culture On ethnicity and social conditions

With the traditional stereotypes about the Chinese in mind, today’s meeting of the Center of Chinese Studies of the University of Michigan on how Chinese think was a useful exercise. Freedom, individualism and egalitarism have older roots in China than in the US, which now claims ideological hegemony in the world.
Marty Powers, professor of Chinese Arts and Cultures, again made a case in favor of social conditions and against ethnicity as the deciding factor in why people behave in certain ways. He described how in 12th century China egalitarism and individualism emerged, centures before the Enlightenment would come to Western Europe. So short were the European of the 16th and 17th century by the free-wheeling Chinese with a solid legal system, they did no effort to hide their disgust.
Free speech and access to public office were in China at the time very well regulated, while the European languages even did not make a distinction between the office and the officer, indicating that sacking an officer would be unthinkable.
Academic tend to have many of these interesting observations that would be useful to assume a more modest attitude in sometimes fierce clashes between cultures that take place. It is a pity they are able to hide them so carefully.
In the discussion more useful topics came up. Studies among American-Chinese and other overseas Chinese showed that they were able to adopt to different ways of behaving, depending on the situations they were in. Both depending on time, place and choice people could decide to react in different ways.

The meeting was a critique on the book ‘Geography of Thoughts’ by Richard Nisbitt.