I was merely giving a counter example to illustrate my point that the named factors (Westernisation, etc) in question do not necessarily bring about the current state in Japan, given that the exact factors are found commonly somewhere else, with totally different outcome.ainsoph9 wrote:When I speak of shame, I am speaking about Japan strictly. I do not know so much about other Asian countries. What I do know is that, as pointed out before, China is a capitalist country as described.
I get the feeling that we are not quite understanding one another here...
And no, I was not even using PRC as an example. There indeed seems to be some misunderstandings between us.
But how does such kind of east/west conflict make a country more discriminatory? As former colonies, Singapore and Hong Kong are equally good examples of having Western culture forced down their throats and having their local culture suppressed. But their current state of affairs are quite different from Japan.Traditional cultural preservation and Japan's current attitude towards foreigners has a high correlation, especially if the foreigners represent some unknown element of change to a culture that does not want change.
From what I have observed, Japanese is one of the races that are the most adaptive to changes and foreign ideas since thousands of years ago. They learn from the good, polish what they have learnt, and make it even better.The current Japan is split between those who want to revert to "older" Japanese ideals and those who want to progress into "newer" Western ideals. So, it is not like Japan is uniform in this manner.
They imported kanji from China and then exported kanji phases back to China. They imported the oriental wooden architecture techniques and make them earthquake proof. They readily scrapped the samurai class (existed for 1000+ years), outlawed samurai swords, and fully embraced the German system of army in late 19th C, making them the first Asian power to defeat an industrialized European power after just a few decades of reform. Even for electronics, Japan was initially seen as only a low-cost low-quality production base in the 50s and 60s, until they copied and improved the technology from the West in early 70s, and has been staying at the top ever since the 80s.
Can you be more specific in terms of the kind of Japanese ideal they strive to preserve? How the Western forces come to be interested in changing that specific ideal, and how does the whole play-out relate to the current state of affairs in regard to discrimination?
That is why I failed to follow your point on how American influence brought about the current state of affairs in relation to discrimination in Japan. As stated previous, a country with 100% Japanese culture intact and free of external influence is the pre-WW2 Japan. Shame culture, uniformity, strict adherence to hierarchy, suppress of individualism: all these culture elements directly brought about the highly discriminatory and hostile attitude towards foreigners at that time. The post-war American influence only served to lessen the effect of these extreme attitudes and make the country as a whole more pacifist but also more ignorant to global affairs.Also, shame is more or less native to Japan culturally speaking.
The government needs not. and I believe it did not (under US pressure) brainwash its people to bring about the current state of affairs.However, I think that you are confusing education with the media and the political system. While education is influenced and/or run by the governmental system, that does not necessitate that the educational system brainwashes people.
As explained previously, the Japanese system of education is indoctrination-based. The government may be feeding you good and correct knowledge - but the problem lies in the approach, not the correctness of the knowledge or the information itself.
From kindergarten year 1, all Japanese are taught to follow what their teachers say with no question at all. Assessments solely focus on testing how much they can reiterate what has been taught to them, instead of developing fresh arguments base on what they have been taught. Therefore, those who are capable of thinking out of the box and challenge the authority are penalized by the system.
Facing the pressure from school and family, they will eventually adjust their thinking and conform to the majority. Even for a creative, inquisitive mind, if he sits in this system for 10+ years, he will end up as a corporate zombie like every other graduate. This is what the Japanese describe as "for every single nail that stands up, it will be eventually struck down."
Even after they graduate, these corporate zombies have become so used to passive receipt of information at face value with no scepticism and critical analysis. That is how Japanese come to become the kind of pacifists that are ignorant of the outside happenings. Each and everyone of them is simply trained for 10+ years to stop caring and focus only on his/her minuscule duties in the giant corporate machine. They are satisfied with their current conditions and wouldn't dare raising questions.
Their attitude towards foreigners due to skewed TV reports and ignorance is just a minor tip of this great iceberg of a problem, which has been dragging down the Japanese economy for 20+ years.
The so-called uniformity has to come from somewhere instead of popping out of the thin air. I think my discussion on the flaws of Japanese education system has provided a believable explanation to the prevalence of uniformity in the Japanese society.The problem you are describing concerning Japanese people believing everything they hear I would credit more to the fact that Japan is a culture of uniformity.
