How David Brooks Explains the World

Travel Blog  •  Michael Yessis  •  08.13.08 | 11:51 AM ET

Among the ways he says the world can be divided: Societies with an individualist mentality versus societies with a collectivist mentality. Specifically, he writes in the New York Times, “Americans usually see individuals; Chinese and other Asians see contexts.” Intriguing, but also a ridiculous generalization, according to James Fallows.

“This is the kind of thing you can say only if you have not the slightest inkling of how completely different a billion-plus people can be from one another,” he writes in The Atlantic.

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