In Western culture, an individual is like an independent point, moving forward continuously in a self-chosen direction, forming a line of self-fulfillment. If different people’s lines run parallel, they will each smoothly attain their own aims in life. As one American professor put it: “You are selfish and I am selfish, but you don’t stand in my way and I don’t stand in your way. We are both selfish, and we are both happy.”

However, if two lines intersect, the stronger line must cut off the other one in order to keep moving on itself, thus conforming to the law of the survival of the fittest. Guided by linear competition-oriented value, everyone seeks independence and self-reliance, and everyone feels insecure and makes unremitting efforts. The linear road of an individual’s life is made and extended by the individual’s own feet, and success is achieved through individual effort.

Chinese culture, on the other hand, takes circular integrity as the basis of its value. An individual is incorporated into the integrity of the whole. The center of the circle represents the community’s interests and serves as the common objective of all its individual members. The individual exists in the community and finds the meaning of his existence through it. An individual in isolation has no meaningful existence.

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