What do you consider a contemporary Asian author who says valuable things about our subject of effective thinking that has such an Eastern perspective? Or does your idea of what Eastern thinking is like mostly come from Western sources?
This is a good point, because what we (Westerners) see as “Eastern thinking” may actually be Eastern thinking filtered by Western communicational channels, which can easily be more impressive than unfiltered “Western thinking”, simply because the less impressive parts were filtered away.
It’s like in movies, where Western audience enjoys watching Buddhist monks with cool fighting skills and deep wisdom (because everyone knows the average Christian priest is quite boring), while Eastern audience watches an anime where the Pope rides a dragon into a swordfight (because everyone knows the average Buddhist priest is quite boring).
I’m taking a much more abstract view of “Eastern” and “Western” thinking. It’s a lot like the introvert / extrovert distinction. There are correlations, and the correlations coalesce into patterns, and the patterns become concepts / buckets.
I’m not trying to talk about actual Asians here. White ppl can absolutely do the Eastern thing, and vice versa, and also all kinds of mixes. Basically, the concept of Eastern/Western is an abstract line; it’s not about people.
The philosophies and teaching methods of Circling Europe (a particular school of Circling that is led by white guys) are influenced by Zen, and their methods more embody the Eastern way of going about truth-seeking. [Warning: Their online content is really bad.] They like to do subject-object shifts, continuous context setting, and naming the unnamed (e.g. elephants in the room).
In-person methods of seeking truth from other humans is probably more Eastern, as in-person communication includes a lot of the implicit contexts. While the internet tends to wipe away context.
There are also a number of rationalist writers who like to put events into broader historical contexts, which is a move that I’m calling more Eastern. Systems-based thinking is also more Eastern, as it puts more attention on the “field” than the players or objects.
Good forecasting likely has to use many Eastern moves—as it involves a kind of outside view / checking for large-scale variables that one could easily ignore when focusing only on the relevant actors.
While I haven’t been to the bigger Circling Europe events, I have learned Circling from Lucas who’s in good standing with the main Circling Europe crowd. I know what it is even without having to look at the 6-figure web presence that’s still wanting at explaining it.
The Circling Europe page links plenty of people as influences for Circling Europe and not a single one who comes from a strict Zen perspective or even a non-Zen Buddhist background.
On the other hand, there are Western phenomolgists like Nietzsche and Heidegger. I think it’s a mistake to identify Western-thinking with analytical Philosophy and pretend that we didn’t have many Western thinkers who also thought differently.
I think it’s easy to get lost in inaccurate historical narratives when speaking about West and East. Plenty of Westerns are quite capable of dialectic thinking.
I have other reasons to believe they have a Zen influence that are not their webpage.
I am confused by your latter two paragraphs, as it seems like my first two paragraphs in the previous comment should have addressed those concerns. I’ll put forward Val’s “In praise of fake frameworks” post as further response.
What do you consider a contemporary Asian author who says valuable things about our subject of effective thinking that has such an Eastern perspective? Or does your idea of what Eastern thinking is like mostly come from Western sources?
This is a good point, because what we (Westerners) see as “Eastern thinking” may actually be Eastern thinking filtered by Western communicational channels, which can easily be more impressive than unfiltered “Western thinking”, simply because the less impressive parts were filtered away.
It’s like in movies, where Western audience enjoys watching Buddhist monks with cool fighting skills and deep wisdom (because everyone knows the average Christian priest is quite boring), while Eastern audience watches an anime where the Pope rides a dragon into a swordfight (because everyone knows the average Buddhist priest is quite boring).
I’m taking a much more abstract view of “Eastern” and “Western” thinking. It’s a lot like the introvert / extrovert distinction. There are correlations, and the correlations coalesce into patterns, and the patterns become concepts / buckets.
I’m not trying to talk about actual Asians here. White ppl can absolutely do the Eastern thing, and vice versa, and also all kinds of mixes. Basically, the concept of Eastern/Western is an abstract line; it’s not about people.
The philosophies and teaching methods of Circling Europe (a particular school of Circling that is led by white guys) are influenced by Zen, and their methods more embody the Eastern way of going about truth-seeking. [Warning: Their online content is really bad.] They like to do subject-object shifts, continuous context setting, and naming the unnamed (e.g. elephants in the room).
In-person methods of seeking truth from other humans is probably more Eastern, as in-person communication includes a lot of the implicit contexts. While the internet tends to wipe away context.
There are also a number of rationalist writers who like to put events into broader historical contexts, which is a move that I’m calling more Eastern. Systems-based thinking is also more Eastern, as it puts more attention on the “field” than the players or objects.
Good forecasting likely has to use many Eastern moves—as it involves a kind of outside view / checking for large-scale variables that one could easily ignore when focusing only on the relevant actors.
While I haven’t been to the bigger Circling Europe events, I have learned Circling from Lucas who’s in good standing with the main Circling Europe crowd. I know what it is even without having to look at the 6-figure web presence that’s still wanting at explaining it.
The Circling Europe page links plenty of people as influences for Circling Europe and not a single one who comes from a strict Zen perspective or even a non-Zen Buddhist background.
On the other hand, there are Western phenomolgists like Nietzsche and Heidegger. I think it’s a mistake to identify Western-thinking with analytical Philosophy and pretend that we didn’t have many Western thinkers who also thought differently.
I think it’s easy to get lost in inaccurate historical narratives when speaking about West and East. Plenty of Westerns are quite capable of dialectic thinking.
I have other reasons to believe they have a Zen influence that are not their webpage.
I am confused by your latter two paragraphs, as it seems like my first two paragraphs in the previous comment should have addressed those concerns. I’ll put forward Val’s “In praise of fake frameworks” post as further response.