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>I've traveled a fair bit, and every part of Japan that I've been to feels like I've timed-traveled 20 years into a better future That's strange. To me traveli

by ginko 6y ago

>I've traveled a fair bit, and every part of Japan that I've been to feels like I've timed-traveled 20 years into a better future That's strange. To me traveling Japan feels like entering an alternative history where the 80s never ended.

contingencies 6y ago
Japan seemed to me a case study in hiding sociocultural problems with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition and specifically some sort of perverse derivative of Confucianism. Korea has the same problem. It's a dead-end culture: China and Vietnam finally threw off the shackles in the 20th century at great cost, but Northeast Asia's sociocultural and political economies are apparently still largely running on ideas generated by a 5th century upwardly mobile accountant.
- baud147258 6y ago
  China's behavior in their Western provinces doesn't convince me they have really dropped their shackles last century
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    Uh, they just shackled someone else. This is depressingly common across human history.
- giantDinosaur 6y ago
  I think you'll have to be a lot more concrete to make this claim particularly strong. What is a 'dead end' culture? How does that contrast with the problems in the West (and yes, especially those in the US)? How did China 'throw off' their shackles in a way different to Japan post WW2? What are the actual 5th century ideas in play?
  - contingencies 6y ago
    Confucianism promotes a centralized and hierarchical sociopolitical system, fundamentally conservative in nature, and deeply misogynistic. Being therefore limited in its adaptive capacity, it is necessarily being phased out even in its homeland. I think you can educate yourself as to national histories in the 20th century. I am not going to get in to comparisons with the west.
- prewett 6y ago
  Japan seems fairly adaptive. Unlike China in the 1800s, they recognized that they had to open up to the West and did so, taking the West at their own game. They were pretty successful at that for about 100 years, going from feudalism to a modern colonial power faster than anyone else, until the people in charge decided to bomb Pearl Harbor. Contrast with China, which refused to open up, got invaded several times, and then embraced Communism which destroyed their economy, and they are still lagging behind Japan in many areas (fashion, literature, manufacturing quality, building quality, general living standard, etc.) It's hard to say that living in Beijing/Shanghai is a better quality of life than Japan, and outside those two cities Japan is definitely better. China hasn't thrown off Confucianism, either, just pieces of it, and not really so much in the rural areas. The Confucian solution to conflict by avoidance and/or top-down control is still there, and women still have it pretty rough.

by ginko 6y ago

contingencies 6y ago

Japan seemed to me a case study in hiding sociocultural problems with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition and specifically some sort of perverse derivative of Confucianism. Korea has the same problem. It's a dead-end culture: China and Vietnam finally threw off the shackles in the 20th century at great cost, but Northeast Asia's sociocultural and political economies are apparently still largely running on ideas generated by a 5th century upwardly mobile accountant.

baud147258 6y ago
China's behavior in their Western provinces doesn't convince me they have really dropped their shackles last century
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  Uh, they just shackled someone else. This is depressingly common across human history.
giantDinosaur 6y ago
I think you'll have to be a lot more concrete to make this claim particularly strong. What is a 'dead end' culture? How does that contrast with the problems in the West (and yes, especially those in the US)? How did China 'throw off' their shackles in a way different to Japan post WW2? What are the actual 5th century ideas in play?
- contingencies 6y ago
  Confucianism promotes a centralized and hierarchical sociopolitical system, fundamentally conservative in nature, and deeply misogynistic. Being therefore limited in its adaptive capacity, it is necessarily being phased out even in its homeland. I think you can educate yourself as to national histories in the 20th century. I am not going to get in to comparisons with the west.
prewett 6y ago
Japan seems fairly adaptive. Unlike China in the 1800s, they recognized that they had to open up to the West and did so, taking the West at their own game. They were pretty successful at that for about 100 years, going from feudalism to a modern colonial power faster than anyone else, until the people in charge decided to bomb Pearl Harbor. Contrast with China, which refused to open up, got invaded several times, and then embraced Communism which destroyed their economy, and they are still lagging behind Japan in many areas (fashion, literature, manufacturing quality, building quality, general living standard, etc.) It's hard to say that living in Beijing/Shanghai is a better quality of life than Japan, and outside those two cities Japan is definitely better. China hasn't thrown off Confucianism, either, just pieces of it, and not really so much in the rural areas. The Confucian solution to conflict by avoidance and/or top-down control is still there, and women still have it pretty rough.