[NSD 5/6/03]FLASH CARD " In great affairs men show themselves as they wish to be seen; in small things they show themselves as they are." (Nicholas Chamfort)WORTH THINKING ABOUT: IS EAST EAST AND WEST WEST?In his book "The Geography of Thought," University of Michigan cultural psychologist Richard E. Nisbett writes"More than a billion people in the world today claim intellectual inheritance from ancient Greece. More than two billion are the heirs of ancient Chinese traditions of thought. The philosophies and achievements of the Greeks and Chinese of 2,500 years ago were remarkably different, as were the social structures and conceptions of themselves."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."A strong sense of individual identity accompanied the Greek sense of personal agency. The Greeks viewed themselves as unique individuals, with distinctive attributes and goals. Both gods and humans in the Odyssey and the Iliad have personalities that are fully formed and individuated. Moreover, the differences among individuals were of substantial interest to Greek philosophers."The Chinese counterpart to Greek agency was harmony. Every Chinese was first and foremost a member of a collective, or rather of several collectives—the clan, the village, and especially the family. The individual was not, as for the Greeks, an encapsulated unit who maintained a unique identity across social settings. Instead, as philosopher Henry Rosemont has written: '... For the early Confucians, there can be no me in isolation, to be considered abstractly: I am the totality of roles I live in relation to specific others ... Taken collectively, they weave, for each of us, a unique pattern of personal identity, such that if some of my roles change, the others will of necessity change also, literally making me a different person.'"The Chinese were concerned less with issues of control of others or the environment than with self-control, so as to minimize friction with others in the family and village and to make it easier to obey the requirements of the state, administered by magistrates. The ideal of happiness was not, as for the Greeks, a life allowing the free exercise of distinctive talents, but the satisfactions of a plain country life shared within a harmonious social network. Whereas Greek vases and wine goblets show pictures of battles, athletic contests, and bacchanalian parties, ancient Chinese scrolls and porcelains depict scenes of family activities and rural pleasures." *See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743216466/newsscancom/ref=nosim for Richard E. Nisbett's "The Geography Of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently—and Why"—or look for it in your favorite library. [We donate all revenues from our book recommendations to literacy programs.]
