We are talking past each other about completely different things here: competitive vs cooperative economical models of ancient societies is an explanation of the “dichotomy,” not the “dichotomy” itself that I was talking about. What I was referring to are the differences between Eastern and Western cognitive processes—somewhat paralleling individualistic/collectivistic social processes—what cultural psychologists call the analytic vs holistic cognition.

The empirical support is entirely on the social and cognitive processes, of which cooperative vs competitive economic models is just one hypothesized explanation for a root cause.

Eh you could be right about the explanation OF the dichotomy, but THAT the dichotomy exists is an empirical question and had already been answered by decades of (cross-cultural psychology) research—it isn’t just a cherry-picked narrative.

I’m no archaeologist (and neither was the author of these ideas) but once a civilization grows to a certain size hunting/gathering naturally becomes insufficient.

From what I could remember tho, the book made the case that agriculture of Greek civilization was nevertheless a much smaller component of its diet and economy (relative to Chinese farming); fishing, herding, and especially trading played much larger roles, all of which emphasized direct competition between neighbors and neighboring city states.

Economy was only one hypothesized factor. I think others were linguistic structures and early (Western) development vs nearly complete absence of (Eastern) logic. But you’re right I definitely could use a revisit of the book.

Lol. 對牛彈琴…you win all the points

The book documents the many different ways Eastern thought patterns and Western thought patterns (not just philosophy, but at the level of very basic cognitive processes) differ. THAT these differences exist are well supported by decades of empirical research and makes up the bulk of the book.

Only a minor part the book delves into his explanation FOR these cognitive differences: it involves differences between the primary mode of economy of ancient Western societies (i.e. Greek)—hunting and gathering, which favors a competitive approach—and ancient Eastern societies (i.e. China)—agricultural, which favors a more cooperative approach. He’s a psychologist by training and this part of the thesis is weaker by comparison but nevertheless interesting, and has SOME empirical support when comparing within culture between farming vs ranching regions (e.g. US north vs south, Cohen et al 1996

The idea that you call “racist” is the exact premise of Richard Nisbett’s “Geography of Thought,” which I think is an excellent book (and also what got me back into school to do cultural psychology research). I highly recommend it before you dismiss the ideas—that basically started the whole field of cultural psych—completely.

Don’t know about neuroinflammation, but (tangentially related to depression) acetaminophen is known to dull psychological pain:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797615570366

https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F12351-005

https://academic.oup.com/abm/article/53/12/1045/5485256