Elizabeth Debold

Bio & resources

Over the last several years, financial and political pundits have bantered about the changing global landscape as two behemoths, India and China, have set off in pursuit of the capitalist dream of a modern lifestyle. Will one of them step onto the world stage with the kind of clout, creative genius, and inspiration that will forge a new era? The bets are on. And a consensus is emerging that India, rather than China, will be the one to develop that most elusive of qualities—the capacity for creative innovation, which has driven the economic prosperity of the United States and the West. Two of America’s esteemed commentators, New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman and the late great economist Milton Friedman, have observed that China’s closed society and collectivism present formidable obstacles to China’s advancement. They note that India, on the other hand, shares with the West a democratic form of government and an increasingly liberalized economy. Moreover, it shows a growing capacity for technical innovation.

But this fall, in the course of my work directing a leadership program at a terrific independent girls’ school, I witnessed something that made me wonder if we’ve gotten it wrong—or if the picture may be more complicated and interesting. This particular school attracts girls of means from all over Asia—many from Korea; a smattering from Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong; and a few from India. This school year also saw an influx of students from mainland China who, as one boldly described herself, are “rich and pretty.” These are the only daughters of successful and affluent capitalists with the newly minted means to send their children to the other side of the world to attend boarding school. And what I saw in one Chinese student after another took my breath away.

These girls are unlike any I have ever worked with or known. I’m not referring to cultural differences. It’s how they are different, and the potential significance of that difference, that has led me to think in a new way about China’s role in the future. While the vast majority of teenage girls want to stay in bed for a week if they have a pimple on their nose or are terrified of stepping outside the bounds of clique and convention, the Chinese girls are asking questions, pushing an edge, and taking intellectual and social risks. One student, with barely two months of immersion in an English-speaking environment, volunteered to make a significant presentation at a school assembly. Another, who really struggled with speaking English, repeatedly jumped into role-playing exercises where she had to improvise orally in front of her classmates. I don’t know of any other teens—female or male—who would so gamely risk potential humiliation and tempt judgment by the court of their peers in this way. The Chinese girls do this on a daily basis—and with aplomb. With a tenuous grasp of English grammar, they throw themselves into class discussions, often speaking in a loosely strung together mélange of words that pours forth in a torrent of desire to express themselves. It’s like watching someone leap off a cliff and then begin to soar through the air. They communicate almost by defying the force of gravity (and grammar) with their own will. A fire is burning in these girls—a hunger to know, think, experience, and create. They are waking up to the creative power of being an individual, to the thrilling potential of being an autonomous agent with eyes on the future. For a people who spent millennia in feudalism followed by the often brutal collectivist strategies of Maoism, this awakening to individualism is almost miraculous.

I think it is difficult for those of us born in the West, particularly at this time, to recognize that our sense of individuality is a fairly rare attainment. We tend to take the experience of being a separate individual so much for granted, rarely stopping to consider that most people in the world don’t have such a highly defined sense of self. Most of those with whom we share this planet see themselves as part of a kin network or a caste or class. Their rules for living are dictated by where they are in that network or hierarchical structure. In fact, a psychologist colleague at the school noticed that when she asked many of the Asian girls about their career goals, they would answer, “My family says we need an engineer. We have too many doctors, so I will be an engineer.” My colleague’s questions about what they wanted individually, for themselves, didn’t seem relevant to them. This is an expression of a collectivist mindset: The desires of one’s family or group take precedence over any individual desires that one might have. Such a mindset cannot really comprehend or value individual freedom of choice. When I then pointed out to my colleague that many of the Chinese girls do not express a collectivist mentality and are actually individuating, she looked slightly surprised and then agreed, recognizing how significant a developmental step that is. 

While it is far from politically correct to say, only the West (and not everyone in the West) has truly made the transition from collectivism to individualism. Historically, that shift happened in the 1600s during the period we call the Western Enlightenment. Leaving behind rigid feudal hierarchies and the narrow confines of church dogma, a new way of thinking emerged that emphasized the creativity and autonomy of the individual rather than obedience to the nobility or the church. This liberation of the heart and mind is the ground upon which rest the pillars of the modern world—democracy, scientific and technological innovation, and the capitalist economy. Those social structures, which developed at the beginning of modernity, were made possible by the newly empowered individual. And it is that leap into creative individualism on the part of the Chinese students that takes my breath away.

Now, of course, my “sample” is exceedingly small. It doesn’t even include boys and may hardly seem worth hanging my hat on. But the transformation of consciousness that these girls embody cannot be isolated to the few who have made their way to this particular school. Amazingly enough, China’s one-child policy, now combined with a zeal for entrepreneurial capitalism, may have created the perfect context for the rising generation of Chinese to leap beyond the confines of collectivist thinking. This development could unite the West and China in a shared worldview that runs deeper than the social, economic, or political differences that divide us. As one faculty member noted, although different parts of Asia have been democratic for decades, oddly enough the Chinese girls feel more “like us.” While she was having a difficult time articulating what “like us” means, my colleague was pointing to the distinction I am making: The Chinese girls share our motivation for individual achievement, independent thought, and innovation, which is not simply intelligence or the capacity to do well in school. Many of the Korean, Taiwanese, Hong Kong, and, yes, Indian girls who come to the school are very high-achieving. They perform beautifully in the arts and sciences. But their impetus for living, their core motivation, appears to be different. They strive to honor their families and to be seen as good exemplars befitting their high station in society. They don’t, in general, take the kinds of risks that define the autonomous self-actualizing individual who will transform the future.

Elizabeth Debold, EdD, senior editor for EnlightenNext, is a pioneering researcher in human development and gender issues. She is coauthor of the bestseller Mother Daughter Revolution. For more from Debold visit enlightennext.org/debold