Comments on: Rock and Roll is Here to Stay

By: Zrv

Zrv — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 03:59:06 +0000

Regarding Ed’s comment, I heard Malcolm Gladwell talk about his ideas in a radio interview. I found them clever but ultimately absurd. Like many reductionist arguments, they are appealing in their simplicity, but can be neither proved nor disproved. His theory rests on a general premise that I don’t find very convincing: namely, that culturally-determined habits of mind will persist long after the initial motivation for them is gone. Some will, some won’t. I’m pretty certain that most of my habits of mind are determined by the culture I grew up in, not by the one my great-great-grandparents grew up in in Eastern Europe. On the other hand, it’s certainly plausible that, through a complex chain of events, some features of that culture have had an impact on me through the ways that my parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were brought up. But how can anyone hope to measure or identify those factors?

By: Winnie Orr

Winnie Orr — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:38:14 +0000

Jason, Glad to see you’re posting again.

By: Jason Patent

Jason Patent — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:00:29 +0000

Joel,

Thanks for coming along on the journey!

By: Jason Patent

Jason Patent — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 23:59:55 +0000

Cathryn,

Great questions! Interesting that Prothero treats Confucianism as a “religion” — lots of debate on that one! Mostly for its lack of anything that transcends the human world. “Humanistic” is commonly used as an adjective to describe Confucianism.

I’m curious what you see of Confucianism in the blog post. Regardless, absolutely, the influence of Confucianism is still everywhere in Chinese society — though many scholars take a different view, preferring not to encompass a great deal of diversity under such a vague cover term.

I think it’s precisely in its humanism that Confucianism’s influence is most deeply felt in today’s China. In future posts I’ll get into this a bit more: the “holiness” of the standard American view versus the “human-ness” of the standard Chinese view. In other words, I’m asking your leave to have your questions answered largely by future posts, where I’ll be able to give them more thorough treatment.

By: Jason Patent

Jason Patent — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 23:19:10 +0000

Ed, you pose the classic Marxian question about materialism. Philosophers and political theorists have debated this for centuries. No easy answers!

By: Joel Zarrow

Joel Zarrow — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 19:58:53 +0000

I just had an image of you in the Mazda, map in hand, finding your way through China. What a contribution it would be to have a similar map to navigate an unknown cultural model.

By: Cathryn Campbell

Cathryn Campbell — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:52:29 +0000

Jason, this is really, really interesting and I’m so glad that you are sharing your insights and wisdom in this format.

I recently watched a Book TV segment on Stephen Prothero’s new book,
God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World–and Why Their Differences Matter. The Chinese View you shared sounds very much like Prothero’s description of Confucianism. How has Confucianism and other influences shaped the Chinese View? More holistically, what are the main influences on the American View and the Chinese View?

By: Ed Frauenheim

Ed Frauenheim — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 04:58:52 +0000

I love that line–”the American dream-based life view.” Such a source of strength and suffering!

Looking forward to hearing more about Calvinism and its effect. And I recommend Gladwell. I think he’s saying that the requirements for and conditions of rice farming as opposed to other kinds of farming led to certain cultural traits. At least in this book he doesn’t address the role of religion or philosophy in work ethic/culture. Could it be that material conditions are more powerful than pure ideas in determining cultural leanings?

By: Jason Patent

Jason Patent — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 04:50:33 +0000

Great questions, Ed. My problem with Gladwell’s argument is its reductiveness. I haven’t read Outliers, so I could be misconstruing. If, though, it’s simply a “hard work” argument, I could flip it and say Calvinism would predict a Chinese viewpoint, but (as I’ll show in later posts) Calvinism is largely responsible for the American dream-based life view, despite its maniacal focus on work.

That said, I can’t dismiss the argument out of hand.

Thanks for the comment!

By: Ed Frauenheim

Ed Frauenheim — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 04:41:18 +0000

Hey Jason,
Way to resume the car in China book project–title idea: Taking License; a Chinese road trip of cross cultural adventures.

(Less good title: A Chinese License to Chill.)

This item struck me as right on regarding the American mindset. Yes, we expect people should follow their passion–there’s something tragic if they don’t.

And from what I know about China and its culture (much of it from you), the Chinese set of reactions also makes sense.

The question I had as I read was why do the Chinese have theirs and we ours? I’d love to hear your thoughts and other folks’ thoughts on whether a major factor (at least for those from Southern China) has to do with the rigors and demands of rice agriculture. In other words, whether a focus on the straight and narrow path of hard work and studying owes something to the discipline and work ethic cultivated by cultivating rice.

Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers makes a convincing case, in my mind, that rice paddy culture plays a huge role in the mindset and work ethic (and math prowess) of Chinese people. Could that agricultural legacy be an influence in the preference for formal education over the informal pursuit of rock stardom?