As Roy F.

Baumeister has discussed in his work (The Self and Society: Changes, Problems, and Opportunities) that the sense of selfhood has been impressively increased in the Western modern societies as the result of political system transforming, culture of society shifting, economic environment changing, and the relationship among human beings varying. It seems that this theme can also be applied to the situation in China including the development of my own view about the sense of self. The sense of self has just developed in China in the last twenty to thirty years. The word of selfhood was hardly heard in daily life and people did not have much sense of self in the past, especially in the feudal society in China. This can be proved by some public principles or rules which were used by the monarchs or the governors to keep the society in order in the history of China. The Three Cardinal Guiding Principles (San Gang) and the Five Relationship Principles (Wu Chang) are those of the most typical rules, which were derived from the founder of ancient Chinese Confucianism Cong Zi (ConFucius) (b. in B.C. 551, the pre-Qin period) and stated in a work Chun-Qiu Theory by Dong Chong-shu (B.C. 179 B.C. 104, the Western Han Dynasty). The Three Cardinal Guiding Principles demands that officials, sons, and wives must obey to monarchs, fathers, and husbands; and the Five Relationship Principles requires that the guidelines of building up the relationship within the society should be based on humanity, justice, propriety, wisdom, and credibility. Everyone should consider to sacrifice his or her own interest whenever there are some conflicts between the interests of the individual and the society. This concept about self in China had be carried out for thousands of years. Mao Ze-dong (Chairman Mao, one of the monarchs in China history) started to break these rules for his so called the Revolution of overthrowing the old system and establishing a new regime around the year of 1920. In order to recruit more people to support his political proposal, he suggested that women should not be bounded by the relationship in their families. Women should try to emancipate themselves so that they did not have to stay home and work for the families all the time in their life. Women should be able to go out and take part of the Revolution. In one word, women should consider for themselves instead for their families only. This proposal was implemented quite fast among women and it helped the Chinese Communist Party to grow in a faster speed along the process of the Revolution. Since then, women have played a more and more important role in China societies. That subtly input the sense of self into peoples minds, especially in Chinese women. The proves of this womens emancipation can be found in many literatures in China. One of the Maos ballet archetypes named Hong Se Niang Zi Jun (the Red Detachment of Women) is a very good example of those. Although Mao had tried to free women more for the sake of the political system transformation, he still tried to keep Chinese under him not to have more sense of self. One of the famous sayings that Mao

advocated is that the individual interest must submit to the societys interest, the societys interest must submit to the countrys (e.g. Maos interest) . And that Maos saying clearly illustrates that the self interest or self sense should not be considered comparing with the societys and the countrys interests. Because of this, Chinese who were born during or before Maos time still did not have much sense of self. The true sense of self among Chinese had started in China early 1980s when Chairman Deng Xiaoping opened the door for China to the Western world. That was the famous Economic Reform in China. One famous saying of Chairman Deng is that no matter you are a white cat or a black cat, you are a good cat as long as you can catch a mouse. This really set out a campaign for Chinese to try their best to fulfill their own interest. On the contrast to the old principle that one should not think for his or her self that much people started to do things for themselves, they tried to make themselves be more special, feel happier individually. The concept of being selfish, which used to be totally disdained by Chinese, started to be tolerant and to be understood in the society. It seems that the improving of the economic situation will certainly come with the improvement of the sense of selfhood. The education also definitely contributes to the growing sense of self in China. In old China, women were highly praised if they were illiterate. The less knowledgeable one woman was, the more popular she would be. The old saying that the incompetence is the virtue of women visually proves the fact. Because women did not get good education they tended to be in subordinate position, in another word women had no ability to have the sense of self in the past. However, as more and more women get the chance not only to study in school, but to get higher level education of like bachelor degree, master degree, and even doctor degree, women nowadays in China are much more independent. Hence, the stronger sense of self has also been established among those women who have got more education. They pursuit more self interest fulfillment, more self-esteem, and more self success. The fact of having more and more highly successful business women in China provides the vivid evidences of this change. The family plan policy in China, which seems to draw quite lots of attentions in the world, has also influenced the Chinese view of self for about thirty years. Western world seems only to think that it is immoral to have abortion and inhumanity to limit the number of children one parent can have in a family. Actually a much worse result, I think personally, from the family plan policy in China is that creates a much stronger sense of self among those kids who are born and grow up in those one-child family in a wrong direction. Since they are the only one child in a family, they get all attentions from their parents and their grand-parents. In our Chinese way to describe it, they are the little Sun in a family. Everyone in their family is for them only. Gradually, those kids would have some feeling that they are the king in a family, and they are the most important person in a family. They become very selfish, or we can say that

they overstate the sense of self. They seem not to have any sense of shame when they try to fulfill their self value at the expense of others. Many modern literatures have given proves of how selfish the new generations are in China. Since people could not do anything to change it, Chinese have started to accept it. What is real is rational and what is rational is real." (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel ,17701831) has been quoted by most of Chinese when they face this moral conflict. All transformations and reforms in political systems, culture, education, and economy have impact to the sense of selfhood of our human beings. Some of the influences are in favor of the development of human beings (e.g. better performance in studying and working), and some in the way that would destroy our human societies (e.g. extreme selfish and extreme self-centered). As a member of one of the societies, I myself would have no escape of the change. I do not believe in the concept that collective interests should always be at the expense of self any more, though I dont think we should overstate the sense of self either. A balance should be made between the self and others value bases.

Week EightPosted on: Monday, March 4, 2013 Dear Students, We will be moving into research this week. Your assignment will entail a short essay writing (see assignment) and beginning to peruse the data bases in the YC Library online. I recommend that you revisit the information provided in the Syllabus on Research, Evidence, Documentation. You may also want to visit the library and get help from a resource librarian with accessing and using the data bases. Otherwise, log in to library, click on "data bases" and then chose ProQuest and CQ Researcher. You will need to put in precise serach words, in this case the "title" of an event you want to find information on. this will be the "event" that has impacted you in certain ways (see assignment). This assignment is asking you to compile information from two different sources on one event, including both a quoted phrase and a paraphrase on that information, with parenthetical citations and works cited citations. You can usually click on "cite" or "citation" on the source page and the citation will be written for you. Sometimes it's at the bottom of the article. I will be reading/grading your previous assignments this week. There is no homework over the spring break week and I look forward to resuming class on Monday, March 18, 8:00 am. Regards, Marilyn Due on or before March 10, 10:00 pm, blackboard. 1. Read p. 329-332

2. Give a two page description of how a cultural experience (job, education, family, religion, club membership, volunteer activity) has influenced/contributed to your sense of self. 3. conduct some brief research, through the YC library data bases, that informs your audience about a national event or what you see as a "cultural shift" that has given rise to developing your personal lens. 4. Using two different sources, write out the following: *** a direct quote and a paraphrased passage from each source that includes an introduction to the source (for establishing credibility), a parenthetical citation, and works cited entry. *** This means you'll have one direct quote, one paraphrase, and the correct MLA documentation and parenthetical citations for two different sources.