One good way to summon it up is like this:
Broadly, speaking, Western society strives to find and prove "the truth", while Eastern society accepts the truth as given and is more interested in finding the balance.
Westerners put more stock in individual rights; Easterners in social responsibly.
Eastern civilization has an idea of working together as a society. That we are all connected together. Western philosophy is defined by individualism and self determination. That you can go further working hard by yourself then working together with society to bring everybody into a greater state of living. Eastern civilizations seem to accept things better. While we in the western world believe we determine the outcome of the future and ourselves, those in the western world accept things for what it is instead of what they want it to be.
"Do not hope that things happen as you wish but wish that they happen as they do. Those who do so will get along well." - Daoism quote.
The eastern world is considered that of Asia such as China Japan and Arabic countries while the western world is in a sense everything else. An example of important text that founded beliefs in the eastern world is Romance of the three kingdoms which depicts the time of the Han dynast in the 1st century. In these text it is similar to that of homers in the sense of honor and pride but their depictions of honor and pride were different. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms everyones goal was to restore china under one dynasty and they did this by qualling rebellions and fighting for the greater good of society. Compared to the Illead, they fought a war only for Helen and the sake of love.
It goes to show that while the ideas are similar they are at the same time very different. Both sides have made a huge contribution to the strides in knowledge that humanity has made. Without one the other could not exist. It's through these different perspectives that philosophy has become what it is today.
East and west do form a kind of complementary ying & yang, and it's a challenge to put them together and apply their respective insights constructively in your experience. But I have to take issue with the notion that eastern philosophy regards truth as "given"... it's never that simple, in any tradition.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work , I read few posts on this web site and I conceive that your blog is very interesting and has sets of fantastic information.
ReplyDeleteBox Μελισσες