Shock of Western vs Japanese values

[Emoni]

Maciamo, first I want to say one thing before I respond. That everything below is directed at what you wrote, not at you personally.

I'm a person who goes by gut feeling on right and wrong. I may not be able to "explain" why something is wrong or right at the given moment, but somewhere deep down I know it IS. Call me arrogant, self-rightous, it doesn't matter, it is just the way I am. When I read this, I got that gut feeling very strongly. However, I am unsure of the specific reason why. Something, is wrong. Either what you wrote is due to your exposure to certain types of people and having a skewed view, or the fact that what you saw IS true and that it is extremely sad to read that it is. I knew one person from Japan, and care deeply about them. I can clearly say that I know they do not agree with some of the views you have stated that are common in Japan. By that, I know what you are saying cannot at all be 100% true.

At this moment, I cannot believe that all this is simply the way it is, no matter what. Even due to my total lack of experience, and the fact I have never been in Japan. I consider the majority of society to be mostly idiots, and count this for the world population. There are however, some truly good people out there. If you judge the people of a country on the "majority" of the actions of their population I think you would come up with every single country being full of absolutely cruel, horrible people.

I guess that is my reply... Something is very wrong, but I am not sure just quite what.

[Maciamo]

There are however, some truly good people out there. If you judge the people of a country on the "majority" of the actions of their population I think you would come up with every single country being full of absolutely cruel, horrible people.[/b]

I can't believe that you would go as far as comparing Japanese people with cruel and horrible people, if my I said were absolutely true !

In fact, being idealistic and moralistic can lead to some ugly situation where the that culture tries to impose its views on others because they are right (a bit like you know saying that if Japanese are as described above, they must be wrong !). Why do you think the West has led crusades in the Middle Ages ? Because they possessed the truth and the Muslims could only be wrong. What happened when the Spaniards and others colonized America ? They converted the locals by force to their moral beliefs. What is happening now with Bush and Iraq< Iran or North Korea ? Bush saw Saddam (and still see the 2 others) as evil because their values were different.

The advantage with non-moralistic countries like Japan, China or basically all East Asia as far as Indonesia is that they don'ttry to impose their values to others. That is why China has never tried to cololize the rest of the world to "civilize" them. When Japan invaded other Asian countries in the 1st half of the 20th century, they didn't try to civilize them or educate them, or convert them to their religion (although Shinto was state-religion at the time). They only cared about money (natural resources, forced labor, plundering of historical treasures, etc.).

[thomas]

Excellent post, Maciamo. Sad, but so true.

I would just like to relativise your legal examples. Judicial hypocrisy also exists in the so-called enlightened Western countries, in particular as far as monopolies (such as the Japanese tobacco monopoly you mentioned) are concerned. The West and its glorious ethical concepts are not immune to the filthy lucre. Also, I daresay that most of the jurisdictional action in Western countries is reactive ("Anlassgesetzgebung" in German) and not proactive too.

[Elizabeth]

[/i] I knew one person from Japan, and care deeply about them. I can clearly say that I know they do not agree with some of the views you have stated that are common in Japan. By that, I know what you are saying cannot at all be 100% true.

Of course it isn't 100% true. There is not even a clear internal logic between deeply held cultural beliefs in group integration, concern for other people's feelings, or social harmony with "might makes right," Japanese public opinion tending towards pacificism, lack of support for US ousting of dictators on a national level and material security as the road to happiness on an individual level. If collectivism had no beneficial effects, such as holding down violence, public disorder, drug use, divorce and other social patholgies (prostitution excepted) without resorting becoming a police state and giving people a strong sense of belonging and emotional security it doubtless would not have survived the last 200 years while the West has gone a different route.