Western Thinking – apart from that we’re alright!

To call it ‘Western Thinking’ is in some ways to simplify it. There is arguably no such thing as indigenous western thinking per se but in many respects there is what can be described as patterns of thought that are more applicable in behaviour exhibited in ‘the West’, so much so, that cobbled together they constitute enough ‘collateral damage’ to earn the right to be referred to as Western Thinking.

In the West, our happiness depends more on pleasure than in the East. In the west, we are pre-occupied with self-satisfaction and consistency. We have black or white and either/or thinking, we struggle with ‘duality’ and are loathe to appear contradictory or inconsistent. We rarely look at context or situationism as reasons to explain the unexpected opting instead to focus on character and motivation.

We believe heavily in individualism and that competition and market forces will provide solutions, and if you are successful then you deserve to be without any real consideration of the influence of luck or good fortune, and if you are unsuccessful, or find yourself in an unfortunate situation, it is of your own making.

We believe in punishment as opposed to rehabilitation, we view liberal democracy as the only way to govern, our thinking is reliant on analysis and argument and we believe in better rather than simpler. Rather than being satisfied with our lot we are always looking for alternatives, and endlessly fixing things that are not broken.

We have 'weaponised' language and have nurtured the ‘call-out’ culture, ensured that extroversion is the dominant personality – the personality of choice, and have reduced the importance of play in children’s lives to an after-thought.

We dismiss daydreaming and do not stress enough the importance of creativity and imagination. We see every health remedy in tablet form, we have advisers, gurus and leaders for every facet of our lives and we view everything as marketable products. Above all, we believe our way is the best to do things.

Apart from all that, we're alright!