Base Zero, Base One
- cultures, languages, views of life -

 

It's all well and good to wax philosophic, even grandiously melancholic, about human ideas, alternative points of view ... generalities that reach to the heart of us and we can identify with, no matter our personal worldview.

Conceivers have identified some interesting differences between 'traditional' western (Europe, the colonialized Americas, Africa, Indo-Arabia) thinking and oriental-eastern (Asia, Indo-Arabia, Native America) thinking.  One stresses materiality, form distinct from function. The other stressing 'process', unity, immateriality.

In the re-integrating world we are in the midst of there are titanic and heroic efforts to meld these concepts of experience.

Yes, there are undeniable similarities among cultures and percepts.   Family units, social responsibilities - however they are chosen, accepted, or acted out - are regarded as important human involvements.  And, yes, members from each indiginous social-frame reach out to comprehend others, and work to convey their understandings to their own social home-companions, trying to build bridges of understanding and even acceptance.  Alternate views are always pregnant with important insights that might be difficult to realize from the 'inside' of a mindset.

I look for these things too.  And something I've been carrying mentally for several years seems all the more urgent to express now.  I recognized it first around 1994 as I sat playing the new electronic games coming out of Japan.  I used to play pin-ball games in the US when I was a kid.  And though 'a game is a game', something irregular bothered me as I played these new ones, borne out of 'the other' culture-frame.    When I finally realized what it was, the simplicity of the difference astounded me.  But I recognized that it was exceptionally profound, and spoke to the differences between oriental and western philosophy bases.  Enacted through the most simple of human mentations:  counting.

Starting with n number of chances to play whatever game - "lives" as they're sometimes referred to - a game device starts with listing the number of rounds or chances a player has at doing the game, and counts down until no opportunities for play are left.  Now what's fascinating is that the "final" number in western developed machines and game systems is "1", while in Asian-oriental game devices, the "final" number is "0".

This is enormously important re the psyches of cultures.

The 'life' of the player in western thought is intimately bound with the activity and material involvement of whatever the person is doing.  " 'This' one-identified-opportunity is the last chance to play the game."  If the count falls to zero, there is no game any more, no 'lives', no chances.    Opportunity is actively wholely connected to positive presence and involvement .. positive physicality.

The 'life' of the player in oriental thought is independent of that kind of forced co-identification.  The count down from that philosophical base is "how many chances are remaining after this current one."  In those games, the number zero doesn't reflect that the game is over, but that the player exists in-the-moment-and-in-the-process .. irrespective of future opportunities.     Involvement with the 'game' isn't a value-judgement or connection with the player, its merely an event that - winning or losing - doesn't impact the existence of the player, which is independent and need not be named or identified.  The fact that it is, is sufficient.

Oriental worldviews and mindviews seem to bear this out.  There is little need to fortify 'identity' by material gain and association.  Oh, there are still territorial and material instinctual behaviors, but they aren't as absolute or personality-bound as in the west.  More asian-culture members are able to 'let go' of rigid thought or social bonds and still survive endure and thrive very well.  The same isn't quite so for members of the western thought cultures.  Objects and object identification are paramount in behaviors.  Egos identify with well defined things or concepts, and establish their 'worth' by materiality connections,ownership, membership.   The 'person' carries value, where more often than not in the east, the organization carries value, more so than an individual per se.

Eastern thought trusts-simply-being.  Western thought demands performance and involvement before it trusts.  Freedom is an ok option in Eastern thought but not necessary for survival.  Freedom is something to be protected in Western thought, to be competed for in order to guarantee survival and avoid deprivation.

Base Zero.  Base One.     Lifestyles, religions and cultures.  Borne of the ways we count existence.

                                                          April 2000

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