David Brooks on Harmonious Collectives

Does Brooks actually believe what he's saying? A harmonious collective is as good as the individual American Dream? Show me a genuine "harmonious collective" -- and China does not count because it's NOT -- and then we'll talk.

I live in a world where I have experience with BOTH collective and individualist schools of thought because I'm Asian-American, and let me tell you: the individualist approach has given me far more opportunity and autonomy than the purely collective approach. The Cine-Sib and I will tell you that the "collectivist" model in social contexts is all too easily used to exploit some people for the benefit of others. That, and the individual becomes subsumed; you can become totally suffocated by expectation and obligation to things and people you may not even like.

Besides, how many times in human history has the idea of the "harmonious collective" been used as a goal and justification for utopian social engineering projects -- all of which ended up creating hell on earth? *cough* totalitarian Communism! *cough* But I'll spare you another of my unhinged rants.

But I simply have to point out Brooks' description of how Americans and Chinese look at a fish tank.

This is a divide that goes deeper than economics into the way people perceive the world. If you show an American an image of a fish tank, the American will usually describe the biggest fish in the tank and what it is doing. If you ask a Chinese person to describe a fish tank, the Chinese will usually describe the context in which the fish swim. These sorts of experiments have been done over and over again, and the results reveal the same underlying pattern. Americans usually see individuals; Chinese and other Asians see contexts.

Oh, please. Stereotype, anyone? But let me get this straight:

American: What's the big fish doing?

Chinese: What are all the fish doing?

Mad Minerva: SASHIMI!!!!!!