Nisbett Collectivism Vs Individualism

Nisbett introduces the differences amongst the two areas of the world in an historical form. Nisbett reveals how westerners tend to focus on exact rules and categories, whereas Easterners focus on the context. He does this by analyzing each school of thought. Western schools of thought stem from ancient Greece. In ancient Greece, the great philosophers of the West lived, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The Western philosophy focused mainly on individual freedom and responsibility. Every individual was always looking out for themselves. This focus on self leads constant competitiveness to emerge amongst the ancients. This concept explains the ruthless wars and how democracy came about. If every place was ruled by a single individual,
there is no way everyone always agreed with their decisions. Democracy came about because every person wanted their opinion to be heard and considered. Thus, personal agency is a key factor in western culture. This idea of individual freedom has also rolled over into how Westerners classify objects. The true nature of objects must be known for the West to understand them. This “true nature” refers to the makeup of the object. For example, with the human body, for doctors to understand how the body works, it had to be broken down into its simplest form. In cutting open the body and running tests, people now can physically touch the explanations needed for various conditions. On the other hand, Eastern thought focuses on the bigger picture in a sense.
Eastern thought consists of an emphasis on the context of a situation. Eastern thought focuses on collective agency. Instead of being focused on the individual solely, many ancient Easterner, such as Confucius, look at the individual based on how they connect to the larger general group of people. This means that priority lies with the network of mutual obligations that people have with their communities, and not just the person on their own. This can be reflected in how the Chinese operate their communities. Everyone has their own responsibility. However, each responsibility is dependent on another responsibility. Everyone needs the other, which forms a sense of comradery/community amongst these people. This school of thought makes sense considering how what we now know as China used to be a grouping of multiple villages and kingdoms who only united through warfare or because outsiders were coming in to attempt to take over their villages. Also, opposite of Western culture, Eastern culture defines the nature of objects based on their surroundings. As Nisbett states, the “fluidity of nature will reveal the salient features of reality”. Essentially, the true nature of objects is only revealed by how they operate in nature. Thus, Eastern thought leans on the context and function of an object in nature to understand the object better. This way of understanding is less invasive than the Western concept of understand the makeup of the object. This is reflected much with how Eastern thought views medicine. Though Westerners have a scientific/biomedical approach, Easterners have a naturalistic approach. They believe that the human body works in fluidity with nature. If an individual becomes sick, it is because their bodies have fallen out of sync with and medicine is how that balance is restored. Given these ideals, a fundamental difference between the schools of thought can be revealed.
Fundamental difference between individualism (western) and collectivism (eastern) is reflected best in how the individual operates in context within their community.
Interestingly, Nisbett reveals these differences by redefining what community is in each culture. In individualistic cultures, the community is defined more as a society. This is reflected best through the urban areas of America, such as Atlanta and Manhattan. In these places, people look out for themselves. Granted, due to the size of these areas, many understand why because a million people cannot seemingly be dependent on one another. However, in societies, personal freedom is encouraged and solidarity is not a priority. The focus on personal freedom has probably been the downfall of American Society. Even though democracy is supposed to represent everyone in government, politicians tend to look out mainly for themselves and thus all opinions are not heard. Thus, many people would unify and their collective opinions would then be heard. Given that, collectivism has its value. Under collectivism, cultures have actual communities. The actual definition of communities is upheld. Therefore, solidarity is valued over personal freedom. This collectivistic thought is reflected best in many of the casue-based groups in America such as Black Lives Matter and recent reigniting of the Feminist Movement. Nisbett then goes into many examples of the differences between collectivism and
individualism.
The examples Nisbett uses are those surrounding different aspects of each culture: causality, language, and philosophy.
Remember, Westerners believe everything is because of the object itself and Easterners define objects per the context of the object. Thus, causality is easily explained. As seen in medicine, Westerners focus on how changes to the body are caused by the body itself. For instance, many doctors will explain a disease or disorder because of the individual’s actions. The person is sick because their body did not do something correctly. With infections, the body could not fight hard enough to fend it off. This is especially prevalent in mental health. People are stigmatized because the uneducated assume that people are crazy because of something being wrong with their brain. Those this is partially true, with mental health, there is an outward trigger that activates the condition, whether at birth or due to an experience. With easterners, causality is due to various external factors acting on the object. For instance, people are sick due to an imbalance with nature. Thus, many medical procedures are aimed towards restoring that balance. Cupping, for example, is a process used to restore the blood flow to certain areas of the body to relieve pain and strain. With language, the difference not in how the languages are used but in the words, themselves. Western languages, romantic and Germanic, have many different nouns and categories. In these languages, the
emphasis on defining who the subject is reflects individualism. This focus brings about many verb forms. On the other hand, collectivistic languages, Mandarin for instance, have a single verb tense. Using simple nouns and simple verbs, many would be confused. However, this means that Chinese use aspect, which is explaining something in its more existential form. Aspect in language is another way that collectivism is expressed because aspect is a form of context. Finally, Western philosophy is based on logic. Logic is a form a reasoning based on how an individual understands the makeup of an object, place, or person. Logic is scientifically based. With collectivism, conclusions are based on experiences. A great example is explaining in how Easterners have a better knack for math. It is not due to a superior, natural ability. The higher understanding of math and physics is due to work ethic and emphasizing math in education. People are better at math because they work hard and focus on math during education (remember, external factors).
There are a few issues with how Nisbett categorizes his research. He has made some amazing discoveries; however, he generalizes his research to represent all from a certain area. With the West world, a lot of research appears to reflect solely Americans alone. Western culture is made of European countries (France, Great Britain, Etc.) and all North America, Canadians included. Nisbett, perhaps, should include the mannerisms of those countries as well as just Americans before generalizing. In his generalizations, Nisbett, in a sense, forces his evidence to fit all westerners. Thus, it is very hard to generalize his work. Therefore, this research can only reflect American culture and not Western culture, holistically.
Regardless of how he came up with his categories, Nisbett’s research does have some future impacts. In understanding how each type of culture works, there can be a development of a cross-cultural communication. In this understanding, people can then begin to understand a respect the other culture, especially since each culture has its value and drawbacks. Once people begin to respect other cultures, multiple perspectives can be brought to the table when solving problems. This collective approach could help rectify weaknesses in each culture type. Though great in theory, Nisbett points outs some key factors in his epilogue that may affect this round table concept. The main factor is in the dominance of Western culture. Westerners have a certain type of arrogance about them, probably springing from their obsession with self. How can two different cultures work as one if there is one always acting as though they are the best? Western is always going to want to be on top. Personally, I believe for the cultures to work in sync, individualistic cultures are going to have to become very desperate and lost to even accept the idea of considering other cultures for a way out. This present day and time presents the right environment for this to occur.