![A Tahrir Moment on Wall Street [Portuguese]](http://www.adbusters.org/files/magazine/teaser/flag_portuguese_guardian.png?1317158969 "A Tahrir Moment on Wall Street [Portuguese]")
A plainclothes cop walks into a diner and finds no less than five gun-wielding criminals holding up the crowded joint. “We’re not just going to let you walk out of here,” the cop says. “Who’s we, sucka?” says one of the criminals. “Smith and Wesson and me,” says the cop. He draws his Smith & Wesson and – in a crowded diner – shoots four of the criminals and advances on the last gunman, who’s holding a pistol to a hostage’s head. One itchy trigger finger and the hostage could be dead. The cop glares at the criminal. “Go ahead, make my day.” The cop is “Dirty Harry” Callahan, but really he could be any Hollywood hero. The movie is Sudden Impact, but really it could be any movie or book or manifestation of Western culture.
With a few modern updates, Western culture has been re-creating the same story over and over again since Homer collected The Odyssey more than two and a half thousand years ago. Since the Greeks, the ideal of the unique and strong individual has become so prevalent in Western culture that we have stopped realizing that it is even part of our culture. Often we mistake our perceptions of the world for how the world really is.
Psychologists have long known that North Americans overestimate their own distinctiveness, especially in comparison with East Asians. When asked to describe themselves, Americans and Canadians tend to talk about their individual personality and personal outlook more than Japanese do. North Americans tend to settle arguments in terms of right and wrong, whereas East Asians tend to seek compromises. Dirty Harry is an extreme and violent example, but he is emblematic of Western culture and he sums up our single-minded, goal-oriented behavior with aplomb. “When I see an adult male chasing a female with the intent to commit rape, I shoot the bastard. That’s my policy.”
New research shows that culture even affects our cognition. A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology claims that Americans and Japanese intuit the emotions of others differently based on cultural training. “North Americans try to identify the single important thing that is key to making a decision,” explains Dr. Takahiko Masuda, the study’s author, over the phone from his office at the University of Alberta. “In East Asia they really care about the context.” He studied the eye movement of Americans and Japanese when analyzing a picture of a group of cartoon people. When asked to interpret the emotion of the person in the center, the Japanese looked at the person for about one second before moving on to the people in the background. They needed to know how the group was feeling before understanding the emotion of the individual. The Americans (and Canadians in subsequent studies) focused 95% of their attention on the person in the center. Only 5% of their attention was focused on the background, and this, Dr. Masuda points out, didn’t influence their interpretation of the central figure’s emotion. For North Americans the foreground is all-important.
Dr. Masuda is quick to point out that Americans and Japanese are physiologically the same. The difference in eye movement is tied to the roots of our respective cultures. When trying to explain the natural world, the Ancient Greeks – the founders of Western civilization – tended to focus on central objects and sought to explain their rules of behavior. Funnily enough, Aristotle thought a rock had the property of “gravity.” It didn’t occur to him that a system was working its powers on the rock. The Chinese on the other hand took a more holistic approach. They believed that everything occurred within a context, or a field of forces, and thus they unraveled the relationship between the moon and the tides.
These differences in philosophy can be explained, at least in part, by the environments that spawned them. “We are surrounded by socially created information, which affects our perception,” Masuda explains. And perception affects our culture. Research shows that North American cities are less cluttered than East Asian cities, which means that North Americans can spend more time considering salient objects. When Americans or Canadians visit East Asia, they are often overwhelmed by the amount of information they have to process. I have experienced this phenomenon personally. The first time I bused from Incheon Airport into Seoul, South Korea, I was dumbfounded by the number of buildings, advertisements, lights, cars and people and had to turn away from the window to stop my head from spinning. Dr. Masuda first arrived in North America when he was 26. Compared to Japan, which was crowded with people and objects and “complex pieces of information,” he felt North American cities to be lonely places.
Masuda stresses that no way of perceiving the world is better than another and refuses to interpret his studies too broadly. He has yet to conduct his tests in Africa or South America. But it seems to me that Masuda’s study is important: It reminds us that there is more than one way of seeing the world.
North Americans have a tendency toward isolating singular goals and working doggedly towards them. And we have achieved some remarkable accomplishments. We put a man on the moon, invented the telephone and the airplane and achieved a thousand more seemingly impossible tasks. We congratulate ourselves on our individualism in our movies, our art, our personal relationships and, of course, our politics. But as we do so, we perpetuate this trait – perception informs culture, culture informs perception – until we mistake the way we see the world for the only way to see the world.
As alluring as the Dirty Harry approach may be, is it time to put away our Smith & Wesson and start considering the other customers in the diner? The problems we face today – the environmental degradation of our planet, global recession, religious fundamentalism – don’t fit inside borders or simple categories. Context is unavoidable. We need to start looking for it.
Although this is an
Although this is an incredibly interesting study, I do agree with how this plays up Eastern Asian philosophy. However, Eastern Asian philosophy in itself has a lot of merit, so I think it is important to approach this from an anthropological or sociological perspective. When I looked at the initial images, I also noticed those in the background rather than the foreground. Although I have lived in America for most of my life, I was born in Singapore in the 1980s, when Singapore was still undergoing extensive development. We still had holes in the grounds for toilets and chewing gum was illegal, but the country itself was on the rise.
I moved to America when I was 4 years old, but I grew up in an area where I was forced to be perceptive of my environment because there was a lot of violence going on in my immediate surroundings. There was a drive-by shooting in my neighborhood and I was first offered drugs at age 7. With all that being said, I think the point is that cultural perception is not a matter of East and West. It is a matter of even smaller contextual issues. There are some places in the West were you have to be keenly aware if you have left money sitting out in your car, if you locked your front door, or if there is someone following you back to your house. I've lived in the urban American city more than once in my life and I have seen how perceptive city life forces people to be.
Also, I agree with the sentiments expressed by another individual above who claimed that the urban centers of East Asian cities are different from the rural areas. Cities themselves pose different ecological limitations upon an individual's psyche and it's important to keep that in mind. This study may attest to how modern city life in the East and the West are thought of differently, but there are perceptive individuals in Western culture just as there are perceptive individuals in Eastern culture.
I think that it is truly a matter of ecological orientation. If you are living in a city, you are forced to be more aware of your surroundings, especially if you've been mugged or harmed by another person. If you live in an insular area of a city, then you may not be as aware of your surroundings based on your own experiences.
2005 :
2005 : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4173956.stm
When I saw the picture, I saw
When I saw the picture, I saw the guy smiling but my focus went right away to the background. I spent 2 minutes trying to understand why they were so sad. I tried to look for sadness in the smiling guy or for happiness in the sad people in the background. Anita, from San francisco
I can't go on a date in Korea
I can't go on a date in Korea without going out with the girl's entire cadre of friends. It's interesting when it's not frustrating.
I'm a rather avid reader of post-colonial literature, so this type of article tickles my intellectual fancy. I'm also an American student in Seoul - so I often get that feeling of ideological conflict. I've had to alter my attitude quite a bit regarding social propriety, problem solving, and social relations since coming here.
With that said, I'd like to note that the above comment by "History Punk" is somewhat inaccurate. I think there's no doubt that S.E. Asia has become modernized, but this is a relative and often misleading term. S.E. Asia, particularly countries like Korea, are highly undoubtedly modernized come economic development, urban and technological expansion, and the distribution of wealth. However, this doesn't ineluctably lead to a total transformation of culture. Individualism is still largely frowned upon. Collectivism and traditionalism still pull mightily at the social psyche. A deference to one's "seniors" is still, by and large, strictly followed. There is an immensely strong emphasis on filial piety, and a habit of sharing everything, including the somewhat unhealthy habit of sharing food (although I've grown used to it, even if it's made me sick a few times). I know these a just a few surface level examples, but, trust me, there are plenty more.
I must note though that even in the short few years that I have been here, I've noticed quite significant changes in attitudes and cultural norms - if not total changes, then at least deviating patterns. Without getting too complex or elaborate, anyone who spends a significant amount of time in Asia notices first hand the influence of Western culture and ideas - I think of Gramsci's "Cultural Hegemony." The effect is an alteration in 'individual' attitude. There are benefits and downfalls to this, of which I don't care to divulge at the moment.
Personally I believe that it's inaccurate to try and parse "culture" into two competing categories - i.e. East-West. I've read too much Derrida and seen more than my fare share of cultural hybridity to believe too strongly in such distinctions. Doing so sets up the volatile East-West dichotomy. The solution is looking at culture (and ideology for that matter) as a living, breathing, ubiquitous and unclassifiable force. There is no pure "Western" or "Eastern" culture now - if there ever was. Now, in our hot, crowded and flat world, we are always connected, always sharing. The goal is to find the right balance that is suitable to the prevailing "norms of behavior" for a particular group of people while maintaining its openness to new ideas and constant evolution. That is what culture is about. Unfortunate, it cannot do without power(knowledge) and all its accompanying ills.
I would recommend the work of
I would recommend the work of the following experts who have spent considerable effort in studying cross cultural attitudes.
1. Frans Trompenaar and Hampden-Turner.
http://www.amazon.com/Riding-Waves-Culture-Understanding-Diversity/dp/07...
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2. Geert Hofstede.
http://www.amazon.com/Cultures-Consequences-Comparing-Institutions-Organ...
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3. Richard E. Nisbett
http://www.amazon.com/Geography-Thought-Asians-Westerners-Differently/dp...
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Interesting, but
Interesting, but overwrought.
There are stereotypes here of teeming Asia. Rural Asia, in large part, does not fit the stereotype of the cities. Conversely, to this Australian's eyes, many Nth American cities are relentless.
Nor is there a single Western way: the French for instance have an aesthetic that the deregulated consumer capitalism of the US, and much of England and Australia, lack.
While New Research Shows that
While New Research Shows that Culture Affects our Cognition, Common Knowledge Shows that Lack of an Education Affects an Individual's Cogitation
"When trying to explain the natural world, the Ancient Greeks – the founders of Western civilization – tended to focus on central objects and sought to explain their rules of behavior. Funnily enough, Aristotle thought a rock had the property of “gravity.” It didn’t occur to him that a system was working its powers on the rock. The Chinese on the other hand took a more holistic approach. They believed that everything occurred within a context, or a field of forces, and thus they unraveled the relationship between the moon and the tides."
Ugh? Right. Of course the Ancient Greeks believed Earth to be flat (a disk), they had no idea of the distance between Earth and the moon and things related (such as tides), et cetera. In other words: reading up on your Classics, e.g. the Eleatics, might help you avoid sputtering utter nonsense and making a fool of your self (space intended).
i think Mr. Masuda designed
i think Mr. Masuda designed an interesting study (and I think the commenter above that noticed the 'white guy' in front needs to check his assumptions, as this picture may or may not have been one that was used in the study), and i applaud his refusal to 'interpret his studies too broadly'.
i also think that the article was great while reporting on the study, but feel that the comments in the last two paragraphs (as well as the subtitle "is your brain east or west") constitute conclusions reached through exactly the same kind of thinking that Dirty Harry used: If it's broke, kill (change) it. i further suspect that using the same kind of thinking that got you into a mess ain't gonna get you out of it.
as someone wise once said, 'every complex system is perfectly designed to produce the results it is currently producing, and any intervention in such a system will just as inevitably create unintended consequences rather than improving results'.
my thought is that we should probably work on understanding the connection between our society / culture, our thinking, and our 'results' a bit more before assuming that what is needed is an attitude adjustment...
this article ties in very
this article ties in very well with the documentary I saw by Adam Curtis called "The Trap" they have to promote the self over the group because it's easier for the government to control us. To fulfill our potential as effective productive beings means that we participate in the logic of the machinistic view of the human which is more predictable to assess and measure. What is scary is that this democratic individuality that proclaims real freedom it's in a way the opposite... it's an oppressive way of living like taking pills for example to cure the so called 'illness' of depression for being disenchanted with meaningless boring tasks that we are called to do. More choices lead to more anxieties and these so called freedoms are just that a trap of mindless consumption and destruction of our world.
Does anyone else see the
Does anyone else see the testing flaw in this experiment. Ill give you a hint. It is a known fact that human seek out those which they can identify. Have a white american check this picture out and right smack in the middle there is a white guy staring right back. Let an asian and there seems to be every race but them. back to the drawing board Masuda.
the black guy you see in the
the black guy you see in the two images its half korean... his mother ya know.
The article is very
The article is very interesting as ever, i do see a push and pull though. Every so often someone breaks out of the constrictions of the group ultimately to change it, and often for the better. We are never fully individuals though, and the cult of individualism, particularly in the US, seems very naive and childish (informed as it is by fictional figures such as John Wayne).
In the east they do have their own problems with the constricts of conformity, many young people no longer happy to become some assimilated salary man, its just a question of whether the alternatives are simply media generated phantoms and icons and ultimately we are all dependant on some all consuming Moloch (that ultimately will screw us all) just in order to survive another day.
Excellent article! Haters
Excellent article! Haters (i.e. failed writers) be damned.
What is your favourite part
What is your favourite part about this excellent article?
Orientalism hidden in
Orientalism hidden in pseudo-scientific conclusions and quotes from experts. Sorry, this is just regurgitation of fantasies about the "wisdom of the East." Critiquing and commenting upon your own ideology by projecting the ideal on the Other, but pop-science and good intentions doesn't make this any different from our Victorian forebears.
Saying that black people are good at sports isn't racist because it sounds positive, right?
I'd love to see Adbusters do a review of Avatar.
Couldn't have been stated any
Couldn't have been stated any better. Thank you.
Turns out rugged
Turns out rugged individualism worked out damn well for all the old democracies, the US, Canada, Britain, Australia. Freeing the individual is what is best for the whole. We are our most creative, honest, and natural. Look at world trends and it is clear that it is the western society that is being adopted. Style and fashion are becomming prominent around the world (basic way of displaying individuality), migration trends towards the west not away form it. Western products, science, and knowledge spreads more and more. Why is it when we live on the hotbed of progression there are so many willing to dismiss our triumph.
because, to answer your
because, to answer your question, hubris is the inevitable result of announcing victory prior to enough evidence. the spread of an idea is not the measure of its worth, especially if the spread is connected to a military history that makes such sociological/cultural value judgments impossible.
what exactly is it that you think individuals should be freed from? Because when we cut off or relationship with one form of dependency we inevitably create another. in the words of a great philosopher 'freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.' and many, under this progressive form of westernism are coming close to having nothing left to lose, and would prefer a sense of community over corporate freedom. and eastern forms of community are probably not the answer either, because, both the east and the west are illusory ideas, each with its own cultural products...if one was truly liberating, then you would not need a military to protect it.
the above point of view is
the above point of view is totally irrelevant
what's relevant is morals
morals is basically who you choose to identify yourself with
you cannot identify yourself with humanity, that's nonsense
you identify yourself with the group you belong to
the group you will look to in times of war
whether that group is based upon culture, socioeconomic standing or simply: race... racism is natural.. we look to our own kind in times of war
individualism goes against morals, individualism goes against community and creates alienation...
an alienated individual will seek to identify him- /herself with things instead of people, ultimately people become things, i.e. prostitution - here we have it : the perfect consumer
feel free to censure those words which you find dangerous
"you cannot identify yourself
"you cannot identify yourself with humanity, that's nonsense."
You got that right Merchant, it is nonsense. In fact, the above sentence is one of the better contradictions I've come across from a decidedly ignorant mind.
That being said, are you a homo sapien sapien? (NOTE THE SAPIEN SAPIEN)
Because if there is one thing a homo sapien sapien should be able to identify with, it's the fact that it's conscious. Meaning that it's future is decided by its understanding, which it forms from its perception of the past and present. THINKING, PERCEIVING, and CREATING (evolving for our species...do morals allow for that theory?) are what separated the homo sapien sapien's from the neanderthals. Homo sapien sapien's come in all pigments and variations, like any smart evolving species knows to - variety is key to adaptation! It's what took hu(man) beings from beasts in the wilderness to people in societies. THEREFORE, if there is one thing that an INDIVIDUAL can IDENTIFY WITH it is MOST DEFINITELY their HU(MAN)ITY. If an individual can't identify with the fact that they are hu(man), they usually commit suicide....or turn into animals.
In Merchant terms, racism is f*cking stupid.
Yes, our greeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaattttttttt ancestors needed it because their sphere of understanding was the size of their village. But today, in 2010, we have things like the internets to EXPAND our KNOWLEDGE of THE THINGS WE DON'T KNOW in an ACCELERATED fashion. Not to mention "white" people are only 10% of the population, and darker /pigments/ mix, so our species legacy is evolutionarily destined to be a species of "mutts." (Or we can start that whole cave person thing over...any volunteers? Merchant?)
After all the BS you just wrote up there, you then have the audacity to call yourself a Merchant of "the World." By your own confession you've clearly only identified with a minority, so stop speaking for everyone. You're not my bloody merchant, dunce.
SAY WHAT!?
SAY WHAT!?
great article! (finally) I
great article! (finally)
I would recomend Adam Curtis's BBC Documentary 'The Century of The Self' for a more geopolitical look at this topic. It is also a theme in his other work, though the comparison isn't Asian, merely the individualism of America/"West."
This article is weak,
This article is weak, next.......
:Changing Topics:
So to answer your question adbusters "What Do You See?"
I just watched one of the best Documentary series, it was quite interesting and provocative
500 Nations
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111868/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/500_Nations
I think you guys should write something about this next! What we can learn from the genocides of the americas.
Wow, Kevin Costner! He isn't
Wow, Kevin Costner! He isn't exactly an NDN hero. He made 'Dances with Wolves' after all. That Hollywood Oscar Winner preports to be pro-native but actually perpetuates all the same Noble Savage stereotypes that movies always do. As a side note, the new movie Avatar is a rehashing of the same paternalistic colonialism of Dances with Wolves.
So how is 500 nations provocative? Is it about guilt and disappearing lost utopia or is it better than that?
For more information on the problems of the Noble Savage myth see Gerald Vizenor's writing on PostIndians. Also The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative by Thomas King is an excellent Massey Lecture series that takes on some of these topics.
I would be really interested if Masuda would study the perceptions of NDNs vs 'white' North Americans because I have a hunch the cult of the self is going to be apparent there too in contrast to an indigenous family based community perspective.
I was listening to a Feist interview last night and she made a really interesting comment about how her upbringing was not very musical but her Grandmother was an excellent singer. Her comment was that to her Grandmother's 1930s generation singing was just music you shared with people and not the big "church of the self" as it is for us now --- with nearly all musicians making a brand identity of their self to sell the music.
u think this article is weak
u think this article is weak yet u want another article about feelings of self importance and denial of the emotional context ? seems like u walked into this articles trap buddy bud.
if this is the provocation that kevin costner (the movie star) whilst one the one hand exploiting the american ideal of yeehaws and on the other educating the heavier browed moves u to, well, i think you could learn a lot from guys writing about something. yes come on guys who write, what possibly could we learn from the genocides? are the genocides good or not, are they even relevant to today? how many genocides is too many? where do the genocides live? how many albums did they have? do they drink cider?
Simply Sharing for
Simply Sharing for everyone...
Watch it for yourself its a very interesting time-line of the French, Spanish and British Colonization of the world during those times...
No need for the hostility, I think we can all get along
the americans and the
the americans and the american influence share the same loud people. its obvious to everyone who doesnt see themselves as number 1 and has travelled a bit.
to everyone else who doesnt see numbers, theres loud annoying people everywhere, theres also plenty of quiet indecisives. ultimately were reliant on the liberality of those in power.
perhaps the author of this article felt humbled when they wrote it, but crocodile dundee series said all this and more.
as appealing as it is to
as appealing as it is to idealize any group of people, it has a negative effect in the end, because it makes cultural diversity mean more than it is meant to.
it is one thing to encourage us to learn from a very specific custom...this has its value...but to draw such distinctions about human nature and tie it to some western/eastern ideology is questionable at best.
i have known a fair number of asian people, and i have found them to be as complicated and multi-faceted as we all are. Americans are not all dirty harry's and Asians aren't all buddhist masters. the argument presented is based on just this premise, and so the strength of the article falls apart.
not a big fan. the intention is good, but it does seem based on an idealization.
"Harry is an extreme and
"Harry is an extreme and violent example, but he is emblematic of Western culture and he sums up our single-minded, goal-oriented behavior with aplomb. “When I see an adult male chasing a female with the intent to commit rape, I shoot the bastard. That’s my policy.”
Yes, if I'm ever being raped or see someone else about to be, maybe I'll take the apparent 'japanese policy' and stand there and survey the context of the situation. I'd hate to be guilty of being "single-minded" or "goal orientated".
You people take this article
You people take this article WAY too literally. All they're doing is comparing eastern and western minds. Nobody said "just stand there and let them get raped".