The 'weird' Western mind is the most self-aggrandising and egotistical on the planet," summarised Ethan Watters in a story about the paper. "We are more likely to promote ourselves as individuals versus advancing as a group." Maybe that's why we're leaders in technology and innovation but achieved very little during our Occupy protests.
For Thais, even in a rapidly globalising world where Western trends are gobbled up like candy, the cultural terrain is very different. "The development of Thailand has already been long affected by lack of self-reflection," noted Kaewmala. "The excessive attention to selfies lamented by the DMH shows the wrong-headed focus this country has had on the exterior of the self - appearance, image and perception - which is at the crux of Thailand's stunted development of the interior self over the past many decades. Generations of Thais have been taught to accept the uniformed knowledge, the kind of knowledge that is ready-made and spoon-fed and not to be questioned."