18 March 2024
The introduction to Part Two discusses basic assumptions just below the surface of our consciousness.
The authors begin recounting how Western Christians confuse the image of crossing the Jordan with the Greek image of crossing the River Styx into the realm of the dead. The two are merged into the idea of an individual soul leaving this world for another. For the Khmus tribes, this is terrifying because it means leaving their ancestral home and never seeing their families again. When the 23rd Psalm is translated from English into their language, it paints a very unpleasant picture. That's because the English translation injects western ideas into the Hebrew text. The biblical image of Eternity is the New Jerusalem coming down; this gives far more emphasis on God bringing His home to us, transforming this world into His own.
Then one of the authors talked about an experience in a bookstore in Jakarta. It took a half-dozen people in an elaborate system to handle the books, verify things a couple of times, and then generate multiple copies of his receipt before he actually got the books in his hands. The author remarked how inefficient this was by western thinking. His local guide explained that the logic of Indonesians was to employ as many people as possible so they wouldn't be on the streets begging. Frankly, the latter is biblical economics. We should be looking after our community, not stuffing the maximum profits into just a few hands.
The outline for the next three chapters goes like this: collectivism versus individualism, honor versus shame (as opposed to other moral systems), and the concept of time. This is on the level where western minds begin to assume their orientation is the human default.
So the next chapter begins with a discussion of why it took so very long for Catholic missionaries to make any headway in Japan. In essence, the missionaries didn't understand how their message sounded to the Japanese. The people there thought in terms of the community to which they were attached, stretching back beyond those already dead. Their identity was in that community. To embrace Christian faith and go to heaven meant leaving behind all those who could not join them. It was a betrayal of their people.
Our supreme value is the sovereignty of the individual. The ultimate moral ambition is being true to oneself. Think about the debate over school uniforms. Every study, without fail, shows that it is safer for the individual students and improves their academic focus. But the objections include a range of complaints about how it threatens the individual sovereignty.
Even though the authors try, it is virtually impossible to impress on westerners the moral viewpoint of collectivist societies. No matter how you word it, Americans in particular react negatively to the whole idea. You cannot get across the positives of the collectivist social orientation. Even the concept of trying to balance the two is generally rejected.
So the contrast with the likes of Indonesian culture is painfully obvious. They believe that the community must protect the individual from themselves. Thus, marriage there is a union of two communities, not two individuals. It would be irresponsible to simply turn the bachelors and bachelorettes out to find their own way. There is no dating there as we think of it. But then, there was no dating in the Bible, either.
Even though we recognize the collective instinct in sports teams (and fans) or military service, the individual keeps rising up through sporting stats, promotions, etc. The collective identity is wholly artificial, and no one loses track of that.
An interesting example arises with how we have adopted the Roman habit of giving people at least three names: personal, ancestral/clan and family. But they would sign their names by abbreviating the personal with an initial, and then use their other two names in full. In America, the emphasis is on the personal, so we use our personal names most, and with each generation, this becomes more prominent. By contrast, in East Asia, the family name comes first in order, followed by other names. Many have learned to adopt a typical western "Walmart name" from the West and put their family name behind it, because they could never get Americans in particular to understand, nor to pronounce their real name correctly.
The section summary admits that there is no way to make West or East understand the positive aspects of each other's cultural orientation on this issue. To embrace the other is a betrayal of all that is sacred to each.
Please note: The Bible is far more collectivist than the West, but not in the same sense as with East Asians. The similarities are superficial. It is also individualist in a way quite different from the West. The covenant community is essentially collectivist because God holds us accountable for each other in certain ways. But when it comes to your ultimate choices through faith and conviction, no one can do it for you. Thus, things are placed in their proper realm. Collectivism versus individualism is actually a false dichotomy.
Comments
Jay DiNitto
Speaking of uniforms and east Asia: might already be obvious, but every school has required uniforms in Japan, and I'm guessing other east Asian cultures. The strictness varies between schools, but it's definitely enforced, and it's a tradition to sometimes wear the uniform outside of school hours and make personalizations in that context. Personalizations at that level aren't really accepted in the actual school itself.
Too, when you get to the middle/high school years, there's different expressions of formal/informal hierarchy among the students that they follow without resistance, which would mostly be anathema to western minds.
A. Probst
What some call conformity, others might call making the grade.
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