Most of the population of Japan were sad, angry, and humiliated in 1945. They blamed traditional society (in general) for having failed them.
The result was that most people discarded traditional social value systems and customs on a wholesale basis. The traditional ways of interacting with others began to be seen as horribly old-fashioned, conservative, imperialist, stodgy, and above all profoundly unfashionable.
However, they failed to create a coherent new system of customs and values to replace the ones they discarded. The result was the atomization of society, the lack of the shared mores, norms, and contexts that traditionally produced the conditions necessary to find friendship.
Something very similar happened in California with the mass adoption of countercultural criticisms of traditional society in the 1960s and 1970s, which now manifests as a sort of pervasive social awkwardness and atomization.
The trend lags a few years behind Tokyo, but I imagine before too long, San Francisco too will have "rent-a-friend" services to fill the void created by the lack of shared social mores and customs that traditionally allowed people to make friends.
The result was that most people discarded traditional social value systems and customs on a wholesale basis. The traditional ways of interacting with others began to be seen as horribly old-fashioned, conservative, imperialist, stodgy, and above all profoundly unfashionable.
However, they failed to create a coherent new system of customs and values to replace the ones they discarded. The result was the atomization of society, the lack of the shared mores, norms, and contexts that traditionally produced the conditions necessary to find friendship.
Something very similar happened in California with the mass adoption of countercultural criticisms of traditional society in the 1960s and 1970s, which now manifests as a sort of pervasive social awkwardness and atomization.
The trend lags a few years behind Tokyo, but I imagine before too long, San Francisco too will have "rent-a-friend" services to fill the void created by the lack of shared social mores and customs that traditionally allowed people to make friends.