Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Individualism advocates the primacy of the individual and his/her independence, interest, goal and opinion over external forces such as the power of the state or the norms of the society. With the advance of Internet, which gives everyone the power to communicate publicly worldwide, individualism has been rising at an extreme speed.

But that rise has brought about so many problems for almost every human society in the world, due to the weakening of society’s rules and orders – children listening to parents less, same thing with students and teachers; many countries are in political and social chaos – even politicians put their individual selves above the unity and interests of their countries; the youth lose directions and have little idea about their role and responsibility in their community. Most young people care about fashion, entertainment, good foods, hot spots, vaping… and have zero idea about what they should do for their community, be that their school or their country.

Parents, teachers and educators don’t know how to deal effectively with a generation of youth bent on not listening to anyone other than themselves.

The truth, however, is much easier to understand than people imagine.

A community, be it a family, a school, a town or a country, is a big team working together for the happiness of the community, which is the happiness of every individual in the community.

Look at a soccer team in the field. Do you want to see a team in which each player considers himself number one, no one cares about another or about the team, and each player does whatever he likes and cares nothing about the team’s rules and strategies. Can that be a soccer team by any standard? Can such a team win any game against anyone anywhere?

Such a team is a team of clowns.

A community, if it be strong, must place its goals, its rules, its disciplines and its strategies above the individual’s will. Each individual has to submit him/herself to the will and the rules of the community. This is the Truth of teamwork: Each team member must submit him/herself to the team, in order for the team to be strong. If each team member doesn’t submit to the team, the team dies.

So, although each individual’s happiness is always his community’s ultimate goal, his community cannot accept his primacy. On the contrary, the community must take the primacy role and demand that all individuals summit themselves to the community’s will, so that together the entire community will work to bring happiness to all.

Individualism has some value in raising awareness about the existence and interest of the individual, but it cannot claim primacy to weaken or destroy the unity and strength of the community.

So, we cannot focus too much on individualism, to the degree we ignore the community’s goal, law and order.

Wish we all have respect and care for our communities.

With compassion,

Hoành

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Trần Đình Hoành
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