By JOHN RICHARD SCHROCK
“Whatever happened to rugged individualism?” one reader of this column asked me. This was a reference to the widespread belief that each of us got to where we are by our own singular hard work. Nobody else helped us. And getting assistance from others is a sign of weakness. It harkens back to the glorified “mountain man” image of living alone in pioneer times.
I refrain from replying because it would be impolite. I would like to tell them to put on clothes only they made, mount the horse they tamed, astride the saddle of leather they cured, ride back to the log cabin they constructed—and stay off of the public roads! They are clueless of the extent that our modern society is only possible through a vast network of cooperation: a community working together.
The early prosperity of the United States rested on our huge supply of natural resources and our smaller population. In a simpler time, there was plenty of opportunity for a person to survive in relative isolation with “rugged individualism.” Today, this viewpoint mostly survives in our sparse rural West. In ranching country, you can still ride for miles without seeing another person.
But today’s world has 7.8 billion people and is growing. Many other cultures, especially in Asia, grew up in intensely crowded conditions. Asian languages developed a completely different view of a world where they lived elbow-to-elbow even in earlier times. And “in Chinese there is no word for ‘individualism.’ The closest one can come is the word for ‘selfishness’.”
This quote is one of many distinctions described by Richard E. Nisbett in “The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why” released in 2003. Nisbett is a Distinguished Professor of social psychology and co-directs the Culture and Cognition program at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He provides many examples of how Asians and Westerners “...have maintained very different systems of thought for thousands of years.”
Westerners focus on achieving control of the environment and of other people. Asian minds focus on self-control in order to minimize friction with others in their family and village.
Western thought is based on Greek debate, where one argument wins out over the other. The Asian mind is based in a Confucian ideal of maintaining harmony—of finding the middle way.
We think in terms of individual “rights”. Asians think in terms of an individual’s “responsibility” to a group. Our rights equals their responsibility. In English, my name is John Schrock. But in Asian languages, I would be Schrock John. Your family name and your family comes first. You are always part of your immediate and extended family.
As a person becomes old, they are respected. This is reflected in addressing the elderly as “Laode.” The term for “respected” or “Lao” is also in the general term for teacher “Laoshi.” Today’s Asian cultures still contain the Confucian ethic of respect for the teacher. Thus the term for teacher has this word for respect always embedded in it. They respect and value teachers. Westerners do not.
Western thought has a “certainty in consequences”—when an event occurs, we make an immediate judgement of whether it is good or bad. Nisbett relates an ancient Chinese story: An old farmer’s only horse runs away. Neighbors come to commiserate with him. But the farmer rejects their sympathy: “Who knows if it is good or bad?” he says. Later the horse returns, bringing along a wild horse. The man’s friends now congratulate him, but he replies again “Who knows what is bad or good?” A few days later, the man’s son attempts to ride the wild horse and is thrown and breaks his leg. Again, the farmer turns away his neighbors’ sympathy. Weeks later, the army comes to the village to conscript the able-bodied men to fight, but his crippled son is spared....and on and on the story goes. Asians can wait and see.
When this pandemic began, I reached for the face masks that I brought back from a winter semester when I taught in China in 2012. Throughout Asia, from Seoul to Shanghai to Singapore, everyone walking the streets wore face masks to protect others. Today, they cannot understand what we mean by “rights” and “individualism.” Instead they speak and feel “responsibility.” They reject individualism as “selfishness” which it is.
A review of Nisbett’s book concludes: “Understanding the thought processes of other cultures may very well turn out to be critical to the survival of Western civilization....”
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John Richard Schrock has trained biology teachers for more than 30 years in Kansas. He also has lectured at 27 universities in 20 trips to China. He holds the distinction of “Faculty Emeritus” at Emporia State University.