"A man's usefulness to the revolutionary cause is like a screw in a machine. It is only by the many, many interconnected and fixed screws that the machine can move freely, increasing its enormous work power."

-The Diary of Lei Feng.

Above, Lei Feng lionized. Below, many, many interconnected screws at work during the opening ceremony, Beijing Olympics 2008.

May 5 is a day of official celebration in the People's Republic of China known as "Learn from Lei Feng day." It is a day of recommitment to the larger social good. The iconography of self-sacrifice is a trope of transcendence used by all cultures but Lei Feng Day is self-sacrifice with Chinese characteristics:

"I will be a screw that never rusts and will glitter anywhere I am placed."

The Lei Feng legend was begun by Mao Zedong in 1963. A People's Liberation Army soldier, Lei purportedly kept a diary that came to official attention after his death. Quotes from the diary were used to inculcate the spirit of selflessness. The cult of Mao was already under way however and as it exploded on the Chinese people at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution Lei became the example of the ideal new person:

"Whatever Chairman Mao says, that I will do."

Human individuality conceived as a mere cog in a machine is, I suggest, quintessentially Chinese. It is taking the person out of the lesson of personal sacrifice for the common good. This conception has ancient roots in Chinese culture. The moral philosophy of Confucius taught the fundamental "Five Relationships" that began with father and son and ended with ruler and subject. The relationships were reciprocal and ruler owed moral rule to his subjects but obedience was at bedrock. It was thus a small step for the later Legalists to dispense with the reciprocity and rule by emphasizing--and enforcing--total obedience. Mao Zedong openly compared himself with Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor to unite China and who did so with Legalist thought.

How different this Chinese conception of human individuality from that in the West, and how vivid the expression of these differences in the imagery from the 2008 Beijing Olympics and that of Barcelona in 1992:

A lone archer shoots a flaming arrow to light the Olympic torch. And a single individual can set the world on fire.