Who is better Asians or Europeans?

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(extract from meeting with a remarkable man)

'For any impartial man this viewpoint of mine can be conclusively

confirmed by observing the difference between the degree of

development of feeling in people who are born and spend their whole

lives on the continent of Asia, and in people born and educated in the

conditions of contemporary civilization on the continent of Europe.

'It is a fact, noted by a great many people, that among all the presentday

inhabitants of the continent of Asia who, owing to geographical and

other conditions, are isolated from the effects of modern civilization,

feeling has reached a much higher level of development than among

any of the inhabitants of Europe. And since feeling is the foundation of

common sense, these Asiatic people, in spite of having less general

knowledge, have a more correct notion of any object they observe than

those belonging to the very tzimuss of contemporary civilization.

'A European's understanding of an object observed by him is formed

exclusively by means of an all-round, so to say, "mathematical

informedness" about it, whereas most of the people of Asia grasp the

essence of the object observed by them sometimes with their feelings

alone and sometimes even solely by instinct.'

At this point in his speech about contemporary literature, this

intelligent, elderly Persian, among other things, touched on a question

which at the present time is interesting many European, as they are

called, 'propagators of culture'.

He then said:

The people of Asia were at one time greatly interested in European

literature but, soon feeling all the emptiness of its content, they gradually

lost interest in it, and now it is scarcely read there at all.

'In the weakening of their interest in European literature, the chief

part, in my opinion, was played by that branch of modern writing known

by the name of novels.

'These famous novels of theirs consist mainly, as I have already said,

of long descriptions, in various forms, of the course of a malady which

has arisen among contemporary people and which, owing to their

weakness and will-lessness, lasts rather a long time.

'The Asiatic people, who are not as yet so far removed from Mother

Nature, recognize with their consciousness that this psychic state which

arises in both men and women is unworthy of human beings in general,

and is particularly degrading for a man —and instinctively, they assume

an attitude of contempt toward such people.

'And as regards the other branches of European literature, such as the

scientific, the descriptive, and other forms of instructive exposition, the

Asiatic, having lost to a lesser degree the ability to feel, that is to say,

standing closer to nature, half-consciously feels and instinctively senses

the writer's complete lack of any knowledge of reality and of any

genuine understanding of the subject he is writing about.

'And so because of all this the Asiatic people, after first manifesting a

great interest in European literature, gradually stopped paying any

attention to it, and at the present time disregard it completely; whereas

among the European peoples, the shelves of their public and private

libraries and bookshops are groaning from the daily increasing number

of new books.

'The question must doubtless arise in many of you as to how what I

have just said can be reconciled with the fact that an overwhelming

majority of the people of Asia are illiterate in the strict sense of the word.

To this I will answer that nevertheless the real cause of the lack of

interest in contemporary literature lies in its own shortcomings. I myself

have seen how hundreds of illiterate people will gather

round one literate man to hear a reading of the sacred writings or of the

tales known as the "Thousand and One Nights". You will of course

reply that the events described, particularly in these tales, are taken

from their own life, and are therefore understandable and interesting to

them. But that is not the point. These texts—and I speak particularly of

the "Thousand and One Nights"—are works of literature in the full

sense of the word. Anyone reading or hearing this book feels clearly

that everything in it is fantasy, but fantasy corresponding to truth, even

though composed of episodes which are quite improbable for the

ordinary life of people. The interest of the reader or listener is awakened

and, enchanted by the author's fine understanding of the psyche of

people of all walks of life round him, he follows with curiosity how,

little by little, a whole story is formed out of these small incidents of

actual life.