East and West, Monism and Dualism (English)

Wherever I travel in the world, I feel really comfortable being with Asians.

I am not saying that I cannot have sympathy with other people. Actually, some of my best friends are not from Asian countries. I am just talking about it in general.

It seems like there is a big difference between the world view of East and West.

It seems like the eastern culture is more monistic and the western is more dualistic.

In eastern culture, we think that nature and human beings are inseparable. We humans are born from the nature and go back into the nature after the death.

In eastern art, we always look for the integration of human beings and nature. Nature is something to coexist with.

We have tendency to think that everything is connected and each factor is affecting with each other strongly.

Also, as the image below shows, in asian world view, each factor compensate the lack of other factors and makes something complete.

On the other hand, in western culture, they tend to think that each element is independent. Mans and nature is completely different in nature and nature is something to be dominated by mans.

The other day, I wrote about quantum theory. (Sorry, in Japanese,,,,,jaja)

I wrote about whether humans can be really independent and neutral when they observe natural phenomenon. In recent consensus, scholars agreed that our act of observation affects the state of the object and we, as observers, cannot be completely independent from natural phenomenon.

This is close to the monistic way of thinking.

It is notable that even in the academic world, which is mainly the product of western logical and rational thinking, monistic world view is appearing.

(Just in case, I would like to add that I am not criticizing the western culture or overestimating the eastern culture. I just want to focus on the difference of both culture. I believe that most of the development in our world is due to the western rationality and logic. Our high living standard today is mostly the fruit of western world view.)

So far, especially after the industrial revolution in the UK, it seems like the world has walked the western path; we mainly have had the dualistic world view. And the world became prosperous even though there still remains lots of problems.

It is said that the 21st century will be the century of Asia.

More than 60% of the world population live in Asia and its economic importance keeps growing.

When the physical importance of Asia rises, how about the Asian world view?

Asian monistic world view will be important or not? Is it going to gather world attention?

As an Asian, the 21st century will be interesting.