The Indicator is NOT the Mechanism

I’m fascinated by the human mind and how various cultures have developed certain patterns of viewing the world. Towards my hope of better understanding my own mind and how it works or fails too, I spend a great deal of time observing the thought processes of people from varying cultures. As much as I am able (which is not very much), I try to take a dispassionate view, seeing each for it’s strengths and it’s faults. What I’ve learned is that cultures are not equal when it comes to moving through the modern world and the quicker we can accept this simple fact, the greater good we can do for the people who are forced to live in Gap countries.

Today, I had a lesson in the workings of the Asian mind and it wasn’t particularly pretty. Before I get anybody all riled up, I’m speaking of the Asian mind as a cultural construct and not as a biological entity. I’m certainly not speaking of innate biological functioning potential. A crew of Asians who had come to work on my house couldn’t get their van out of my driveway. I was informed that the transmission was stuck and wouldn’t go into reverse or drive. Not knowing anything about transmission, I suggested that they wait for my housemate to get home as he knew much more about cars than I did. To make a long story short, turns out that the car had no mechanical problems at all. It easily went into reverse and drive. The only thing that was broken was the indicator on the dashboard. When he tried to explain this, the driver was still visibly nervous that the little plastic indicator foretold impending doom as far as his new transmission was concerned. It wouldn’t have surprised me a bit if they had opted to wait for the tow truck.

This just brought up bad memories of my transplant ordeal in China when the nurses refused to let me see them unwrap a needle out of sterile plastic before I let them stick me with it. I fought them repeatedly on this and they would only give in when I threatened violence. They simply didn’t understand why I would ask (sterility) or how transmission from a dirty needle worked. (basic microbiology)

The Asian educational system doesn’t place much emphasis on how and why. So when the indicator is broken, the mechanism must be too. Paradoxically, this concept exists in Asian philosophy particularly Zen. (A finger that points at the moon is still a finger and not the moon.) For some reason, when applied to modern life, this lesson seems mostly lost. I wonder if there’s an indicator for that.