East West Cultural Differences

Written by Mathew Naismith

https://www.learning-mind.com/cultural-differences-east-west/

I have always loved noting the differences in the way people of eastern and western cultured people think and perceive.

It is interesting how a lot of eastern cultured people are thinking more inline with western cultures due to the influence of western cultured thinking processes, often inline with western style living conditions!!

The two main conceptual differences is that western thinking is more of individualism, while eastern thinking is more of collectivism. You will find that an individualistic mind set is a lot easier to offend than a collective mind set, this is probably why I get myself in a lot of trouble, I often say things that I would not be offended by. Just by mentioning these differences offends a lot of western thinking people,which I find petty which further offends the western mind.

You must be of what you are, not of what the environment around you determines you are otherwise you are simply living a lie.

It is funny to think that the forefathers of western minded people today actually displayed a more eastern thinking process, especially when of a tribal community kind of environment. I also find that a lot of western people today that live by teachings that are of an eastern origin can also display a more eastern style of thinking. It is often sad to see the western mind distort eastern teachings to western teachings. This one line is often highly offensives to the western mind, inline with the western mind being offended when someone doesn't use the correct pronoun when making reference to their numerous genders.

So is the Western style of thinking wrong and the Eastern style of thinking right?

It is funny, because it is the western mind that often puts everything in life into right and wrong, good and bad, positive or negative. So is looking after yourself, individualism, to best look after the tribe, collectivism, wrong? Another point is, can you focus too much on the tribe and not enough on yourself? The individual is as important as the collective so there is no wrong or right here. By looking out for the individual that serves the collective is non-abusive, to look after the individual while using the collective to do so is abusive. As yin and yang are important to each other, so is individualism and collectivism.

Collectivism Scorned in the West

Written By Mathew Naismith

So why are people of a collective mentality in the west scorned by most other people in the west? It is indeed an interesting question as this is exactly what is occurring in western countries at present.

In the west it seems to be immoral to put the collective before individual, believe it or not, putting humanities needs before individual needs and desires. This is no joke, this is exactly what is occurring.

How could it get to a stage that it is immoral to put the collective before the individual in the west?

Actually, the western mind in all of us to start with is of a human trait of putting individual needs before collective needs, this is apart of the western mind set to start with. Depending on the environmental influence within a western society, this trait can vary from a passive state to an aggressive state. Passive simply relates to also wanting to comprehend the collective needs as well, where aggressive is simply about individual needs and desires, full stop.

So how can one determine how aggressive individualistic needs and desires have become?

Try telling the western mind about the trauma that the collective is presently experiencing, the western mind just does not want to know. Mention the harm that covid vaccines are causing, or that paedophilia is being normalised, or that western governments are doing exactly what the individualistic western NWO wants them to. Try informing the many western people who are into spirituality about this collective trauma, they desire not to know, when spirituality is supposed to be all about the collective.

Well, in western countries it would seem that spirituality is about individual needs and desires, while often not desiring to know about the collective trauma. I have been spiritually aware, to one extent or another, since the late 1960's, the change from the spiritual collective mindset to the now individualistic spiritual mindset is quite apparent and obvious. Notice it is now deemed negative in the western spiritual community to speak about anything that exposes this aggressive individualism for what is it. Imagine if Jesus or Buddha were of the same kind of mentality!!

The funny thing is that my wife and I did not choose to go down this path of collectivism, as many people do not choose to go down the path of individualism, it just happens that way. For me, I simply became aware of the difference between aggressive individualism and passive collectivism, in the process simply becoming not of what I thought was more harmful to the collective. The individualistic mindset would be to take note of who has more than me, and not desiring to know what this kind of mentality is going to do to the collective!! I think I was born with a collective mindset to start with. I was brought up in an environment of people serving their individual desires, while others like myself did without because of this. I don't regret doing without so that others can serve their own personal desires, I learnt so much from this, but of course I could have gone down the road of suffering from this as well, which would have ended up with me being of an individualistic mindset!!

It is funny how my own western mindset is so easily offended, in other words traumatised by the obvious and the more obvious it is, the more traumatised this kind of mindset becomes, leading even more to an individualistic mindset therefore reality. All it takes is a bit of self-honesty to avoid going down this road of individualism, which again offends and traumatises the individualistic mindset!!