[Endama]

So I have two responses to your comment (which I thought was great btw).

1. I think your assessment of Confucianist culture correct, however, as a counter argument, I think that Western culture can sometimes under value the importance of duty as a facet of happiness. People, to some degree, need to feel useful to be happy. Whether its being useful enough to get a paycheck or to be able to fulfill the needs/wants of friends/family, it doesn't seem to me that the importance of duty is merely an artifact of E. Asian culture.

2. I actually think there is a third problem to the "immigration-fueled sociopolitical rifts" you describe. In my own personal experience, you can fully understand (and even appreciate) the cultural perspective of another and yet fully reject the impact said values have in your life. Understanding != acceptance. Just being you understand something cognitively does not mean that you are required to accept it as an acceptable element of your life emotionally or socially. In fact, when the situation is zero-sum (like you can only spend a certain amount of time either doing your own cultural thing or the cultural thing of another) choosing the other can signal a rejection of your own culture for that of the other, which may very well have some serious social consequences. I don't think the response of "let's just not choose to believe a particular perspective is correct" is effective enough.

[azhu]

1. I did not mean to imply that east Asian culture is inferior. I did mean to imply that it is much less emotionally comprehensive. I agree with you that the concept of duty is sensible and functional on the human race wide scale, and I was asserting that it cannot be a stand-in for all emotional fulfillment in an individual unless the society surrounding the individual also subscribes to that idea.

2. It is certain that there are many, many causes of the global immigration related tensions that we're experiencing now. I did not mean to imply that I think all are required to both understand and accept all perspectives, but rather that having such a personal goal holds plenty of progressive merit given that you think that the vector of progress lies along the direction of increased togetherness. There are merits to other points of view as well. I also urge you not to overestimate yourself, even though I personally have plenty of faith that you are personally very intelligent, and to question the emotion when you begin to feel that you understand another point of view. In my experience you oftentimes actually do not, and that feeling that you do is your brain employing the numerous heuristics its evolved to contain in order to fulfill the incredible task of synthesizing sense out of the chaotic and unfathomable complexity of all things.

Perhaps it's better to say that it would be good to endeavor to develop a perspective that is comprehensively inclusive of all other perspectives that one has encountered and can possibly foresee encountering. So rather than having a quiver of many arrows, there is merit to having a single arrow capable of hitting any target.