I’m not going to bother critiquing David Brooks’s exercise in over-generalization today—James Fallows has already done it. However, I’d like to point out something from his column:
When the psychologist Richard Nisbett showed Americans individual pictures of a chicken, a cow and hay and asked the subjects to pick out the two that go together, the Americans would usually pick out the chicken and the cow. They’re both animals. Most Asian people, on the other hand, would pick out the cow and the hay, since cows depend on hay. Americans are more likely to see categories. Asians are more likely to see relationships.
Uh, not exactly. The distinction he’s pointing to isn’t just a difference between individualism and collectivism as Mr. Brooks says. It’s a difference between literate people and people who live in an oral or vestigial oral society cf. here.
Perhaps there’s a relationship between individualism and literacy. I couldn’t say. If so it lends some support to my concerns about our emerging post-literate visual society.
Hat tip: memeorandum
