These Japan threads are always so fascinating to read. When pressed, everyone seems to roughly agree on two main ideas:
1. Japan has extremely low levels of many of the problems that we have in Western nations.
2. The reason WHY they're so unaffected by problems that arise in racially-divided societies with fluctuating gender roles, is because they are a deeply xenophobic monoculture society that restricts immigration and promotes traditional gender roles.
#1 plays into the common impulse on HN, Reddit, etc to dunk on the U.S. and the West in general. But #2 undercuts that, because Japan is far WORSE than us on many of the factors for which people dunk on us. They're MAGA Republicans with Pokemon!
People tiptoe around this without really engaging with it in depth. Either because the cognitive dissonance is too strong, or else they're afraid of what people will think if they look at it directly rather than askance from the corner of their eye.
For what it's worth, I'll take the messiness of modern Western society. Extreme fasciation with the Japanese way of life has always struck me as roundabout white supremacy or misogyny cloaked in a cosmopolitan facade.
1. Japan has extremely low levels of many of the problems that we have in Western nations.
2. The reason WHY they're so unaffected by problems that arise in racially-divided societies with fluctuating gender roles, is because they are a deeply xenophobic monoculture society that restricts immigration and promotes traditional gender roles.
#1 plays into the common impulse on HN, Reddit, etc to dunk on the U.S. and the West in general. But #2 undercuts that, because Japan is far WORSE than us on many of the factors for which people dunk on us. They're MAGA Republicans with Pokemon!
People tiptoe around this without really engaging with it in depth. Either because the cognitive dissonance is too strong, or else they're afraid of what people will think if they look at it directly rather than askance from the corner of their eye.
For what it's worth, I'll take the messiness of modern Western society. Extreme fasciation with the Japanese way of life has always struck me as roundabout white supremacy or misogyny cloaked in a cosmopolitan facade.