Can We Understand the Oriental Mind?

It seems there is an angry lurker skulking around.  Well, if people do not like what they read here, they can go write their own summaries.  Ain't nuttin' official hereabouts.

We were privileged to have the presence of a group of Dutch philosophy students from the University of Amsterdam with us.  They did not come all the way to Madrid just for the meeting, but they took the opportunity to drop in while they were visiting.  Unfortunately, the Leader was not able to moderate this time around, so I got to wield the scepter, so to speak.

I was not terribly pleased with the topic, but neither was I with the previous one, which did not turn out badly.  The problem I have with the title is that it seems dangerously close to an insulting and racist mindset, cleaving human minds into "Oriental" and ... whatever the other one should be.  Actually, looking at it now, it does not necessarily limit the number of minds to two, but we do tend to think in a very binary way.  There seems to be a risk of carving humans into groups and then thinking of those groups as monoliths, with every member perfectly interchangeable with any other member of the same group.  Even in Asian cultures, where an individual's contribution to the group is more valuable than the individual's self, I assume people are aware that each person exists as a distinct individual.  As usual, however, the context of the suggestion brings at least some clarity: in the previous meeting we had been discussing the possible interpretations of Bruce Lee's line, "Be water, my friend," which brought up the differences in worldview between Western countries and China, specifically.  There were attempts to explain the differences in simple terms, but some people were left nagging doubts, evidently, and wanted to focus more time on that aspect.  Still, the meta-question might be if any person can understand a worldview different from the one she was raised with, with the case of Eastern mentality for Westerners being an example.  Otherwise, it sounds as if the Euro-American "mind" is the "natural" or "correct" one, and the "Oriental mind" is some sort of deliberate distortion or mutation, created simply to confuse us.  Given this context, my inclination is to say that we cannot understand the "Oriental mind", but not because we lack the physical/intellectual capacity, rather it is because we just do not want to.  Shifting a worldview, even for the purpose of gaining empathy with another human being, takes effort, and we are lazy.  Humans want to expend as little effort as possible.  However, the question can go on; many people do in fact study other cultures and worldviews, collecting vast amounts of information about them.  After spending perhaps half of one's life immersed in that culture, is it fair to say this person lazily refuses to understand the hosts?  Is it fair to say this person does understand the host culture, based only on the fact of physical presence in it?  The key to a real answer is probably the definition of "understand" when the question is asked.  If we limit the meaning to having data on hand, my answer stands.  We have the possibility of understanding, but the constraints of time and energy in most cases prevent it.  On the other hand, if understanding requires a deeper feeling, empathy and identification with the subject, then there are probably a great many things external to the cultures of our youth that we will never understand.  Even when trying to insert ourselves into a different mindset, the values and expected behaviors are still being filtered through our internalized culture.  Although we know intellectually that a particular behavior is perfectly acceptable or even desired in another culture, we feel free to reject it out of hand as "uncivilized" or "weird" based on the values we have been taught since birth.  This is a difficulty that many people ignore, even, sadly, social scientists.  Unless there is a way to consciously connect with some omniscient mind, we will probably have to live with the reality of our prejudices.

Our Doctor seemed quite pleased with the presence of so many visitors, especially with such young and eager minds.  Part of his enjoyment is surely derived from the fact that all of his lines are heard for the first time by half the group, for the first time in a long time.  He started with one of his favorites, "I am against everything."  He explained that he has learned many things over his lifetime, and much of what he had learned turned out to be wrong.  He advised us to be cautious about what gets called knowledge.  Regarding the topic, he spoke first as a neurologist, saying that we do not even know what the mind is, much less specific categories of mind.  Works of art as representations of culture are easy to understand; we feel immediately what a musician or painter wants to tell us.  Words, however, are different.  We must know the culture perfectly if we are to understand its words.  He mused on changes in perspective over the recent decades, reminding us that Europe itself has smoothed out some differences, at least outwardly.  Once North and South were a great divide; now they are less so, at least in theory.  He also mentioned the internet as a tool of removing differences, pronouncing the arrival of a new cyber person.  Thirty years ago, the topic would have been discussed in a very different way, although he did not go into detail about what differences there might have been.  As he has been saying recently, he prescribed death for old legends and false philosophies, saying the future is where we are going and where we need to go.

The True Philosopher argued hard for the need to not limit our understanding to "minds", although he also insisted that there are noticeable differences in mentality, although the term "Oriental mind" might not be the most accurate.  Today especially, the countries that we consider to be the seat of this worldview have been heavily Westernized, although they maintain a certain degree of their own traditions.  The Philosopher's own country does not fall under his definition of Oriental, having been thoroughly colonized by the West, especially the US.  Going back to what he had pointed out the week before, he emphasized the speculative nature of Eastern philosophy, and the close relationship, practically impossible to separate, this philosophy has with religion.  He also mentioned a recent example of culture clash between East and West, in the form of Australian protest to the treatment given to the Bali 9, 8 of whom were executed in Indonesia.  After others discussed the difficulties of language, he told us there were two aspects of philosophy, the discursive and the reflective.  We cannot always express ourselves directly, and use metaphor as a tool for communication.  Eastern philosophies, like Buddhism, use metaphor as a means of communicating a vision of reality, whereas Western philosophy relies more on argument.  In response to a question about translations, he said we fail by using word for word translation, something many translators would agree with undoubtedly.  Echoing the Leader, he warned us of confusing information with knowledge.  While many Westerners have traveled to the East in the past, in order to gain an understanding of the culture and mindset, today many people rely exclusively on the ease of internet information.  Information is not experience is not knowledge.

The Worldly Australian made an appearance, probably heeding the promise of young people in attendance.  He is not exactly a patriot, saying his country has plenty of blood on its hands from the past, and its government's criticisms of other countries do not reflect the views of its citizens, nor do they make it easy or enjoyable for those citizens to spend their vacations in the criticized countries.  One difference he saw between East and West is the respect for authority that is taught to members of Eastern cultures from birth, authority being anyone in a higher social position, or age group, with various combinations of those conditions involved.  He later focused on a particular and rather widespread idea from Buddhism, that of non-attachment.  The Australian could not bring himself to understand the ins and outs of leaving behind desire, saying it seemed like giving up any will to keep surviving.  He also told us of a project he was assigned while in school, in which all of his class had to do research and a report on a foreign country.  He chose the Netherlands, coincidentally, and was fascinated to discover how many differences existed between his country and that one.  He believes that he enjoys and celebrates differences, while his government promotes that feeling in schoolchildren but at the same time does its best to squelch difference in the world.  As for understanding any other mindset, we can delude ourselves into believing anything.

One of our visitors brought up the problem of translation, also asking if there are as many problems of translation when the writer is using a language not the native one.  He prodded the Doctor a bit on some of his statements, to which the Doctor advised him not to believe in what he heard.  The Doctor refused to define a good translation and warned us all to listen to words with care.  Another visitor tried to defend language, saying we can only communicate with language, since experiences are not transferable between people.  The first tried to return the discussion to the topic, saying the term "Oriental mind" seemed a crass generalization, a way of othering people when it suits us to emphasize differences and an excuse to lazily say we are not capable of understanding.  If it is possible to understand any other mind, it is possible to understand all human minds, in spite of some having more barriers than others.  Another feared our attempts to understand another culture would crush it in a sea of our own cultural identity rather than reveal to us the inner workings of something different.

The Seeker of Happiness took some small refuge in mathematics as a constant.  If all cultures use the same mathematics, why should we not be able to understand them?  Why have some universal means to convey meaning.  One of our visitors wondered if mathematics was the best way to convey meaning, and what did not get mentioned is the fact that many languages/cultures use very different ways of counting and quantifying than we do.

An Inconsistent Participant returned to the problem of feeling in understanding.  She did not believe herself competent to understand others when she cannot feel their experiences.  Like the Doctor, she does not put her trust in the old necessarily, saying the traditions of ancient cultures act as chains on the free will of modern people, dragging everyone down.  She commented on the use of so-called Eastern philosophy in self-help books, as something that is fashionable and exotic to us, but shorn of its deeper meanings.

The visitors left behind the topic for the next meeting; I imagine the same crank who is not happy about my summaries will fall into MRA talking points, so I can preemptively refer him to this.  As a representative of the typical MRA mindset, it is clear that this person needs to be reminded of how humans normally interact in a world that is not created for the pleasure of a single group to the detriment of the rest.  The need for adoration and worship regardless of any worth held or value provided is a mindset I will never understand.