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News organizations do NOT like these impenetrable homogenous conservative cultures. To them, there must be something wrong. The answers are that Japan will corr

News organizations do NOT like these impenetrable homogenous conservative cultures. To them, there must be something wrong. The answers are that Japan will correct itself just fine. They are, equal to if not THE most persistent, hardest working, most innovative society alive. They'll figure it out.

coldtea 11y ago
Where does this idea that things always correct themselves comes from, I ask cause I see it a lot. Sometimes civilizations, countries and even whole empires just wither and die.
- chii 11y ago
  Not before they struggled and struggled until death. And that struggle sometimes turn into innovation. After all, necessity is the mother of invention.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  Japan is an old nation, and this is hardly the first challenge it has faced. The fact that it exists now, indicates it "corrected" several times in the past. I'd be more suspicious of younger nations' ability to react to challenges.
  - cthalupa 11y ago
    >Japan is an old nation Japan as a unified nation in the modern sense is newer than the United States of America. Prior to the Meiji Restoration in the 1860s Japan was a feudal society lead by warlords. The rule under the Tokugawa shogunate was relatively stable, but it was still a feudal society. I don't think anyone is claiming Japan will cease to exist as a country and that the Japanese people would die out, but something with as radical a change as the Restoration (Which included multiple civil wars...) would probably not count as the nation just correcting itself. It is the effective death of one form of the nation and the birth of the other.
    - threeseed 11y ago
      I always find it hilarious when people visit Japan, look at the shrines and think that it belongs to a really old era. When in fact it was during the Meiji period (after Australia was founded) that these were erected.
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      Haha I guess it isn't a surprise when some Americans make true-Scotsman claims like this. They shouldn't be jealous of other nations' extensive histories, rather they should enjoy those histories. When the shogunate emerged in Japan to govern in place of the abdicating, distracted Heian imperial court, USA was populated by various neolithic tribes. Akihito is a direct descendant of the emperors who ruled then, and speaks the same language in his court that they did. I haven't heard much pre-Columbian Algonquin spoken in the White House. Civil wars don't switch to a different "civilization". (The one in USA didn't, did it?) Japan's remarkable post-WWII recovery from the devastation of war and poor governance in the 1940s to economic success in the 1960s-80s (which IMHO is more impressive than the Meiji restoration to which you refer) is compared by Japanese themselves to earlier recoveries such as that during the early Edo period. The culture, language, and society that exists in Japan today descends directly from those that accomplished previous impressive transitions.
      - cthalupa 11y ago
        Is there a fallacy related to crying fallacious argument when there isn't one? If so, I suppose I should pull that card right now... It's hardly jealousy. And you're arguing against claims I didn't make - I never said a civil war changes civilization in and of itself. But we're talking about a period where the way the country had been ruled for hundred of years completely changed, with huge amounts of turmoil, lots of bloodshed, and came out on the other site vastly changed. To try to compare it to the US Civil War, where in comparison things were static (As far as the governance of any nation remains static) when it comes government reform, is silly. The US punished the South, but the federal government behaved much as it had before. In comparison, the Meiji restoration ended centuries of feudal society.
brbsix 11y ago
Japan's population has the 4th highest IQ of any country in the world (105). The homogeneity also lends to a very high trust factor, so if any country can turn itself around, I think it's them.
- Animats 11y ago
  That's what I thought after the 1989 crash. But look at the Nikkei stock index.[1] It peaked above 37000 in 1989, and bottomed out around 7000 in 2010. Today, it's around 20000. I was expecting Japan to figure out how to become a successful post-industrial society. But no. Government attempts to fix the economy have mostly involved heavy spending on infrastructure, which beats the US approach of pumping money into the banking system. At least the infrastructure is in good shape. But Japan hasn't returned to being the industrial powerhouse it once was. [1] http://www.forecast-chart.com/historical-nikkei-225.html http://www.forecast-chart.com/historical-nikkei-225.html
aikah 11y ago
> News organizations do NOT like these impenetrable homogenous conservative culture A good thing that Japanese people care very little about what the "Gaijin" thinks.

coldtea 11y ago

Where does this idea that things always correct themselves comes from, I ask cause I see it a lot. Sometimes civilizations, countries and even whole empires just wither and die.

chii 11y ago
Not before they struggled and struggled until death. And that struggle sometimes turn into innovation. After all, necessity is the mother of invention.
jessaustin 11y ago
Japan is an old nation, and this is hardly the first challenge it has faced. The fact that it exists now, indicates it "corrected" several times in the past. I'd be more suspicious of younger nations' ability to react to challenges.
- cthalupa 11y ago
  >Japan is an old nation Japan as a unified nation in the modern sense is newer than the United States of America. Prior to the Meiji Restoration in the 1860s Japan was a feudal society lead by warlords. The rule under the Tokugawa shogunate was relatively stable, but it was still a feudal society. I don't think anyone is claiming Japan will cease to exist as a country and that the Japanese people would die out, but something with as radical a change as the Restoration (Which included multiple civil wars...) would probably not count as the nation just correcting itself. It is the effective death of one form of the nation and the birth of the other.
  - threeseed 11y ago
    I always find it hilarious when people visit Japan, look at the shrines and think that it belongs to a really old era. When in fact it was during the Meiji period (after Australia was founded) that these were erected.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    Haha I guess it isn't a surprise when some Americans make true-Scotsman claims like this. They shouldn't be jealous of other nations' extensive histories, rather they should enjoy those histories. When the shogunate emerged in Japan to govern in place of the abdicating, distracted Heian imperial court, USA was populated by various neolithic tribes. Akihito is a direct descendant of the emperors who ruled then, and speaks the same language in his court that they did. I haven't heard much pre-Columbian Algonquin spoken in the White House. Civil wars don't switch to a different "civilization". (The one in USA didn't, did it?) Japan's remarkable post-WWII recovery from the devastation of war and poor governance in the 1940s to economic success in the 1960s-80s (which IMHO is more impressive than the Meiji restoration to which you refer) is compared by Japanese themselves to earlier recoveries such as that during the early Edo period. The culture, language, and society that exists in Japan today descends directly from those that accomplished previous impressive transitions.
    - cthalupa 11y ago
      Is there a fallacy related to crying fallacious argument when there isn't one? If so, I suppose I should pull that card right now... It's hardly jealousy. And you're arguing against claims I didn't make - I never said a civil war changes civilization in and of itself. But we're talking about a period where the way the country had been ruled for hundred of years completely changed, with huge amounts of turmoil, lots of bloodshed, and came out on the other site vastly changed. To try to compare it to the US Civil War, where in comparison things were static (As far as the governance of any nation remains static) when it comes government reform, is silly. The US punished the South, but the federal government behaved much as it had before. In comparison, the Meiji restoration ended centuries of feudal society.

brbsix 11y ago

Japan's population has the 4th highest IQ of any country in the world (105). The homogeneity also lends to a very high trust factor, so if any country can turn itself around, I think it's them.

Animats 11y ago
That's what I thought after the 1989 crash. But look at the Nikkei stock index.[1] It peaked above 37000 in 1989, and bottomed out around 7000 in 2010. Today, it's around 20000. I was expecting Japan to figure out how to become a successful post-industrial society. But no. Government attempts to fix the economy have mostly involved heavy spending on infrastructure, which beats the US approach of pumping money into the banking system. At least the infrastructure is in good shape. But Japan hasn't returned to being the industrial powerhouse it once was. [1] http://www.forecast-chart.com/historical-nikkei-225.html http://www.forecast-chart.com/historical-nikkei-225.html

aikah 11y ago

> News organizations do NOT like these impenetrable homogenous conservative culture A good thing that Japanese people care very little about what the "Gaijin" thinks.