I know, right? For someone who isn’t invested in art, it’s incredible. But for people who actually paint, it’s just standard-issue.

That’s how it is! I’m afraid your opinion is merely dilated by the attractive woman standing beside it.

LOOOOL

Oh wow, look! A reasonably attractive woman with an average painting! Don’t see that a lot on this sub!

Are you talking about my comment? I have to presume you must be responding to the comment to which I was responding (and have therefore misplaced your comment as though it were a response to mine), but alas… perhaps not?

So, you think banishing all critique will convince people that scientists aren’t corrupt or politicized, eh?

LOOOOL

Oh yes, yes… it’s just the alt-right stuff that’s the problem on Reddit.

Meanwhile, Reddit goes undetected…

Yikes.

Well, this is why I quit Reddit. I forgot.

Anyway, be sure to educate Yang Chu, a famous Chinese philosopher of the exact time period in question (who makes an appearance in the author’s cited Zhuangzi, even!) and let him know that Chinese philosophy is just all about collectivism!

He wrote:

“…neither of us stands a chance if one of us fails at growing rice in the first place. Thus you do not find them hoarding water.”

That is: because they farm rice, Chinese people have developed more “collective-oriented” philosophical distinctions from those in the West… despite the fact that those in the West also face the basic human predicament of sharing resources and cooperating in the rudimentary manner being described while farming other plants…

So that rice must be really magical, huh?

The claims being made in the parent comment to which I originally responded appear to include:

1. Chinese philosophy differs from Western philosophy in some way (action is “collective” or some crap)
2. Rice has something to do with this.

I challenged anyone to provide something resembling a sensible explanation for this which isn’t as stupid as it appears on its face. In fact, it strikes me as racist because it laughably seeks to explain important, complex, very studiously and intentionally developed differences in human thought to be reducible to some crap about a plant which one of the ethnicities in question happens to cultivate for food. That argument is so stupid, it’s amazing.

In response to my critique, someone in a parent comment suggested that the original commenter intended the rice reference to be a metaphor.

This makes no sense, of course. The original commenter was clearly making literal claims about rice-based agricultural practices leading somehow to different philosophical output among the rice-farming population when compared to non-rice-farming populations. If you re-read what he wrote, you can see that he plainly states that, because of the nature of rice farming, you won’t find Chinese people “hoarding water”.

…

Nonetheless, here we are, with you trying to explain the original commenter’s use of rice as some sort of a metaphor which explains the difference between Chinese and Western philosophy…by reference to…helping people..or something?

Does that seem like an accurate summary to you?

So the answer to my question, then, is: “No.”

Richard Nisbett thinks Chinese philosophy differs in content from Western philosophy because Chinese people farm rice?

Because they farm rice?

What would that point be? Remember to include:

1. The alleged universally-recognized “collectivity” of action (whatever that means) throughout “Classical Chinese philosophy”
2. The relationship of the above to the social implications of rice cultivation (as distinct from other plant cultivation taking place outside of China, I guess)

And how, exactly, does that have anything to do with the distinction between Chinese and Western philosophical or religious thought?

What, exactly, do you suspect it to represent? We till plants in the West, too, so… that seems to preclude some general point from being made…

No… but reducing Chinese philosophy’s differences from the West to a consequence of tilling rice paddies is pretty bad…no?

In our hyper-sensitive environment, such accusations have lost their gravity, but damn if this doesn’t smack of it, nonetheless.

I don’t even think he’s intending racism; he’s probably just so enamored with the sense of the exotic that he is absent-mindedly and inaccurately placing cause and effect relationships therein.

wtf are you even talking about? You think there’s some distinct form of social collaboration that China has had forever, the likes of which Western civilization (except..for…its military veterans!?) knows nothing?

Jebus..

This is not only wrong, but basically racist. It’s ridiculous. You think “eastern philosophy” is distinct from western philosophy because they have rice paddies over there? wtf.

Nothing substantial, and certainly nothing important, about Chinese religious and philosophical thought is conveyed by reference to their rice paddies and some lame assertion that their cultivation instills some kind of novel attributes in mankind. The idea that that magical plant has led to a society in which neighbors help one another and no strife is to be found is just outrageous. We grow plants in the west, too, ya know. Why is it that those plants didn’t lead to the same alleged (also: false) outcome?

I feel compelled to leave this comment, but holy.. one barely knows what to write. Do you not see how silly it is to pretend that what you wrote is accurate? Was rice just not workin’ like it’s supposed to during the Warring States period? Or.. any of the other myriad violent conflicts in China’s history? You think the Chinese have never so much as “hoarded water” in opposition to one another?

Just: wow.

This isn’t true AT ALL.

China has a massive set of philosophical beliefs in which, for example, hermitude is important. Innumerable Daoist and Buddhist sages and wise men retreated from society to be free of its collective grasp.

Of course, the way the alleged commonality is described in the opening paragraphs, it’s loose and vague enough to apply to a wide range of very different philosophical positions. It reads initially like a(n obviously false) social claim, but seems upon its author’s initial description to be a vague metaphysical claim. At best, it gives a dramatically false sense of unity in a very broad and diverse set of beliefs. At worst, it poorly describes any one of them, and fails completely as a thesis.

The author’s first two paragraphs simply put a metaphysical spin on life and the third paragraph states that such a spin would be “near common sense” to a “Chinese philosopher” of a six hundred year period spanning numerous dynasties (during which Buddhism is introduced, no less).

The article is laughable on its face to someone who has actually studied the philosophical and religious content of the time period. It is nothing more than clickbait.

In fact, it’s downright insulting to reduce the complex philosophical environment of the cited time period to some lamely-put, pseudo-profound summary which does no justice to any actual thought from the period.

Edit: My God. Against my better judgment, I decided to read past the first few paragraphs, in the spirit of the sub. My advice: don’t bother. The citations of the DaoDeJing and Zhuangzi in defense of some weird, poorly-defined idea of the “agency” of a house or a tree are outrageously stupid. Like, unbelievably so. Beyond being merely a comedically incorrect academic, it seems apparent to me that this person has absolutely no idea what he or she is talking about.