope that both cultures’ leaders will be men and women who understand and can reason from a position of intellectual and cultural empathy. I am not sure how a conflict between cultures, which may inevitably happen, will be grasped by those who will be threatened both by someone who does not look like they do, but does not think or value life in the same way as they do.

Implications

Prognosticating has within it a very Western assumption: that by the distillation of myriads of information, judgments on the future of increasing specificity can be accurately made. Within Western culture, we seek to understand the past more to profit in the future than to prevent disaster. An Eastern mind anticipates change and believes that little can be done to prevent that which is unpreventable. Having said this, I would simply contend it is a mistake to attempt and synthesize Dr. Nisbett’s book without reviewing the implications to those components of our world that his book touches on.

Political

What political issue is not completely divisive today? What poll does not show a country split down the middle on almost every issue? We seem to be living in two different worlds. Some would say it is the difference between “fly-over country” and the two coasts of the US. Others would say it is between the churched and un-churched. Some, whatever their pet issue, can divide the country like a hot knife through butter; it matters not what the issue is any longer. Is it because we are so split, or is it because we have lost our ability to come together and reason? Such a simple statement seems implausible; but I would contend we have much to learn from our Eastern brothers. “When confronted with two apparently contradictory propositions, Americans tended to polarize their beliefs whereas Chinese moved toward equal acceptance of the two propositions.” (pg. 192) Some would state that certain moral issues have no place in such a line of reasoning, and I would agree. But much could be gained were we to accommodate a political discussion that generated consensus and genuinely believed the other side was interested in doing the right thing.

Business

Any practicing businessman should be cautioned that the role of “the middle way” will vex him as long as he is unwilling to grasp that his Asian partners may not be able to be pinned down. Where he looks for specificity, they may assume informality is acceptable. To the American business mind this is incredibly difficult to grasp and may in fact be perceived as being untrustworthy. Such a perspective is complicated even further by the Asian view that relationships are personal and that professional associations are organic, and can change at a moment’s notice.

Social

To an observant westerner, his first trip to Asia will leave him with several impressions - most of which are perhaps cosmetically accurate, but lacking in any depth of understanding. One primary observation will be a severe resistance within the Asian culture of going against the mainstream. In most of western society, the role of the individual is clearly defined and expected. Amalgamations of characters and individuals are frowned on - nothing is so widely belittled as the communal view of life. To not exhibit strident individuality is to say something insidious about yourself; it is almost to say that you do not think enough of yourself to define your identity outside of your peers. Contrast this quest for individuality with the lives Eastern people live: “The goal for self in relation to society is not so much to establish superiority or uniqueness, but to achieve harmony within a network of supportive social relationships and to play one’s part in achieving collective ends.” Can you imagine transferring high school guidance counselors from Indianapolis and Shanghai?

The Eastern view on harmony within the group does require a certain selfless-ness; a willingness to look past “I” and see “we” also. Some scholars credit Augustine, a thinker of pronounced Greek heritage, with the first and clearest expression of “I”. His Confessions was written from a truly autobiographical perspective - something very uncommon in the ancient world. Plato and Socrates, in the Socratic definition of what composed the daimon (our sense of self), was still lacking what we moderns know as self-identity. Augustine’s writing seemed to liberate scholars to more freely embrace the discussion of social systems, means of governance and implications to religious belief systems from the collective to the individual. But such a development, such a fixation on the “I”, was not to be found in the Eastern mind. And to this day, perhaps the initial reaction of Westerners upon their first visit to an Asian culture reflects how disassociated we have become.

Theological

I enjoyed one quote from the beginning of Chapter 7 titled “‘Ce n’est pas logique’ Or ‘You’ve Got A Point There’?” Dr. Nisbett quotes an Asian literary critic named Lin Yutang: “The aim of the Chinese classical education has always been the cultivation of the reasonable man as the model of culture. An educated man should, above all, be a reasonable being, who is always characterized by his common sense, his love of moderation and restraint, and his hatred of abstract theories and logical extremes.” Within the following chapter, he shares insights into how Chinese and American students view allegory, specifically the use of proverbs with contradictions (paradox) within them. What I found fascinating was that he finds similarity between the Asian and Hebraic allegorical means of communicating truth: “Yiddish proverbs were fully as likely to embody contradictions as Chinese.” Such a statement is critical in understanding where a Western, very Greek mind, can go astray in a literal hermeneutic - a tool of Biblical interpretation that has served the Church badly for much too long. Where Greek thought demands a reduction of spiritual truth down to literal statements of fact, Eastern thought is comfortable telling the story and communicating general truth statements. The implications to theology are profound.

Can you imagine what would be forced upon theologians were they to accept tension in their systematic theologies? To be willing to accommodate mystery? Can we even imagine a world where theologians adopt a perspective that understands tension and supposed contradiction in the description of the unknowable - God? Read what Dr. Nisbett says about living with tension in the Asian culture: “The rejection of conclusions because they seem formally contradictory can be mistaken, because concepts are merely reflections of things and it can sometimes be more sensible to admit that an apparent contradiction exists than to insist that either one state of affairs or its opposite is the true one.” I was reminded of what the Apostle Paul said when he wrote “… now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (II Corinthians 13:12). To anyone who would argue that one way of reasoning is more likely to lead to spiritual truth, to knowing God personally, I would suggest they read pages 179-180, a wonderful insight into how spiritual truth can, and certainly must be, cross-cultural.

Nothing was more beautiful, poignant or pressing to me while reading this book that what Dr. Nisbett says on page 200: “…it has been claimed that Christianity is the only religion that finds it necessary to have a theology specifying essential aspects of God and that this insistence on categorization and abstraction is traceable to the Greeks.” How incredibly insightful! Were we to accept that we can not explain the unexplainable, what would it mean? I fear it shows our unwillingness to view the act of salvation, the Christian truths of grace, mercy and love in this life and not to a hope in the next. Where knowledge of God is given up, we are left with love for one another, not dry systematic theology.

Conclusion

One cautionary note in reading this: to fully grasp the importance and consequences of this book, I believe you have to adopt a perspective that is slightly more Eastern in its perspective. A Western mind would require that one of the two perspectives be “right” and the other be “wrong.” I do not believe this is a debate where such a statement of ultimate truth can be propositioned. In fact, I would contend that Dr. Nisbett has touched on a subject that will ultimately prove to be one of the shaping ideas in this century: the grand unifying theory of philosophy. In Physics, much work is going into the Grand Unifying Field Theory, also known as the Theory of Everything (TOE) - an attempt to unify quantum mechanics with general relativity. To do so, to achieve such unity, would supposedly compose a homogenous theory upon which all of the physical world could be understood and potentially governed. Dr. Nisbett is upon the trail of the TOE in philosophy: for centuries philosophy has suffered from the simple geographic and spatial limitations common to a people for whom the exchange of information is problematic, slow and incapable of supporting the speed with which the best of minds work. Now such problems have been eliminated. And so we proceed forward in the attempt to unite science and holistic medicine; justice and fairness; either-or logic with both-and organic inter-relationships. Is post-modernism, as a philosophy, nothing more than the unification of Western and Eastern minds? This is, I would contend, a powerful implication to Dr. Nisbett’s powerful book. Thank you for your work, your synthesis and your reasoning Dr. Nisbett!

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• April 1, 2004

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