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I think the real issue is that "collectivist" and "individualist" are very crude terms that attempt to summarize a whole litany of cultural nuances. My son jus

I think the real issue is that "collectivist" and "individualist" are very crude terms that attempt to summarize a whole litany of cultural nuances. My son just started 2nd grade here in Japan after being born and raised in the US (spouse is Japanese). It's really clear that here, children are socialized to think of the group to which they belong before themselves when contemplating their actions. Stated differently, people are socialized to identify strongly with the groups to which they belong. Does this mean the society is "collectivist"? I don't really know. I do observe that many of the social activities involved in group cohesion here are viewed as somewhat burdensome obligations. I believe it was de Tocqueville who first observed the seemingly novel and unique way in which Americans viewed social association: "When citizens can associate only in certain cases, they regard association as a rare and singular process, and they hardly think of it. When you allow them to associate freely in everything, they end up seeing in association the universal and, so to speak, unique means that men can use to attain the various ends that they propose. Each new need immediately awakens the idea of association. The art of association then becomes, as I said above, the mother science; everyone studies it and applies it." https://oll.libertyfund.org/quote/tocqueville-on-the-spirit-of-association-1835 https://oll.libertyfund.org/quote/tocqueville-on-the-spirit-...

Barrin92 4y ago
that is a very good point. I think what Japan really is and what you observe in the culture correctly is conformism. And paradoxically, it's the atomized nature and individualism that enables it. A generalization that's often made about East-Asian countries is that they have weak civil societies and strong states and it's the latter I think that leads people in the West too easily to think of them as collectivist. But it's really the lack of spontaneous association (I like the Tocqueville quote) and the passivity that enable that situation. The US in that sense is much more collectivist than we generally think, and one case for this in my opinion is the surprising energy that they can quickly gather to rally people behind a cause ,for example militarily. Americans are very quickly to mobilize and pursue quite abstract collective goals.

Barrin92 4y ago

that is a very good point. I think what Japan really is and what you observe in the culture correctly is conformism. And paradoxically, it's the atomized nature and individualism that enables it. A generalization that's often made about East-Asian countries is that they have weak civil societies and strong states and it's the latter I think that leads people in the West too easily to think of them as collectivist. But it's really the lack of spontaneous association (I like the Tocqueville quote) and the passivity that enable that situation. The US in that sense is much more collectivist than we generally think, and one case for this in my opinion is the surprising energy that they can quickly gather to rally people behind a cause ,for example militarily. Americans are very quickly to mobilize and pursue quite abstract collective goals.