An academic-style critical book review is meant to be a critical appraisal of a book or article. This does not mean to only criticize the text, but to critically exam the arguments and strengths and weakness of the book overall and then present either a positive or negative review.
In one or more paragraphs (300-400 words), give your critique of the book. Your overall critique should be supported by using examples from the book, your opinion, author bias or objectivity and other such factors and end with support for the view you hold (positive or negative).
Please respond by Monday, June 20th at 5pm.
This book, geography of thought has fallacies such as sweeping generalization, either or fallacies.
ReplyDeleteSweeping generalization is “absolute statements involving words such as all, always, never, and no one that allow no exceptions”(LBH104) Throughout in this book, Nisbett assumes that EVERY people who belong to the same group (Asians or Westerners) think in the same way. In this modern world where people are actively involved with cross-cultural relation, it is a bit of stretch to separate Asians and Westerners because of the geographic feature. How we think is based on what we experience in our lives and it greatly varies from person to person. If we take a look at ICU, we find a lot of students who have lived in other countries for years. In their cognition, both Asian and Western way of thought would exist together. Even for some other students who have never lived abroad can easily get information about Western way of thought from books, the Internet, and school education and and integrate them in their values and perceptions.
Either/Or fallacy is to assume “that a completed question has only two answers”(LBH104). In this book, Nisbett often presents us with two choices. For example, in chapter 4, Nisbett stated there are “alone” condition and “group” condition. However, whether the person prefer “alone” or “group” depends on the person’s back ground, the situation, and lots of other factors. For instance, In my case, I’d prefer working alone on my math study but I’d definitely want to do group work in working on an essay. Nisbett is assuming that there are either “alone” or “ group” and nothing between the two.
Despite of those fallacies, I agree with the author’s opinion in the very last part of this book. It says, “the world may be in convergence rather than continued divergence”(224). Advanced modern technology such as the Internet and means of transportation has made people in the world closer and people are now taking some parts of other cultures and integrate in their values and perceptions. For example, now days many schools have set focus on nuturing students' individuality rather than sociality.
I think Nisbett`s view on the perceptual difference between Easterners and Westerners is a useful notion to help mutual understanding in cross cultural communication. Nisbett claims that there is a fundamental difference between Easterners’ and Westerners’ ways of thought. Easterners see the object with it’s context and Westerners focus more on the object itself. He explains that the difference in their ways of thinking is evident in their social behavior, perception, causal explanation, language, and every aspects of their lives. Although Nisbett`s analysis could be considered to be too broad in range and oversimplified, I think what he mentions in his book is a useful idea to keep in mind; generally speaking, Easterners and Westerners have distintive cultural origin and that might cause people even today to think differently in East and West. Nisbett makes an apology in the beginning of the book for making a generalization labeling many cultures simply “East Asians” and then tries to justify it by stating “In a host of social and political ways the cultures in that region are, in some general respects, similar to one another and different from Western countries.” He did not succeed in giving a very convincing reason for making the generalization, but I think it is important to categorize the world macroscopically in order to understand the world, first, in a larger scale.
ReplyDeleteIt is not easy to realize how differently people from other culture perceive the world, because without being conscious, each person tend to think that his own perception is the only way in viewing the world and all the other people share that too. I hold a view that cultural background is only a superficial part of individual`s personality. However, in order to truly understand a person, knowledge of his/her cultural background is crucial, because only through the knowledge it becomes possible to understand the person`s true intentions or individuality. In that sense, Nisbetts notion on the general differences in ways of thinking between Easterners and Westerners could contribute to cross cultural understanding and help the one big step towards the true encounter between human to human, regardless of their cultural back-ground.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn The Geography of Thought by Richard E. Nisbett, there are strong point and weak point in supporting his opinions.
ReplyDeleteThe strong point of this book is that he examined and described the reasons why Asians and Westerners thinik differently according to the philosophy, social structure, way of life, and environment. It was significant that he distinguished Greek and Chinese according to the philosophy. With the specific examples of Aristotle, Buddhism, and Taoism, he separated Westerners from Easterners. This made it easier to recognize the difference between East and West and how those philosophy effected the daily life of the people. I agree with the affect a religious and philosophical way of thinking have upon the people that live there because those way of thinking gets passed down to next generation. For instance, because my family has a Buddhism way of thinking, I feel that the way I think is partially effected by Buddhism. However, this way of thinking gets the affect from the environment and society that it changes over time and experiences that one had. Therefore, the way I think is effected by the experience abroad and will be changed over the experiences I will have in the future.
For the reason I stated, the weak point in this text is that he over generalized the people. He generalized people according to their race. He used this way of generalizing in making statements and in experiments as well. However, this generalization is not always accurate because we live in a world which we cannot avoid intersections of cultures. When we take Japan for example, when we turn on the television, we see people of different race, when we go out for shopping, we have clothes from oversea brands, and when we go to bookstores or music and video shops, we have books, CD, and movies from all over the world. One may be born and brought up in Japan, but that person is likely to be exposed to and influenced by multiple cultures. Therefore, the world we live in today is too complicated to generalize people by race, or part of the world they are from.
In conclusion, in the Nisbett’s The Geography of Thought, he gives clear reasons why we could generalize Asians and Westerners, but it is to broad that doeas not fit in the society we live in. However, his examination of people gave me broad ideas of “why we think this way” and “how we think” and I think it will help me prepare for “unknown” ideas, cultures, and people.
Firstly, Nisbett is using numbers of fallacies, especially sweeping generalizations in the book. While I was reading the book, I wrote many notes that criticized the author’s opinion. The bias he makes leads to describe Westerners are better quality than Asians. The author uses negative words of explanation only when he talks about Asians. For example, on page 6, he says Chinese society “discourages” debate. On page 3 he says “the Greek sense of agency fueled a tradition of debate.” The phrases he uses give readers negative images about Asians; “Chinese failure to develop science can be attributed in part to lack curiosity, but absence of a concept of nature world,” (p21) while “the Greek were concerned with understanding the fundamental nature of the world” (p8). The explanation of Asians could be taken as he is discriminating Asians by saying “how is it possible that Easterners have relatively little interest in categories” (p148). Then he stands by Westerners’ side by using positive words as much as he could at the time he needs to explain some lacks in Westerners. He says “it seems to me to be a mistake to limit accounts of freedom of inquiry and scientific advance in Europe to purely physical factors” (p41).
ReplyDeleteSecondly, the bias he made by himself had prevented him from researching the right and fair evidence. On page 5 he says “the Chinese counterpart to Greek agency was harmony,” but actually, the origin of the word “harmony” comes from Greek. So harmony was originally the characteristics of Greek. His poor research led by the bias detracts the reliable of the book. He and his students have some experimental research on Easterners and Westerners, but the results also contain fallacies and his personal point of view. When he compares how people from two cultures feel different about their jobs, Nisbett says Asians “goals require a certain amount of self-criticism” as Easterners are always criticizing themselves and do not have self-confidence at all. Then he even says “Japanese weren’t being masochistic” and I thought that was too much insulting toward Easterners.
Above the critiques, I hate the way he compares Easterners and Westerners because it is written by Nisbett's unfair point of view. The bias Nisbett makes prevents him from providing reader the right evidence. I think The Geography of Thoughts is written only for the author’s self- contentment.
“The Geography of Thought” by Richard Nisbett is an insightful book that teaches me how people think and view the world differently based on differences in language, social structures, philosophies, educational system that backed to the ancient Greek and China. As Nanako and others mentioned earlier on their comments, the book includes fallacies such as sweeping generalization and either/or. I also agree that his categorizing the people either Asians or Westerners limits the validity of his clam. For example, for “Asians,” he means China and the countries that were heavily influenced by its culture, mostly Japan and Korea. For “Westerners,” he means people of European culture. When he speaks of European Americans, he means blacks and whites and Hispanics - anyone but people of Asian descent (xxii). Seeing such a oversimplification, I can argue that although blacks and whites are withing the same category as “Westerners”in his definition, blacks are different from whites: ancient Greek's thoughts may have impacted on whites European greatly but have less impacts on blacks since they are brought to America from the Africa as slaves. Obviously, over generalizations are in the book, and readers need to be aware of it.
ReplyDelete“The Geography of Thought” is also objective. It is a great example of what Fisher says: “we perceive what we want to perceive on the basis of our internalized attitudes, values, and beliefs. We can never be objective since all perceptions are subjective.” Thus, Nisbett is “likely to select those characteristics of the perceived object that agree with his attitude” (that is, our differences in thoughts and world view between Asians and Westerners are results of differences from the ancient Greek and China) and “to ignore those characteristics that are irrelevant or opposed” (for example, he disregards the possibility of great differences withing the individual in the same category).
However, I believe that this book is still meaningful to tell about the differences in thoughts between Asians and Westerners in general. We have to realize that there is no such a perfect model (or research, or logic) that applies for everything. In other words, making generalizations are necessary to conduct Nisbett's research (actually any research, I believe) because his goals of the book was to see the differences in thoughts from macro point of view. To focus on a macro point of view, he has to disregard some micro factors such as differences withing the individuals. As macro economics and micro economics are both important to fully understand economic, this book has the characteristic as macro economics. To try to be objective “as much as we can,” we need to understand things in different perspectives, and this book is meaningful to give me a chance to examine macro view of perspectives.
In conclusion, although this book have the limited reliability due to its generalizations and some neglected features, it is very helpful for me to realize the differences in thoughts between Asians and Westerners; they are somewhat related to differences from the ancient Greek and China.
This book also allows me to find an answer why I think very differently when I speak Japanese and English. Language influences our ways of thinking. By reading this book, I realized that learning languages was not merely acquiring languages but also acquiring different ways of thinking (perspectives), which I thought really interesting and exciting.
In this book, NIsbett says the ways of thinking of the Eastern and the Western are different. He researched them from many aspects such as ancient philosophy and contemporary social minds. His viewpoint of researching the ancient philosophy of Greece and China to find the origin of nowadays ways of thinking is interesting. For example, “Greeks were independent and engaged in verbal contention and debate in an effort to discover what people took to be the truth” (19). and “Chinese social life was interdependent and it was not liberty but harmony that was the watchword”(19). In fact, Chinese government puts great emphasis on the harmony, so it prohibits nations from demonstration and control the Internet. These things show the Chinese harmony.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Nisbett uses many fallacies such as hasty generalizations, sweeping generalization and either/or fallacy. So I have negative view. Firstly, in chapter 3, he mentions Japanese awase and erabi. He defines that harmony is important for Japanese and so do Chinese, then the harmony is important for the Eastern. It is partly true, but the ways of Chinese and Japanese thinking are different. Today, Chinese government restricts the critique to the government or the army, but Japanese government does not do so. It may be because China is a communistic country and Japan is a capitalistic country, but this fact shows that the notion of Chinese harmony and the notion of Japanese harmony are different. So it is a sweeping generalization or a hasty generalization. It is because he regards the Eastern as one big people.
Secondly, in chapter 7, he compares Asian and American to find the difference of their view points. Asians seem to have similar view points each other, but among Americans, they do not have similar view points. It is because America is said to be a salad-bowl country. American people cannot be divided into the eastern or the western for they are affected by many peoples who have various background, so it is either/or fallacy. In conclusion, his ideas are unique but he made many fallacies and readers should read it critically in order not to accept everything he says.
yuriko
I will post this for Ryohta.
ReplyDeleteI think the author succeeded in stating that there is a significant difference between Westerners and Easterners. But the author gave some strong impressions which I thought was not true.
This book showed that culture and perception is what makes the people different. The author starts the book by explaining the characteristics of Greeks and Chinese philosophies. Ancient Greeks viewed themselves as unique individuals and they thought differences among individuals were of substantial interest to Greek philosophers. In addition, ancient Greeks thought curiosity was the defining property of human beings and it was a freedom to pursue knowledge. Chinese felt more comfortable when they were in a group. And Chinese had more interests in themselves than others, “The Chinese were concerned less with issues of control of others or the environment than with self-control” (5). The beginning part of the book talks about things that are centuries old, therefore it may seem that modern day Westerners and Easterners are nothing related to them. However, I think understanding these differences will make the readers easier to understand perceptional differences. For example, we Japanese people usually think how we are looked and we think it is important to maintain peace and harmony or “kuuki”. From this we can see that we have not changed very much from several centuries ago and the experiments and investigations the author showed turned out to be true.
The author has stated his argument and supported his belief by numbers examples. However, I think he has over generalized people by races. Though Japanese and Chinese are considered as Easterners, Japanese and Chinese have different culture and perception. I think it goes same with western countries too. Therefore, we can assume that we cannot categorize people by either Westerners or Easterners.
In conclusion, the author’s focusing point is unique and interesting, it will help people to have an idea how these two groups of people think. On the other hand, two groups are not enough to make a conclusion because each country included in those groups have unique characteristics and it should not be overlooked.
2011年6月20日 11:50
I thought that The Geography of Thoughts written by Nisbett was very interesting. Since I lived both in Western country and Eastern country, I was able to understand both Western and Easter side of perspectives. Moreover, I thought his words were very strong. He strongly stated reasons of the differences between the culture. There were many things that I could agree. For example, in the book, Nisbett stated that Japanese children are thought by parents using feelings. For instance children are taught by parents that farmers will cry if you don’t eat all of your meal. I was taught this way since I was a childhood and I never knew that these teaching only occur in Asian country. After reading this novel, I realized that some parts of my thoughts are Asian and some are Western.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think having both Asian and Western way of thinking is not just me. I believe there are many fallacies in this novel. Since everyone has different backgrounds and personalities depending on their family, circumstances and situation, you cannot just classify in two ways. Nisbett tends to state in either /or fallacies. For example, Nisbett states that education is a route to power and wealth for Asians, but I believe many of the students in section CD did not come to ICU just to achieve a route to wealth. At least I did not. I came to ICU to learn many things. Therefore, some of the Nisbett’s idea was inaccurate. Therefore, I thought Nisbett was bias in some parts even thought he had some researches. Furthermore, I when I was reading this novel, I was always wondering where is West and where is East. I know where it is but I was wondering which side would it be classified if the country are in middle.
The world we live today is to big to be classified in two groups. Depending on cultures, family, and circumstances could easily influence one’s perspective and idea. Therefore, I think we should not even classify into groups. We should all feel equal and comfortable about our identity.
What an Interesting book it would be, when I first looked at the title because I had never imagined that the geography will affect that local culture.
ReplyDeleteLeaving the fallacy of sweeping generalization, saying all Westerners or Easterners are inclined to follow the same pattern, I think the viewpoint the author, Richard E. Nisbett picks up very interesting point that is also convincing at the same time. This whole structure with the logic had given me ideas on how to write a convincing essay with a solid structure.
The part I'd like to mention is the second chapter, the social origins of mind, where the process in which ecology affects cognitive process through its economy, social structure and so on. What I found astounding was what linked geography and the people, the agriculture and the economy, though my hypothesis was too vague and was lacking the logic. I have imagined the link between the people and the geography would be something like people think differently because, for example, what people of each place mainly feed on are different, like Japanese eat fish because the country is surrounded by the ocean, and the German people eat lots of meat because they nourish cows on the mountain, and the food changes how the people think.
In terms of the preciseness and the objectivity of measurement or the factors that are being compared (in this case, the process of ecology affecting the cognitive process), I thought the research was well done through history, and so that the measurement was fair, except that Nisbett has oversimplified Asians as Chinese and Europeans as Greeks.
In conclusion, although I was sometimes frustrated by the author’s oversimplification of ethnicity, I found this book very substantial in that the research made in this book was very thorough so that it was very convincing. This taught me how to organize the ideas with proper logic that goes through each of them.
From Moeka:
ReplyDeleteI thought The geography of thought, written by Nisbett had many good points and bad points.
The good point of this book was how Nisbett used many examples to support his idea. He used specific evidences to show how the westerners and easterners have a different way of thinking. He used some examples of an experiment that he did, and used actual data to support his idea.
However, I thought that he over simplified the world by separating human being into only two groups, which is the westerners and the easterners. While reading this book, I found a lot of places where I could not agree to his thoughts. For example, I disagreed to what Nisbett said about education in chapter 2. He said that Asians thought of education as a route to power and wealth. On the other hand, the Westerners thought of education was apparently the result of curiosity and a belief in the value of knowledge for its own sake. I am an Asian, but do not think of an education as a route to power and strength. I have the Westerners way of thinking. At school, we do learn many facts in math, science, social studies, and so on. Maybe these things do give us knowledge and become a route to power and strength. However, I believe that school in not just a place to only learn facts. I think school is a place where we communicate with many people with different backgrounds and get to know how each person has their own personality and get many ideas from them. School is a place where we can have a broader view of the world. There are many things school can teach us not only by memorizing facts every day. I found that ICU is a good example for this. In ICU, everyone has their own different background. ICU has thought me that education is not all about memorization. It is a good thing to be curious about many things.
The Geography of thought was a good book for me even though there were many parts where I could not agree to Nisbett. He may have over generalized people, but it gave me some ideas how the westerners and easterners may think differently in many ways, due to the surroundings that they were developed in. I think every person has their own background, and that is what makes our different way of thinking.
From Nozomi Otaki:
ReplyDeleteHere is my book review.
I think The Geography of Thought has both persuasive and logically weak points.
Firstly, persuasive point is that Nisbett uses many examples in his book. For example, when he mentions to difference in categorization, he uses the example of a chicken, grass, and a cow(P141). This helps readers understand his idea about cultural difference between Westerners’ and Easterners’ way of thinking. Besides this, he uses many examples with pictures.
Secondly, his logically weak point is that he oversimplifies cultural background of people. It is true that many European ideas came from Ancient Greece and many Asian ones from Ancient China, I guess it is too much when he makes them alternative. I think this can be applied to Either/or Fallacy we learned in ARW class. To me, Nisbett seems to ignore other culture than Ancient Chinese thought and Greece one, even though he did not intend to do so. Of course, it is almost ten years since he wrote this book, so he could have found many differences after he finished this book(I am type of “ordinary modern Asians”,who “believe that things are constantly changing” according to him.).
Thirdly, when he uses the example of difference of ideas between modern Easterners and Westerners with ancient cultures or perceptions such as ancient Greek and China, it seems that he “skips” history between ancient and modern. Personally, I think idea of people changes with times, so it could be too much when he connect “ancient” and “ordinary modern” people.
In conclusion, though I pointed his weak points, I think this book helped me understand cultural perceptions because I can make it clear the historical background about how we think. I am not totally applied to what he calls typical “ordinary Asian”, but many of my ways of thinking like “appreciating harmonious” or “expecting difference”. I expect this book will help me in the future to understand cultural and historical background when going abroad.
Nozomi Otaki
From Haruka Inoue:
ReplyDeleteIn the book “the geography of thoughts”, the author Nsibett, examine how people think and see the world is different between Asian and Westerner by researching from many aspects such as ancient philosophy social structures and education system. Therefore it is said that he should that the way of thinking is different by where people live through the inductive process. Since I am interested in education and psychology, I had a fun to read it. However, to investigate this book critically, there are many fallacies especially either or fallacies and sweeping generalization. Either or fallacies is obvious and anywhere, because from the beginning he assumed that there are only two type of thinking and all result of researches is showed as there are only two conclusion. So, it might be kind of begging the question. There are also many sweeping generalization. He assumed if one country of them thinking so, then, other countries in that group also thinking so. There is a example for this. In page 129, he described that Korean are more holistic than American about what they think, but it does not explain that all Asian are more holistic than American. Even in the Asians, there are many type of thinking is obvious from our past blog discussions. Furthermore, it is not fallacies but I guess he sometimes had the weak evidence to support his opinion. He severally used the words “many” and I do not think it is strong enough word. So far I stated problems in “the geography of thought” but I do not think it is totally not good book. In the introduction he apologized that he labeled billions of people in the single term and treated as they are same. So he was aware that he is over simplifying people. I also think that to have some description of the world or part of the world, the sweeping generalization is inevitable. Moreover, since it is his idea, we must decide ourselves weather it is believable or not. Even if there are no fallacies, he might choose the result because most of evidence is researches. I guess it is not only this case but all case reading the book, we have to thinking critically.
I am sorry for responding so late!
ReplyDeleteIn this book, the author tries to explain the way of human thoughts by dividing all the people in the world into two groups and describing how they are different. His arguments seem convincing since he bases them on trustworthy evidences, such as historical facts, careful experiments and expert opinions. However, I found some of his claims to be questionable. First, the categorization of Westerners and Easterners is unclear. The origins of the perspectives of these groups are clearly states that they are Greeks and Chinese. When the author starts to explain about the modern world, though, it is not stated which parts of the world are included in which of the groups. Some countries are raised and said whether it is a Western or Eastern country. For example, Greek, United States, Canada, Australia, Britain, and other European countries are described as Western, and China, Japan, Korea as Eastern countries. The problem is that the method of the categorization is not mentioned. For some parts, the Easterners are called East Asians. It seems that what the author means by Eastern countries are only China, Korea and Japan and this excludes other Asian countries although it is not clearly stated.
Another reason why I thought the content of this book was questionable is that the author is over generalizing that Westerners and Easterners think in certain ways. Throughout the book, the author supports his claims by explaining the results of experiments. Experiments would be good evidence to support arguments but I think the groups he made for categorization and the size of the argument is too large, involving too many people. I do not think that this argument could be proved to be entirely true unless the author did the experiments on every person in the groups. At a glance, the author seems to give enough evidence but the fact that most of the experiments are done on college students makes his evidence more unconvincing.
However, I believe that this book is a useful resource to get a picture of how people think in some countries. The readers need to keep in mind that his claims are not true to every one the members in the society, but assuming that a person may have the characteristics that the author raises is useful.
There are major faults in this book and the authors claims but I found that reading this book may be beneficial to some readers who are aware of these faults.
Again, I apologize for being late…on my last assignment too! I still cannot believe that the sun had already risen…
Sorry for my late response.
ReplyDeleteIn his book The Geography of thought, Nisbitt attempts to explain the fundamental reasons that lie behind the cognitive differences of western and eastern people. His research to prove his point is detailed and thorough, but present both innoventive and narrow viewpoints of the issue of cultural and geographical influences on ways of thinking.
Throughout the chapters is an abundance of thought-provoking experiments that present very persuasive support for his argument. Among them, I especially found the experiments dealing with categories VS relationships interesting (for example, the one about the three pictures of the rooster, cow, and grass). On one hand, I thought the experiment itself was quite superficial in the sense that it tried to distinguish western and eastern cognitive views by simply showing three pictures. On the other hand, I found it personally interesting, since it was the only experiment introduced in the whole book that I had a clear answer to, when I tried doing the experiment on myself. I had a completely "asian view" on this one--any relationship other than the cow and the grass was simply unthinkable--but in other expriments, I always couldn't determine clearly whether I had a "western" or "eastern" view.
This links to my critisism about his "narrow viewpoint"---in his research are many fallacies: sweeping generalizations being the most pervasive. Of course, he does make an apology at the beginning of the book, for grouping all peoples into two categories. This is understandable, because to a certain extent, I think he has shown enough convincing evidence to support his claim regarding the reasons behind the different ways of thinking between westerners and easterners. However, the question I always had in mind while reading this book was: "This is all about people who are assumingly 'purely' western or eastern. How do you define 'pure'? And what about people who obviously share two cultures, for example, people who grew up with their parents, who are both from different cultures or races?" To define 'pure' is obviously difficult. But that is exactly why I wanted to know his opinion on that---of how much of an extent is his research applicable to. Consequently, the book would have been better is he had used the same small group of people to experiment on for some of his research, in addition to what he has now in his book. I couldn't help thinking that the experiments were all so fragmentary. I would very much rather liked to know about the results of all the experiments tested on one, particular person, to investigate the small bits of building blocks that compose that person's cognitive view. This would definitely serve as a helpful resource to use when defining 'pure', and also between something that is "culturally defined" or "just a result of personality".
In any case, reading this book provided me the opportunity to reconsider the significance of culture and perception. It was a good introduction to what I will hopefully be learning in college in the following three years.
From Ms Shiraishi
ReplyDeleteI thought The Geography of Thought was based upon fallacy. Nisbett
stated his idea with an assumption that all Easterners would act in
the same way, and also all Westerners would act in the same way. This
is sweeping generalization, considering there are no exceptions and
thinking all people would act in either Western or Eastern way.
However, when I read this book, I thought I think in both Eastern and
Western way.
For example, on page 59, Nisbett stated that “American children showed
the least motivation when it was Mom who chose the category” and
“Asian children showed the highest level of motivation when Mom chose
the category.” Although I am Asian, when I was a child, I hated to do
something that my parents thought it was good for me and suggested or
even forced me to do them. I hated to go to gymnastic club which my
mother decided me to go. I also hated to do the kanji workbook my
father forced me to do them every day. However, I loved to go to the
art class which I had chosen to go. Also, I feel eager to read some
books which I chose than read the book someone has recommended for me.
On page 103, according to Nisbett, Westerners thought things would
change in the same direction and at the same rate as current change,
and Easterners thought things are constantly changing in many
directions. I thought I think in the Eastern way because I cannot
think things would go by pattern. I think there isn’t any pattern in
the natural world because there are many exceptions. For example, I
think just because it is summer doesn’t mean it would be hot every
day. Maybe there would be one day that is cooler than the other
ordinary summer days or maybe the summer itself might be cooler
compared to other year’s summer.
From these reasons, I think it is wrong for Nisbett to consider all
Easterners to act in the same way and all Westerners to act in the
same way. There are always some exceptions. In the world today, many
people encounter with other people from different cultures. It is
difficult to think people in the same culture has the characteristic.
So sorry for late answering.
ReplyDeleteThe Geography of Thought by Nisbett explained fundamental and general idea of Westerns and Easterners. However, as many people already pointed out, The Geography of Thought contains lots of fallacies such as hasty generalization and sweeping generalization. Also the text does not clear out where is actual “Asia” the author wrote through the whole text.
Nisbett draw out answer from very little evidence and that is hasty generalization. For example, Nisbett claimed “Debate is almost as uncommon in modern Asia as in ancient China”(73) and to support the idea, he gave examples from his ONE “Japanese friend had told him that the concept of a ‘Lively discussion’ does not exist in Japan”(73). Nisbett must come up with more examples, not only from one person but more effective examples such as using numerical data, to convince readers the statement is true. Nisbett also used lots and lots of sweeping generalization. For example, Nisbett wrote “Greeks were independent and engaged in vebal contention”(19) and “Chinese social life was interdependent and it was not liberty but harmony”(19), but this should not be true. Nisbett assume that all Greeks think and act same way, all Chinese think and act same way, and more than that, he assume that all Westerners think and act same way and all Asians think and act same way. This assumption is totally wrong because everyone has different idea and ways of thinking than other people. There could be pattern that seems common for one nation or area but still it is impossible to say that their ideas are all exactly same.
Nisbett did not clarify where “Asia” is. The term Asia is different from every people. Some people might think only Japan, Korea, and China is Asia. Some might include Middle Asia such as Iraq and Jordan. Asia has a lot of rejoins such as East Asia, Southeast Asia, Middle Asia, West Asia, and South Asia. When Nisbett gives example in the text, he mostly gave them from Japan, Korea, and China. Those examples are not enough to prove that all “Asia” thinks same, and this is also hasty generalization.
Some of Nisbett idea was based on few evidences and his idea could be common patterns in some areas but they are hasty generalizations and those are just stereotypes. Also he did not disambiguate the actual “Asia” he wrote about. Those parts make his text weak.