> Regarding social development, my feeling is that Japan is one or two generations behind Western countries. There are a great many “western” countries where t

> Regarding social development, my feeling is that Japan is one or two generations behind Western countries. There are a great many “western” countries where this is even worse than Japan including the one so often named the primordial “western” country. I have no idea idea why so often when Japanese culture specifically is discussed the idea is sooner or later proffered that there is some homogeneous “western” culture with common elements that supposedly exists. It certainly doesn't seem to rise when, say, Russian, or Indian culture is discussed.