{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_The_East_West_dichotomy_Chapter_11/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_The_East_West_dichotomy_Chapter_11","id":"wikisource_The_East_West_dichotomy_Chapter_11","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_East-West_dichotomy/Chapter_11","summary":null,"tags":["Headers_applying_DefaultSort_key","Subpages"],"text":"\u94b1\u5bbe\u56db wrote in his \u4e2d\u56fd\u601d\u60f3\u53f2(1991): \u201c\u4e2d\u56fd\u6587\u5316\u8fc7\u53bb\u6700\u4f1f\u5927\u7684\u8d21\u732e\uff0c\u5728\u4e8e\u5bf9\u2018\u5929\u2018\u2019\u4eba\u2018\u5173\u7cfb\u7684\u7814\u7a76\u201c. If you cannot understand what I just wrote that means you probably do not understand Chinese. It says: \u201cAmong all those past contributions of Chinese culture (to mankind), the study of the relation between \u2018heaven\u2019 and \u2018man\u2019 is the grandest\u201d (Qian, 1991/1998).\n\nWithout knowing Chinese, it is, I would argue, difficult to read, listen and understand the Chinese people. Sadly, not knowing Chinese is the rule among Western commentators on the East-West dichotomy: the political thinkers Montesquieu (1689-1755), and Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832); the great writers Denis Diderot (1713-1784) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832); the economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790); the anthropologist Claude L\u00e9vi-Strauss (1908-); and the three great \u2018fordmakers\u2019 in cultural studies Francis Bacon (1561-1626, he initiated the scientific revolution), Max Weber (1864-1920, he founded the modern study of sociology), and Karl Marx (1818-1883, the father of communism and dialectic materialism). Especially in philosophy, we have the - verifiably - gifted Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), Friedrich W. S. Schelling (1775-1854), Georg Wilhelm F. Hegel (1770-1831), Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), and Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) \u2013 all of them who wrote passionately on the Confucian or Buddhist canon, categorized the world\u2019s people, and judged upon their cultural modes.\n\nNow, of all the persons listed above, to my knowledge none of them had ever mastered Classical Chinese or Sanskrit, nor learned any other Asiatic language in a lifetime.\n\nBut then, why should they? The standard of Western knowledge is Western civilization and, recently, the English language, and against that standard all other cultures are measured and judged upon. The West, not man, it seems, is the measure of all things:\n\nThere is something unique here in Europe that is recognized in us by all other human groups, too, something that [\u2026] becomes a motive for them to Europeanize themselves even in their unbroken will to spiritual self-preservation, whereas we, if we understand ourselves properly, would never Indianize ourselves, for example. (Edmund Husserl, 1935)\n\nIt is clear to all Chinese that Western culture is the root of wealth, success, development and political survival \u2013 it is the essence of modernity.\n(Francesco Sisci, 2008)\n\nThis air of condescension is reflected in Western education systems. It is still perfectly conceivable, in the 21st century, to meet a German, French, Italian, American visiting scholar on the streets of Delhi or Shanghai, who has never heard about Rammohan Roy, Sri Autobindo, Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Si Maqian, Hu Shi, Liang Qichao, or Lu Xun. Outside Asia the situation is truly hopeless, with the average American Joe or European Kevin not being able to name a single living Chinese person.\n\nThe histories of China, Japan, and India were not even mentioned (before 2008) in the syllabus of Germany\u2019s compulsory secondary school curriculum. This void of general (Asian) knowledge extends to grand literature works such as The Journey to the West, Outlaws of the Marsh, the Puranas or the Ramayana.\n\nEven to this day, 9 out of 10 university professors of Chinese or Sanskrit/Hindi Studies in Europe are not able to write or communicate fluently in those languages, let alone to a level worthy of the highest intellectual standard, and even have to employ Chinese or Indian translators or assistants to help their \u2018white masters\u2019 carefully dissecting those foreign texts as if they were insects.\n\nAre Europeans really that ignorant? Of course, they are not. Far from it, in fact, they are really busy in all intellectual departments in keeping what they have, and maybe learning a bit more about finance, IT, and American popular culture. What they don\u2019t have is spare time and human resources to master Eastern cultures and languages.\n\nOnly so much time and energy can be devoted to the pursuit of knowledge of other cultures without other aspects of our own culture suffering. In 1964 Germany proudly produced 1,357,000 children; in 2006 it was a mere 676,000 \u2013 out of which 28-30% were of non-German nationality (destasis, 2006) Therefore, it will be an unachievable task for Germany to maintain its own culture, letting alone learning a lot more new things. Take the Swedish culture, a people of merely 8 millions (of whom 20% are foreigners, but this aside). In order to maintain Swedish history and knowledge, China could send a mere 0,5\u00a0% of its population to do the job. On the other hand if the entire Swedish population tried to maintain Chinese history and knowledge, they would not only discontinue the Swedish cause, but would also venture no further than to preserve a tiny 0,5\u00a0% of the Chinese civilization. It is therefore self-evident, which countries have greater capacity for cultural preservation.\n\nOf all the cultures that have disappeared from this world, to my knowledge, not a single farewell letter or suicide note has ever been unearthed. It must be a pain-less, gradual, almost unnoticed just process. Some of the Goths, the East Germanic tribes who disappeared slowly after the 6th century, must have felt that their cities had too many foreigners; that their daughters preferred to marry outsiders, that there sons had to learn a foreign language, that they consumed more and more goods that they themselves did not produce; that its few survivors suddenly felt the desire to belong to something greater than their own narrow turf.\n\nIn this 21st century of voyeurism and mass media though, we may want to hear and watch some cultures die. In drawing an analogy to Ms. K\u00fcbler-Ross\u2019s celebrated \u2018five stages of grief\u2019 (K\u00fcbler-Ross, 1969) \u2013 denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance - certain European nations could be considered no longer in \u2018denial\u2019 but are already experiencing the next stage of their looming exodus, that of \u2018anger\u2019.\n\nContrary to the Confucian laws of good manner or Indian tolerance and gentleness, Western media, especially the German, French and British ones \u2013 in the name of the European rest-monopoly on freedom, democracy and human-rights, \u2013 leave out no opportunity to shamelessly lecture China on human rights, degrade Islam, satirize India, wet-nurses the Persians (Iran), and make a mockery of all ambitions Russian \u2013 whatever floats the European boat.\n\nThis helplessness of a dying creed pointing fingers \u2013 I have not seen in India, China or the U.S.A. lately. On the contrary, these great and promising powers are optimistic and ambitious about their future. This is especially true in 2008 Olympic China, that has the world\u2019s attention: \u201c\u66f4\u9ad8, \u66f4\u5feb, \u66f4\u5f3a (Higher, faster, stronger, the Olympic Motto)\u201d. In 1978, Chairman Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997) proudly announced: \u201cTo get rich is glorious!\u201d. This has been the nitty-gritty of a 30-year period of unprecedented of wealth growth (>10% of GDP) in the history of humankind (Khanna, 2008; Kim, 2006). \u201cThey undergo compulsory Maoism courses but fantasize of little but money.\u201d (Aiyar, 2008). An American teacher in Beijing once wrote in her web-diary about Chinese students: \u201cThe think their country is doing so incredibly well and it can only get better\u2026 and they are always happy, happy, happy.\u201d They love their country, and they embrace life. They also have plenty and great problems, they know it, but they would \u2013 as all great powers do \u2013 rather continue to be great and engage with other great nations, and not to waste too much time with the negative, nagging and left-behind former great nations, and certainly not with some jealously barking \u2013 but politically irrelevant - European demagogues.\n\nThe European nation states\u2019 diminishing roles in world politics, their declining populations (Heinsohn, 2004), the brain drain (timeEurope, 2004/01), and their reluctance to learn from other cultures (Phelps, 2007), are all irreversible and accelerated year by the year. Even the hope for a suffering in fragmentary unity, I am talking about the hope for a \u2018United States of Europe\u2019 (Reid, 2004), proved short-sighted, when first a European constitution was ruled out, and finally a European Treaty was rejected twice in 2005 by France and the Netherlands, and in 2008 by Ireland. Furthermore, in case of a referendum in Britain, 89% of the public would fervently vote against the \u201cdamn Treaty\u201d (BBC, 2008/02). A great piece of advice will be needed to steer the European boat through these difficult times. I have one: \u201cNot to live in living is to endure. Not to die in dying is to live on\u201d (Kumarajiva, 2008).\n\nWhat then is the problem with Europe? Why don\u2019t they unify, become \u2018one\u2019? I will argue, that in 2500 years of its history, there has never been the concept of \u2018oneness\u2019, and \u2018harmoniousness\u2019 in the European collective mind. Goethe said: \u201cThere are two peaceful powers in this world: Right and Tact\u201d (Goethe, 1833). And Gu Hongming noticed: \u201c\u5e0c\u4f2f\u6765\u4eba\u7684\u6587\u660e\u5b97\u6559\u6559\u5bfc\u6b27\u6d32\u4eba\u6b63\u4e49\u7684\u77e5\u8bc6\uff0c\u4f46\u6ca1\u6709\u6559\u5bfc\u793c\u6cd5. (The Religion in the civilization of the Hebrew people taught the people in Europe the knowledge of Right, but it did not teach Tact (Gu, 1922). The Greeks knew about Tact and taught the Romans. The Romans tried to teach the Germanic tribes Tact and Right, but the Germanic tribes could only understand Right, not Tact. Thus, the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire (962-1806), from the King of the Franks Charlemagne (747-814) to Francis II (1768-1835), later Emperor of Austria, did not know how to rule tactfully, and their subjects did not know how to submit tactfully. About that same Empire, Voltaire used to muse \u201cit was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.\u201d For a start, despite the name, it did never include Rome. Then, look at all those divided territories, quarreling tribes and countless families that \u201clive scattered and apart, surrounding their dwellings with open space\u201d (Tacitus, 1996), the Franken, the Dutch, the Swiss, today\u2019s Czech, Flemish, Polish with no lingua franca, the opposition of Prussia and Austria, the Church. And what did the righteous Napoleon do? He did what he knew was Right, he ran them all over again, thereby diffused and divided the already fragmented; but Napoleon did not know how to unite, rule or teach them Tact either.\n\nThe Chinese, on the other hand, knew only little about Right, but a lot more about Tact. Laozi said:\n\n\u6545\u5927\u90a6\u4ee5\u4e0b\u5c0f\u90a6\uff0c\u5219\u53d6\u5c0f\u90a6\uff1b\u5c0f\u90a6\u4ee5\u4e0b\u5927\u90a6\uff0c\u5219\u53d6\u5927\u90a6\u3002\u6545\u6216\u4e0b\u4ee5\u53d6\uff0c\u6216\u4e0b\u800c\u53d6\u3002\u5927\u90a6\u4e0d\u8fc7\u6b32\u517c\u755c\u4eba\uff0c\u5c0f\u90a6\u4e0d\u8fc7\u6b32\u5165\u4e8b\u4eba\u3002\u592b\u4e24\u8005\u5404\u5f97\u6240\u6b32\uff0c\u5927\u8005\u5b9c\u4e3a\u4e0b.\nWhen a large country submits to a small country, it will adopt the small country. When a small country submits to a large country, it will be adopted by the large country. The one submits and adopts, the other submits and is adopted. It is in the interest of a large country to unite and gain service, and in the interest of a small country to unite and gain patronage. If both would serve their interests, both must submit. (Laozi, 61).\n\nThus, there is a tactful bond between the small states imitating the large: Submission is a means of union. If you ask any of the fragmented twenty-seven nation states of Europe today about their European Union, each of them wants to defend their individual Right, but none of them has Tact enough to submit to the greater cause.\n\nThe \u201cfragmentary view\u201d on the world has the greatest prominence in the deductive West, namely in the categorization of the people of the world and their regions, followed by a rigorous system of classification (Sen, 2006). Tibet is classified as Tibet, and its people as Tibetan, not part of China and the Chinese people (TheEconomist, 2007/02). The one-party political systems of Russia, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Iran, and China are outrageous human conditions, if not utterly revolting to the analytical Western intellect, and a security risk to Western hegemony (Barnett, 2004).\n\nWith regards to China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam etc. the mere thought about \u2018Asian values\u2019, their archaic and outmoded forms of politeness, filial piety, rotten-spoiled \u2018little emperors\u2019, submissive doll-like women, shyness in adult men, rote-learning, collectivism, the tendency for authoritarian rule etc.\u2026 all this exerts a specific revulsion in the Western psyche. This revulsion is so pervasive and continuous in manner that I do not dare to speak out the irreversible and dangerous course of history that is looming over Asian civilization in case Europe cannot find itself at peace with the new, Asian-dominated world-order. During the Cold War, the socialist Guy Mollet is believed to have said:\n\nThe Communists are not of the left but of the East.\n(Guy Mollet, 1905-1975)\n\nThat statement is based on facts. Far into the 1970\u2019s, no communist party in Western Europe or the United States held any considerable mandates. Apart from France, Italy, and of course Finland, communism was virtually absent in Western politics, except, of course, as the bogeyman. I cannot discuss the reasons here why collectivism, authoritarian rule, the spiritualization of materialism, socialism and totalitarian concepts so easily caught fire in the East, and why Stalin, Mao, Kim Yong-Il, and, yes, Hitler too, are still considered \u2018great leaders\u2019 among Asian nationals and admirers. They will probably always be. What I will discuss, on the other hand, is how history is now repeating itself.\n\nThe \u2018sell off\u2019 that took place in Western Europe with regard to communism as an ugly Eastern proposition, that same \u2018sell off\u2019 is now taking place in Western Europe and the United States with regard to \u2018harmoniousness\u2019 as an ugly Eastern proposition. Someone might want to go as far as to say:\n\u201cThe \u2018harmonizers\u2019 are not of the liberal-democrats but of the East\u201d.\n\nThis is what Amartya Kumar Sen, the 1998 Nobel Laureate in Economics, has to say about the two civilization modes and their views:\n\nThere are two ways of thinking of the history of civilization in the world. One is to pursue the story in an inclusive form, paying attention to the divisions as well as the interdependence involved, possibly varying over time, between the manifestations of civilization in different parts of the world. This I shall call the \u2018inclusive approach\u2019.\nThe other, which I shall call the \u2018fragmentary approach\u2019, segregates the beliefs and practices of different regions separately, paying attention to the interdependences between them as an after thought (when any attention is paid to them at all). (Amartya Kumar Sen, 2006)\n\nThe two ways of thinking in the history of civilizations are reflected in humankind\u2019s approach towards \u2018communism\u2019 and now towards \u2018harmoniousness\u2019. The East is pursuing the story in an inclusive form; the West segregates the beliefs of different regions separately. The West does not identify itself with the \u201cinclusive approach\u201d and right now is ejecting the \u2018harmonizers\u2019, like the \u2018communists\u2019 before them, out of the Western ideological hemisphere.\n\nIndeed, after all the recent pre-emptive strikes on terrorists and failed states, the irreversible process of \u2018westernization\u2019 and \u2018globalization\u2019, the tiresome break with each and every civic code of mutual respect and non-interference in any nation\u2019s internal affairs, and the desire to conquer nature and, if necessary, the traditional people and tribes that made a pact with nature \u2013 how can we not say that the deductive West is rejecting thoroughly, entirely the inductive Eastern notion of \u2018harmoniousness\u2019?\n\nWith those statements above like \u201cthe West is rejecting \u2018harmoniousness\u2019\u201d, it seems we are committing another simple generalization. Yet, like with all abstracts that seem simple \u2013 they are actually very complex: If we study the histories of the inductive East and the deductive West, and if we understand that the one went down the integration-based path while the other the analytical-based path, we will come to understand that \u2018harmoniousness\u2019, just like any other mental concept like \u2018democracy\u2019, must be understood in the \u201crespective Western context\u201d or in the \u201crespective Eastern context\u201d.\n\nThe abstract concepts of \u2018harmoniousness\u2019 or \u2018democracy\u2019 behave non-relative precisely in their \u201crespective Western context\u201d and in their \u201crespective Eastern context\u201d, and behave relative only by themselves. Here I will give an example about the \u2018Golden Rule\u2019 in ethics, also called the \u2018ethic of reciprocity\u2019, which is supposedly at the root of the Western position on human rights. In Luke 6;27-31 Jesus said: \u201cDo for others just what you want them to do for you. If you really do that, you may just find that your enemy will become your friend.\u201d The Golden Rule from The Bible is unambiguous, I think, about its intention: make enemies friends (what happens if applied to friends, will they become enemies?) for one\u2019s own personal advantage.\n\nAnother use of the Golden Rule from The Bible is to warn someone about the pain and punishment that comes along with breaking the Golden Rule, because once you break the Rule, you cannot rule out that someone else is breaking it on you. After all, who wants to be murdered, beaten, crucified? Despite all the individualist, almost selfish touch of the biblical Golden Rule, it is among the closest example of \u2018harmoniousness\u2019 in \u201cthe respective Western\u201d context, and according to its moral implications, all Western nations have encouraged their societies to promote the development of individuality by laws and variable decrees of punishment that will ensure your punishment if another individual was harmed by you. This could be called the Western \u2018fragmentary approach\u2019 to the Golden Rule.\n\nNow we will look at the Eastern \u2018inclusive approach\u2019 to the Golden Rule. Confucius formulated his \u2018doctrine of reciprocity\u2019 roughly 500 years before Jesus did: \u201c\u5df1\u6240\u4e0d\u6b32\uff0c\u52ff\u65bd\u4e8e\u4eba\uff0c\u5728\u90a6\u65e0\u6028\uff0c\u5728\u5bb6\u65e0\u6028\u201d (Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. In the state there will be no complaints, in the family there will be no complaints) (Confucius, Lun Yu, 12;2). This Golden Rule of Confucius is at the core of \u2018harmoniousness\u2019 in the East, and according to its moral implications, all East-Asian nations have encouraged their societies to promote the cultivation of oneself as an integrated member of the collective with various decrees of filial piety that will ensure \u2018shame and loss of face\u2019 if the collective is harmed.\n\nFew people in China fear the punishment for one\u2019s misbehavior. What is feared most is the \u2018loss of face\u2019, the \u2018feedback from the collective\u2019, the \u2018wrath of one\u2019s family\u2019, one\u2019s \u2018father\u2019s judgment\u2019, and, yes, sometimes the Party official\u2019s patronizing, if not infantilizing, words \u201cThis disgraceful \u2018child\u2019 now prefers to feel ashamed\u201d. When Zi Gong [\u5b50\u8d21] asked the Master: \u201cIs there one word that can serve as a principle of conduct for life?\u201d, Confucius replied: \u201cIt is the word \u2018shu (\u6055)\u2019 \u2013 reciprocity\u201d (Confucius, Lun Yu, 15;23)\n\nAs an interim result, let us say that this simple Golden Rule: \u201cDo not onto others what you do not like yourself\u201d is implemented in the West by laws and punishment, and in the East by morals and sense of shame:\n\n\u9053\u4e4b\u4ee5\u653f\uff0c\u9f50\u4e4b\u4ee5\u5211\uff0c\u6c11\u514d\u800c\u65e0\u803b\uff0c\u9053\u4e4b\u4ee5\u5fb7\uff0c\u6709\u803b\u4e14\u683c\u3002\n\nIf the people are governed by laws and punishment is used to maintain\norder, they will try to avoid the punishment but have no sense of shame.\nIf they are governed by the virtue and rules of propriety [ritual] are used\nto maintain order, they will have a sense of shame and will become good\n\nas well. (Confucius, Lun Yu 2;3)\n\nNext, let us assume that neither Jesus Christ nor Confucius is the voice of God, but the proposition they wanted to talk across really was intended to be universal. What difference would it make? We would still have to read the Bible or The Analects to make sense of the real world. The human mind needs context. Bottom line. In the Western context, \u2018harmoniousness\u2019 is more Christianity-inflected while in the East context, \u2018harmoniousness\u2019 is more Confucian-inflected. This is an example of what is meant by understanding \u2018harmoniousness\u2019 in the \u201crespective Western context\u201d and in the \u201crespective Eastern context\u201d.\n\nIn the same way, other concepts should be understood \u201cin the European\u201d or \u201cin the Asian context\u201d before someone rushes into any international conclusion, be it on human rights, political reform, economic theories, or euthanasia.\n\nReturning from the excursion about the proper way to discuss Eastern and Western ideas about seemingly the \u2018same\u2019 concept, let us know continue with the latest trend in the world. As I said before, communist theory, although to a large extent Western co-manufactured by Marx and Lenin, was almost fundamentally \u2018ejected\u2019 from the Western hemisphere thereafter, giving the East considerable amount of time and freedom to experiment and develop its theories further. After communism was \u2018ejected\u2019, and after the demise of the U.S.S.R. in 1991, that same process of \u2018ejection\u2019 is now taking place with \u2018harmoniousness\u2019, and all ideas about tolerance that go with it.\n\nThe West, despite all its patronization and sympathy for Asia, is fundamentally rejecting the Asian \u201cinclusive approach\u201d right from under our very eyes. The more of Asia is insisting on the universal of \u2018oneness\u2019, \u2018balance\u2019, \u2018harmony\u2019, or \u2018integration\u2019: \u201cOur goal is a harmonious world!\u201d the more those theories become hers, and hers alone. The West will not waste its energies on anything that is inner-world dependent and all-inclusive, only what the West discovered by breaking the all-inclusive into the parts will make sense to him. This will be the consequence of the deductive Western \u201cfragmentary approach\u201d.\n\nNot that the U.S.A. or European nations do not have there own ideas about harmoniousness, far from it, they have various, often fragmentary, even conflicting ideas about it. They always have. After the \u2018ejection\u2019 of communism from the Western hemisphere, in the case of dialectical materialism, all major parties of Western capitalistic democracies quickly found their own ways to attend to and satisfy its people and to curb production and the accumulation of material wealth, and it all happened without turning human beings into submissive production units with no human rights. Today, Germany and France are arguably more socialist than socialist China ever will be.\n\nIn the case of universal \u2018harmoniousness\u2019, the major parties in deductive Western democracies already have found their own ways to attend to the people\u2019s need for ever more \u2018international flights\u2019, \u2018foreign currencies\u2019, \u2018world trade\u2019, \u2018exchange\u2019, \u2018cooperation\u2019, and \u2018tolerance\u2019, all well covered and served in Western terminology such as \u2018globalism\u2019, \u2018multiculturalism\u2019, \u2018cultural diversity\u2019, \u2018democracy\u2019, \u2018human rights\u2019 etc., and therefore need not having any Asian alternative to make their own citizen happy.\n\nAs a consequence, in a Western dominated world no one could care less about \u201cequilibrium is the great foundation of the world, and harmony is its path\u201c (Zi Si, Zhong Yong, 1), \u201cthe function of rites (\u2018li\u2019) lies in harmoniousness\u201d (Confucius, Lun Yu 1;12), or \u201cto live with a culture is to understand that culture\u201d (Laozi, 54). It is indeed very difficult to conceive that today\u2019s Obama, Sarkozy, Brown or Merkel would favor \u2018oneness\u2019 over \u2018westernization\u2019; most unlikely candidate of it all: the Chinese dream of \u2018tianxia\u2019 (\u5929\u4e0b, All under heaven). Bottom line. There is no need for China\u2019s outmoded senses of tolerance, kindness, gracefulness, Japan\u2019s \u2018universal emptiness\u2019, Indian ancient senses of \u2018universal equality\u2019, \u2018universal tolerance\u2019 or indeed any other spiritual idea, no matter how many hundreds of years those great sages spoke prior to Jesus Christ, Bill Gates, or Harry Potter.\n\nBillions of Asian hearts will have puffed with pride on hearing that their countries were joining the United Nations (UN), the World Trade Organization (WTO,) another international conference, all in the name of \u2018globalism\u2019 that so much resembles the pursue of \u2018interconnectness\u2019, \u2018oneness\u2019, \u2018balance\u2019 or \u2018harmoniousness\u2019 and the Eastern need for \u2018self-cultivation\u2019 that has been at the root of all traditional Eastern societies from the beginning of time. Western science, technology transfer and materialism seem like a freebie or giveaway if only the West comes along and acknowledges your cultural values and your civilization\u2019s achievements. Therein lies the rub: Except for a tiny number of experts, hardly any Westerner has ever learned the Eastern origin story of tolerance as for the example in the Book of History (\u4e66\u7ecf, c. 600-300 BC), the Tipitaka (or Pali Canon, c. 500-400 BC), has heard about the great hero Fu Xi (\u4f0f\u7fb2, legendary ruler and fordmaker of the Book of Changes or I Ching [\u6613\u7ecf] in 2800-2737 BC), or the Hindu/Jain traditions of \u2018Anekantavada\u2019 (meaning \u2018Non-one-endedness\u2019, a philosophy of universal tolerance), \u2018Syadvada\u2019 (a philosophical tradition of subjectivity and relativity in discourses) and so on:\n\nHow can someone appreciate someone else\u2019s cultural values if he does not know their content, language or their origin? The answer is, no one can; and the West will not appreciate Eastern spirituality. Was it not Thomas S. Kuhn, the great American scientist, who said that \"rival paradigms are incommensurable\" (Kuhn, 1970)? Incommensurability means that although it is always possible to imitate each other, albeit it is almost impossible to understand a Chinese paradigm through let us say the conceptual framework and terminology of the European looking-glass, and vice versa. Of course, the inductive East and the deductive West keep trying: \u201cNow that 30 million Chinese study piano and another 10 million study violin, Western classical music well may have become the dominant form of transcendental experience for Asians even while Western neuroscientists dabble in what they think is Buddhism\u201d (aTimes, 2008/07).\n\nLuckily - or rather unluckily, depending one\u2019s point of view - there are appearances. Appearances can make happy, indeed. What appears to the integration-based Eastern nations as a continuation of their own traditional search for \u2018oneness\u2019 and \u2018harmoniousness\u2019, that same process appears to the Europeans and Americans as the ingenious, creative deconstruction of the East, the processes of total \u2018westernization\u2019. Regardless of the looming dangers if things do not work out as expected\u2026 can there be anything done about this terrible cultural misunderstanding?\n\nThe psychological conundrum for Asia is that due to its induction-based views on the world, it does not perceive those European countries as isolated and self-sufficient, but rather as integrated and dependent part of humankind, and thus - out of need for universal tolerance and harmony \u2013 readily believes them; at least will always consider Western views. The West, however, is different. Apart from a few premises that it chose to work with at any specific time, the West usually does not consider other countries\u2019 noises and fusses. It does not take into account all the facts, the history, the \u201crespective Eastern context\u201d, the whole picture, but isolates each time a few propositions and draws its conclusions accordingly. Its deductive method is precise and sharp as a surgeon\u2019s knife. When the German spokesman of German National TV, ZDF (Zweite Deutsche Fernsehen) came to Shanghai in 2008 and hold a talk on \u2018Journalism governed by public law\u2019, he embarrassed his host, the Tongji University of Shanghai (and in my view a lot more audiences), by laying down some abstract German premises about \u2018press-freedom\u2019 and \u2018human-rights\u2019 and than drawing his German conclusion about what any rational man should consider is \u2018good journalism\u2019, following a top-to-down deductive-style hell of an argument, like a surgeon that came and undertook a liver-transplantation. There is no option of using chopsticks for a liver-transplantation, you see. There can be no mistake about what a liver is. And about where it is. All the parameters are highly scientific and precise. We know what a good operation looks like, and we know what follows if all the premises are true: the patient walks out of the hospital. When a Chinese professor in broken German language informed the audiences firstly that reality is more complex and complicated, that the Chinese position has to be taken into account, and secondly that in particular German media-coverage on the Tibet-incidents was biased, often untrue, and that is also used Nazi-terminology such as \u2018Jubelchinesen\u2019 (Chinese volunteers who simulate spontaneous joy and cheerfulness) for media-coverage on the Chinese Olympic torch-relay, the German lecturer replied in disbelief: \u201cNun seien Sie mal nicht so weinerlich!\u201d meaning \u201cCome on, don\u2019t be such a whiner!\u201d.","title":"The East-West dichotomy/Chapter 11","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":4543}