Cultural Philosophy: The West and the East

When comparing Western culture with those from East Asia, it is easy to point out certain differences. In fact, some of them have been known to materialize into stereotypes. Yet, such dissimilarities have distinguishable roots. In turn, they have affected several aspects of both societies as a whole.

Western philosophy, which particularly grew in the Mediterranean portion of Europe and the Middle East, is dominant in today's Western states (European countries, Australia, USA, etc). This worldview portrays the universe as being composed of the properties that they have. As an example, people who grew up around this view tend to reason that the Earth seen from outer space is blue because there are particles within it that are blue (where the space around it is empty). Ultimately, they have a bottom-up approach.

Eastern philosophy, on the other hand, has its own worldview. This perspective particularly flourished under East Asian countries (China, India, etc) and is still dominant among its original birthplace. This philosophy emphasizes that everything in the universe is related to one another. The people influenced by this view, for example, reason that the blue color of Earth does not necessarily come from its particles alone. Rather, it has produced that color due to the interaction of the space around it, where it is the light from the sun that causes Earth to be blue. Easterners usually have a top-down approach.

There are several ways in which either philosophy has shaped a society as a whole. One of them is how Westerners hold individualism to a higher regard whereas collectivism and harmony is prized among Easterners. To simplify things, here is a list of the influence exerted by both worldviews:

Religion: Westerners tend to practice or have strong influences from a monotheistic religion, such as the Abrahamic Religions. Easterners, on the other hand, usually adhere to polytheistic religions. This comes from the believe that there is a balance in everything. Western religions, on the other hand, distinguish what's good and what's evil. As a matter of fact, morals (right vs wrong) play a bigger role in Western societies while Eastern societies focus more on ethics (good vs bad).

Society: Whereas the West possess a guilt-innocence society, the East has a shame-honor society. As far as psychology goes, it is also a plausible reason for why people of Western society today have experienced a sudden turn to guilt when rebelling against their values. The same situation is occurring with Easterners, except they turn to shame.

Politics: Westerners are more comfortable with the ideas of capitalism and liberty as they favor individualism. Fasteners, however, are more content with collectivism. Thus, they are more interested in ideas such as a social hierarchy (bosses are treated as if they're huge compared to the worker in Eastern countries) and socialism.

Linguistics: Western languages focus more on the nouns itself and their characteristics. They also have a considerably large amount of synonyms for a single word and the languages tend to be inflectional. This actually has big advantages for certain things including science. Eastern languages, on the other hand, has a more 'loose' grammar where the verb, portraying the relationship interaction of the nouns, are emphasized. Many Eastern languages also exhibit a topic-prominent structure (the situation around the noun is described).

Arts: As for Western art and architecture, they focus on perspective and how distinguishable they are from other objects. The East, on the other hand, takes into account the background and how well it blends in as a big picture. The traditional East Asian architecture style has an emphasis on how the buildings fit in with nature. It is also important to note that Westerners and Easterners use slightly different parts of their brain when viewing paintings.

Of course, there are many more differences between the Wast and the East, but these are some of the more prominent aspects that the philosophies have molded. Anyways, what are your opinions on the topic of Western and Eastern philosophies? Is one more effective and could one of them have an issue when it comes to values?