Hi Bovar, Mel' Interesting stuff here.
Mel: It would seem that the resident of Japan would spend considerable time using reason in 'encoding/decoding' the meaning of their own and other's actions. It is a cognitively demanding culture. American culture is more likely to allow a person to just ask. "What did you mean by that?" , then after they get an answer, it's off to tune-up the motorcycle. American Culture frees one up from the complex calculus required by some cultures and we don't waste time (from our perspective), freeing us to apply reason to other pursuits. That would be one example of an unclean cleavage of social versus intellect when it comes to reason. Not surprising since intellect rises from and is dependent on the social matrix. Oh the tangles, kinks and weaving-together-of that we are going to find... Andre: I find this very same thing here in China, Mel which is , as you know, a very complex society of around 5000 years old. It does appear that the Chinese in terms of your 'cleavage of social versus intellect' are much more 'together' than Westerners. Perhaps they are more sensitive to social patterns of value, recognising their complexity and effort of making 'cleavage' at the social level possible. They are very, very socially conscious and proud and perhaps because of this are not inclined to build intellectual castles in the air, so to speak. Or rather...they have been there and done that. They have had their Lao Tsu, creating a lasting philosophy of life within the whole (to which it is useless to add and from which it is silly to detract) and of course Confucius, (a younger contemporary of the former) having laid the foundation of how society is to be organised so that it will last, i.e.strict moral rules for individual conduct. These rules lead to (and I refer to ZMM p290, Corgi paperback because they are identical to Confucian thought and teaching) '...right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all'. Traditional Chinese architecture captures this spirit beautifully.There is an unmistakable serenity there. Remember that 'China' means 'middle land'. In their minds it has come to represent 'centre of the universe' (a leader told me this). They think they are superior to other nations. In the West this has of course very nasty connotations but here?????? the leader just smiled and turned away. The thoughts and teachings of these 2 people (assuming Lao Tsu did actually exist) are still very much a part of Chinese culture to this day. Socially they are very tight, friendly, helpful considerate etc. and (to generalise a bit) their intellectual patterns of value aim to keep it that way. For what it is worth, Andre Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
