Outside View

Chinese harmony, American Dream

The New York Times published a column entitled "Harmony and the Dream", saying the ideal of the Chinese harmonious society may turn out to be as attractive as the ideal of the American Dream.

Columnist David Brooks said the world can be divided in many ways - rich and poor, democratic and authoritarian - but one of the most striking is the divide between the societies with an individualist mentality and the ones with a collectivist mentality. And that is the divide that goes deeper than economics into the way people perceive the world.