How to Evaluate Group-Oriented Thought

Group-oriented thinking is the basic trait and core spirit of traditional Chinese culture. It is centered on externality and mutual support and reliance, and believes that human beings are interacting individuals with the need for group survival and ethical morality, and that the destiny of each individual is closely related to the group. Group-oriented thinking is based on the family's blood group, which emphasizes the group as the center, the group's interests as the core interests, the individual is only a part of the group, and emphasizes the individual's responsibility, obligation and contribution to the family, society and other groups.

This group-oriented value of Chinese tradition plays an important role in promoting social stability, safeguarding national interests, and consolidating centralized rule. All individuals can obtain their own value only when they satisfy the requirements and realize the interests of the social group. Everything that is useful to an individual will not be recognized as such if it is not included in the value system of the social group. The individual is not only not an independent entity of value, but also does not have an independent status for measuring and evaluating value.

The emphasis on wholeness in group-oriented thinking has given traditional Chinese culture a strong vitality, organizational cohesion, and adaptability. Chinese culture, as the only ancient culture in the world that has not been interrupted, as well as Chinese society's long-term unity and stability are also attributable to the influence of group-oriented holism values.

The principle of groupism is the most important moral principle in feudal Chinese society, which believes that the interests of the group are absolutely higher than those of the individual, and that the individuality, dignity, and value of the individual are insignificant and incidental, thus leading to the fact that the vast majority of individuals in the society are reduced to the tools of the domination of a very small number of people, and that the individual's rightful interests are not respected, and individuality loses its space for survival and development. When the Western modern individualistic thought began to impact China, the group-oriented holism largely led to China's lagging behind in modern times, causing people to reflect y on traditional Chinese culture.

The collectivism advocated by contemporary China is actually a critical inheritance, enrichment and development of group-oriented thinking, which closely combines the traditional group-oriented thinking of wholeness with the individual, and achieves a dialectical unity of the two.