Japanese Mind book club, Group Consciousness

Group consciousness ###background Chinmoku, 沈默、 presented by Dave. "The nail that sticks out gets hammered." Based on this philosophy, Group consciousness forms. Japanese people complies to group value, group aims, and group spirits. According to a survey, only 8% will make their opinion heard when it's different than the one taken by the group. Sempai/Kohai, the social hierarchy, presented by Greg, respecting the seniority and valuing the experience, also helps to form the group consciousness. in Japan, people needs a group to find its identity. There are several advantages of this approach: Pro 1: Group Harmony, unity makes the post war economic growth possible Pro 2: Collective Identity, help establish self esteem Pro 3: Respect for Seniority, value experience and tradition you run the risk to be an "outsider" when you do not comply to group consciousness. But, there are also problems associated with the group consciousness. If the group party and drink, there will be Peer pressure if you don't like drinking. Gangsters, bulliying at school can result from group consciousness. Con 1: Indirect Communication / no other voice, deters questioning traditions Con 2: Importance of Face and Reputation / Peer pressure Collectivism vs. Individuallism Chris' encounter with peer pressure Chris adapts to any environment very well. For school work, he figured out what the teachers expected of him himself, I never had to get involved. This is the good part, but I often worried how much he was going to bending over to meet others’s expectations. How was he going to respond to peer pressure. Even when he was in kindergarten, he would not change to shorts if he didn’t see other boys wearing them. Truth: Romans 12:2, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. When Chris told me this is his favorite verse, I know God has given him the belt of truth to fight agains peer pressure. I also suffered from Group consciousness, especially in the religion realm. My mom took me along when she offered sacrifice to the false gods. I had questions, but I dared not to ask them. #Sacrifice why is there blood in the act of worsip? is God blood-thirsty? if so, isn't that strange? truth： Hebrews 9: 22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Animal blood temporarily covers our sins, but the blood of Jesus removes our sins forever. #shrine 1 Kings 8 27 “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built! 28 Yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, O Lord my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that your servant prays before you this day, 29 that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you have said, ‘My name shall be there,’ that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place. Acts 17 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, #idols Isaiah 40 25 To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One. Isaiah 44 13 The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil.He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house. 14 He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. 15 Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. 16 Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!” 17 And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!” I am so grateful that I was led to the US and attended Bible Studies. The Bible shows me the truth so that I could worship God in the ways that please Him. God delights for us to reason with him so that we could find the truth. Group consciousness could be a potential hindrend for the advancement of the gospel. one story helps me to re-think traditions. A newly wed couple is baking ham for dinner. The wife trims both ends of the ham before putting it in the oven. The husband wonders why she does that. The wife answers, "I don't know, my mom always does that." Theydecide to call her mom and dinds out why. But the mom gives the same answer as the wife. So they call the grandma. The Grandma says, "Yes, i did that, otherwise the ham can't fit into the pan." I hope in this trip, we could challenge the Hiroshima people to re-think their old practice and find Jesus is the perfect lamb, and the perfect Savior. Group competition The high school I went to in TaiWan is called “Taipei First Girls High” In Taiwan, we got into high school based on our high school entrance test scores. This means I met all the top students in my high school. Everyone is pretty competitive, and we have inter-class competitions for anything you can think of, math, science, poetry, sports, music, cooking, etc. Pretty soon, group consciousness is generated overwhelmingly. In fact, it got so bad that people from other classes look more and more like your enemies, at least your class’s enemies. We didn’t find any problem with this group consciousness until we got into the university. Again, people in Taiwan got into the Universities based on the scores from the university entrance exam. Most students got into National Taiwan University, which is the top one university in Taiwan, went to Taipei First Girls High. I found it odd when I met my new classmates and recognized some came from other classes of Taipei First Girls High. Are they my enemies or my friends? Is the group consciousness changed when circumstances changed? If so, how can it even be important? I have to admit I felt awkward with some of my college mates because we used to be class enemies in high school. If all high schoolers aimed for the same college, why couldn’t we help each other so we all went into the NTU, and made Taipei First Girls High better? If we can find the common goal, group consciousness is not needed. Especially God loves the world, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance (2Peter 3:9), there should not be any group competition among different Christian nominations.