Western vs Eastern Thinking Style
This discussion was created from comments split from: The Principle of Atomicity – On the Difference Between a Principle and Its Implementation • Zettelka.
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I tried to distill the Korean way of thinking related to Jori, and it seems that the fundamental way of thinking that created this word is 1) a way of thinking that sees the whole first and then the parts, and 2) a way of thinking that thinks with a focus on relationships.
These days, Korea has adopted American ways of thinking, so there may not be much Korean thought left. Nevertheless, I believe that because we use the Korean language, our unique Korean way of thinking will still remain. (Of course, it's possible that American and English-language thinking will significantly suppress our unique Korean way of thinking, rendering it ineffective.)
I've been sifting through some material on this, and I think two things might be useful.
Richard Nisbett(2003), "The Geography of Thought"
There is also an educational documentary video based on this content. EBS교육방송
허태균(Tae-gyun Heo), "어쩌다 한국인: 대한민국 사춘기 심리학(How Korean: The Psychology of Adolescence in South Korea)"
There is a video of this professor's lecture related to this content.
I'm not sure if these videos are available in your country.
This way of thinking may not be unique to Korea, but rather common to China and Japan, which share Eastern philosophy.
However, I know absolutely nothing about China, and while I know a little about Japan from experience, so I'll just talk about Korea. And I'll compare it to the United States, which is an English-speaking country.
1. A way of thinking that sees the whole first and then the parts
Zoom in, Zoom out
Koreans seem to see the whole first and then the parts.
Example 1) Writing an Address
In an address, write the main part first and list the parts in order. It's like zooming in.
If you were to write LOTTE WORLD TOWER as an address, the differences between English and Korean would be as follows:
English: 300 Olympic-ro, Songpa-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Korean: South Korea, Seoul, Songpa-gu, Olympic-ro 300
English zooms out from the location of the object, whereas Korean zooms in to find the location from the whole.
Korea has also transitioned from district-based addresses to road-name addresses, but people still seem to recognize and distinguish between neighborhoods(a section of a town) and districts. Since Korea has long been divided into neighborhoods and villages, it is natural for me, a Korean, to divide things into neighborhoods (or Dong). Because the neighborhoods were so close together, it was important to clearly recognize the boundaries, and in that sense, there is speculation that the concept of dividing things by the gap between objects, that is, the boundary ("galpi") that separates the boundaries between neighborhoods and villages, may have naturally taken root.
Example 2) In language
When we say we're viewing a scene from a camera perspective, I think English uses the method of focusing on a specific object and zooming out around that object. In contrast, Korean uses the method of focusing on the entire scene, selecting a central object (i.e., the target), and zooming in around that object.
Here's an example sentence:
English
"He picked up the bottle next to the box in the room."
If we imagine looking through a camera,
1) His face is zoomed in.
2) It zooms out, showing him picking up something.
3) It zooms out, showing him picking up a bottle.
4) It zooms out even further, showing a box next to the bottle.
5) It zooms out, showing the entire room.
Korean
"그는 방 안의 박스 옆에 있는 병을 집었다."
그는(He)
방 안의(in the room)
박스 옆에 있는(next to the box)
병을(the bottle)
집었다(picked up)
If we imagine looking through a camera,
1) The camera is capturing the entire room. He, the box, and the bottle are all visible.
2) The camera decided to zoom in on him.
3) As the camera zooms in, it captures the box.
4) As it zooms in, it captures the bottle.
5) As it zooms in, it captures the act of picking it up.
In English, "yellow" is "yellow," and this single word often describes multiple things. (Zoom out)
However, Korean uses multiple words to describe a single thing. (Zoom in)
For example, there are many synonyms, such as "노랗다", "샛노랗다", "누렇다", "누리끼하다", "노르스름하다", "노르께하다", and "노르무레하다".
Of course, if you look at it in detail, the object referred to will vary depending on the person using it or the regional characteristics, but generally speaking, unlike English, which tends to express multiple meanings with one word by utilizing the context, Korean seems to have multiple words to refer to one object.
This difference seems to be particularly evident when using verbs.
Example 3) Writing an Essay
The claim comes first, followed by the evidence.
However, Korea primarily uses the introduction - body - conclusion format, meaning the evidence comes first, followed by the claim. Of course, things have changed a lot these days, but at least until the early 2010s, this was the format used in writing classes. (This is how it was taught in public education.)
2. A way of thinking that thinks with a focus on relationships.
"The Geography of Thought" provides an interesting example.
(Nisbett referred to East Asians as Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans, while Westerners generally referred to Americans.)
There are differences between the United States and Korea in judging the state of an object.
In this video, when looking at the man, Americans said he was happy, while Asians rated him as unhappy because of the people around him.
The same goes for what comes first.
Asians look down on the whole, as if they were gods, while Americans view the present from their own perspective.
This is evident in the differences between Eastern and Western painting.
Western painting views the world from its own perspective, while Eastern painting looks down on it as if it were a god.
Also, the concept of whole means a collection in the West, but in the East it means one-ness.
EBS Documentary Prime seems like a good starting point for knowledge. (Anyway, most of the professors' interviews are in English.)
Very interesting @iylock.
1) I’m trying to reflect on whether this has an impact, when building a Zettelkasten, in two completely different ways of proceeding. And considering atomicity, and type of connections, too.
2) In my own Zettelkasten practice, I often find myself reasoning from the part to the whole, or from the particular to the general. But it also happens that I follow the reverse path.
And at other times, it doesn’t happen from the top down or from the bottom up, but rather as an exploration outward, broadening remaining in the same level.
I’m wondering, is it possible that the Zettelkasten dynamic merge these two ways of thinking (korean and occidental) in one that provides for both (actually, three)?"
Into "my Zettelkasten own theory" I've explicitly modeled the possibility of having and using all three different directions of thought
The East-West cultural dichotomy is fascinating. Richard Nisbett’s The Geography of Thought brilliantly highlights the profound differences in how East Asians and Westerners perceive the world.
Regarding atomicity, I’d like to explore how the West’s tendency to break concepts down into their smallest units contributed to the rise of science, and subsequently industrialization, individualism, and related developments in the West, but not in East Asia.
The most striking symbol of Western science’s success is physics, which studies the material world in its most fundamental form. Setting aside modern concepts like quarks and strings, there’s a reason the term “atom” was chosen for the most basic unit of material existence. Breaking the world into its atomic components made the scientific revolution possible.
It’s hard to imagine now, as the past two centuries have been dominated by Western influence, with its decline only a recent phenomenon. But before the Enlightenment and the era of globalization, China was often considered more civilizationally advanced. Yet China later stagnated and fell behind, unable to independently forge a path to modern science. It seems to me that this so-called Needham Question is tied to the West’s affinity for atomic thinking.
I don’t necessarily believe that atomizing concepts, people, or societies has always made the world better in every respect. But it has undoubtedly shaped the world as we know it today.