[handedness]

There is plenty of it in ancient literature, both Western and Eastern. Humans' fundamental attachments remain more or less remain recognizable over time and place.

There is, though, something especially cheap about how it is mostly done today. At least we got treasures like the Cantongqi/Sandōkai out of it in the past. (Or maybe I just committed exactly the same error by invoking the Sandōkai.) I'm sure it was done similarly back then, but likely mostly in actual conversation.

Maybe enough of today's commented noise will filter down to a small number of some particularly astute internet comments which will be studied in the year 3226, but I doubt it. Today's best thinking is still found in books and articles. Which has always probably been true, but it used to require some additional amount of work to hear foolishness.

[colechristensen]

There exists a long history of shallow practice of religious / philosophical schools for as long as we have recorded history of anything? This isn't surprising or particularly profound news.

[handedness]

There's probably that, too, but there exists a long history of "lengthy 'it's not this it's that' explanations trying to display superior knowledge of what the real genuine thing from somebody else's culture is."

It's just human nature and it happens at every level. I've seen, firsthand, primitive villagers in Asia do it about the culture of another village five miles away, I've seen people all over do it about something on the other side of the planet. I don't think it's particularly exclusive to a particular hemisphere.