The Circle of Life

I just completed my 6,000 words Chinese article. It is titled May 4th Movement and the Re-evaluation of Western Civilization.

A few minutes after I finished writing, I read Marianne Williamson’s Instagram post. Marianne recently published a book titled A Politics of Love. In many people’s mind, politics and love don’t mix. Hence, some of her readers asked, “But what does love have to do with politics?” Marianne provided a good answer in her post. She said, “Right now, nothing. And that’s the point. Our lack of love for the planet, our lack of love for each other and our lack of love for animals is literally killing us.”

This coincides with my thoughts today. It seems like another instance of synchronicity. I have been re-evaluating Western civilization in the last two weeks. A hundred and one years ago, on May 4th, 1919, the Chinese students and intellectuals found Western civilization tremendously appealing. Why? Primarily because a big part of Western civilization is based on individual freedom. Personal liberty was very appealing to Chinese youths at that time, due to the fact that traditional Chinese was a collectivist society, even before the arrival of communism. In general, the East prizes collectivism while the modern West prizes individualism. Some of the main themes of the Enlightenment Movement in the 17th and 18th century Europe were reason, individualism, skepticism, and…