Great question: Why no looting in Japan?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I came across this article this morning. It's rare to see this level of awareness in the mainstream media. Usually, this has to appear on blogs for a few weeks before the mainstream will even make a passing comment.

Why is there no looting in Japan?

By Ed West

The Telegraph

March 14, 2011

From the article:

... solidarity seems especially strong in Japan itself. Perhaps even more impressive than Japan's technological power is its social strength, with supermarkets cutting prices and vending machine owners giving out free drinks as people work together to survive. Most noticeably of all, there has been no looting,

. . .

This is quite unusual among human cultures, and it's unlikely it would be the case in Britain. During the 2007 floods in the West Country abandoned cars were broken into and free packs of bottled water were stolen. There was looting in Chile after the earthquake last year – so much so that troops were sent in; in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina saw looting on a shocking scale.

Why do some cultures react to disaster by reverting to everyone for himself, but others – especially the Japanese – display altruism even in adversity?

Except for calling this behavior "altruism," this is an excellent observation.

People pulling together in the face of adversity can be called many things, but calling it altruism shows just how far this concept is misunderstood in the mainstream.

But the issue is that the Japanese culture has something very, very good in it if this is the way individuals behave in a disaster. After this trouble passes, it will be a good idea to study this, find out exactly what that something is and promote it.

I don't expect the mainstream to do that as there will be other misfortune the MSN will prefer to report on later, but it is something we all should think about. If we can figure it out, we can apply it to our own individual lives and improve ourselves. I know when I look at the way the Japanese are acting right now, it is the way I want to be and the kind of social environment I want to be in.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

I came across this article this morning. It's rare to see this level of awareness in the mainstream media. Usually, this has to appear on blogs for a few weeks before the mainstream will even make a passing comment.

Why is there no looting in Japan?

By Ed West

The Telegraph

March 14, 2011

From the article:

... solidarity seems especially strong in Japan itself. Perhaps even more impressive than Japan's technological power is its social strength, with supermarkets cutting prices and vending machine owners giving out free drinks as people work together to survive. Most noticeably of all, there has been no looting,

. . .

This is quite unusual among human cultures, and it's unlikely it would be the case in Britain. During the 2007 floods in the West Country abandoned cars were broken into and free packs of bottled water were stolen. There was looting in Chile after the earthquake last year – so much so that troops were sent in; in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina saw looting on a shocking scale.

Why do some cultures react to disaster by reverting to everyone for himself, but others – especially the Japanese – display altruism even in adversity?

Except for calling this behavior "altruism," this is an excellent observation.

People pulling together in the face of adversity can be called many things, but calling it altruism shows just how far this concept is misunderstood in the mainstream.

But the issue is that the Japanese culture has something very, very good in it if this is the way individuals behave in a disaster. After this trouble passes, it will be a good idea to study this, find out exactly what that something is and promote it.

I don't expect the mainstream to do that as there will be other misfortune the MSN will prefer to report on later, but it is something we all should think about. If we can figure it out, we can apply it to our own individual lives and improve ourselves. I know when I look at the way the Japanese are acting right now, it is the way I want to be and the kind of social environment I want to be in.

Michael

The Japanese are much more socially a racially homogenized than are any of the Western nations. They think of themselves as belonging to an extended family. That also look down on the rest of us as gi-jin barbarians, which just might be true.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[sjw]

Judging by the movies (I'm no Japanese culture expert): shame and honor. They generally take their moral code seriously. Christianity in a wide variety of ways encourages, and indeed, requires people to be hypocrites. It causes a severe mind-body split. So it becomes easy to imagine, say, the priest character in V for Vendetta. But a Buddhist monk acting that way? That'd be much harder to imagine.

Shayne

[syrakusos]

I had two college classes in Japanese for Business before working for Kawasaki (two years) and then Honda (one year). I subscribed to Mangajin magazine and reviewed Japanese language software for Library Mosaics magazine. After about a year at Kawasaki, working at night, I got good enough to answer the phones and direct calls. Usually, I just translated parts lists. Just to say, I know a little bit as an outside observer.

Baal is right that something like 95% of the people in Japan are Japanese and the other 5% are Koreans. They do see divisions within their culture. It is not all of one piece to them, but clearly, from our point of view, when you look at someone else, you see yourself way more than we ever would. They have one language. The have centuries and centuries of tradition that reinforce altruism. There is no other word for it, MSK, and the news reports used the word in its proper sense. We say, "The squeeky wheel gets the grease." They say, "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down."

When one of the Kawaski guys was being sent back, he was disappointed for his children's opportunities. He wanted them to go to American schools. I asked, "But what about the violence here?" He replied, "Mike-san, I can name every Japanese who won a Nobel Prize. How many Americans can you name?" Invention is not what they do. Individualism is not rewarded. The greatest good for the greatest number is unquestioned.

Read about their industrialists and capitalists, Soichiro Honda, Sakichi Toyoda, Shozo Kawasaki. The largest bank, Sumitomo started off as a bookshop in 1615 by Masatomo Sumitomo, a Buddhist monk. Mitsubishi - three diamonds - began as a "Triad" criminal organization, organized crime turned to business. But in no sense was any of these a robber baron as we understand the term. Nobody would work for a man like that. it would be shameful. They would shun him, even if he were allowed to exist past childhood. It is true that they took risks, and even ran against the expected, as when Honda told MITI to stick it, and began making cars for export, against the agreements of the time.

But even so ... it is share and share alike. When Kawasaki wins a big contract, everyone participants for a share. If the bid goes to Sumitomo, again, everyone is in for a slice of the pie. Small profits over long time lines are the key to success because no one individual places his own success over that of the others.

They are not ants. They are people. Put one of them in a car and he becomes a samurai, unwilling to yield in the face of death. That said, just as we egoists get along benevolently they, as altruists, do find and achieve self-interest. But "studying" them would not not change us, not in three generations.

We have our strengths - look at those Nobel Prizes. One of the factors that led to Pearl Harbor was the Japanese students sent to the USA to study. They saw California, and thought that all Americans are fun-loving, easy-going, shallow, and materialistic. And we are. But those are our virtues and we kicked their kamikaze asses because we outproduced their war machine. We are not warriors. We do not honor bushido, the warrior's code. We are bourgeois and it is time that we embraced that as a virtue. Have you ever read Atlas Shrugged?

We have Big Ideas. They made small advances. Japanese kaizen manufacturing identifies failure points and prevents them. One guy who did this, Shigio Shingo tells of explaining to his workers that he was following the American way for making things "fool proof." A woman broke down crying, "Have I been such a fool?" He realized that he had humilated her and changed the name of the process to Zero Defect.

Edward Deming could not get heard here. We did not want to make small improvements for perfection. We want to invent the Next Big Thing. I could go on... and on...

Edited March 15, 2011 by Michael E. Marotta

[BaalChatzaf]

I had two college classes in Japanese for Business before working for Kawasaki (two years) and then Honda (one year). I subscribed to Mangajin magazine and reviewed Japanese language software for Library Mosaics magazine. After about a year at Kawasaki, working at night, I got good enough to answer the phones and direct calls. Usually, I just translated parts lists. Just to say, I know a little bit as an outside observer.

Baal is right that something like 95% of the people in Japan are Japanese and the other 5% are Koreans. They do see divisions within their culture. It is not all of one piece to them, but clearly, from our point of view, when you look at someone else, you see yourself way more than we ever would. They have one language. The have centuries and centuries of tradition that reinforce altruism. There is no other word for it, MSK, and the news reports used the word in its proper sense. We say, "The squeeky wheel gets the grease." They say, "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down."

When one of the Kawaski guys was being sent back, he was disappointed for his children's opportunities. He wanted them to go to American schools. I asked, "But what about the violence here?" He replied, "Mike-san, I can name every Japanese who won a Nobel Prize. How many Americans can you name?" Invention is not what they do. Individualism is not rewarded. The greatest good for the greatest number is unquestioned.

Read about their industrialists and capitalists, Soichiro Honda, Sakichi Toyoda, Shozo Kawasaki. The largest bank, Sumitomo started off as a bookshop in 1615 by Masatomo Sumitomo, a Buddhist monk. Mitsubishi - three diamonds - began as a "Triad" criminal organization, organized crime turned to business. But in no sense was any of these a robber baron as we understand the term. Nobody would work for a man like that. it would be shameful. They would shun him, even if he were allowed to exist past childhood. It is true that they took risks, and even ran against the expected, as when Honda told MITI to stick it, and began making cars for export, against the agreements of the time.

But even so ... it is share and share alike. When Kawasaki wins a big contract, everyone participants for a share. If the bid goes to Sumitomo, again, everyone is in for a slice of the pie. Small profits over long time lines are the key to success because no one individual places his own success over that of the others.

They are not ants. They are people. Put one of them in a car and he becomes a samurai, unwilling to yield in the face of death. That said, just as we egoists get along benevolently they, as altruists, do find and achieve self-interest. But "studying" them would not not change us, not in three generations.

We have our strengths - look at those Nobel Prizes. One of the factors that led to Pearl Harbor was the Japanese students sent to the USA to study. They saw California, and thought that all Americans are fun-loving, easy-going, shallow, and materialistic. And we are. But those are our virtues and we kicked their kamikaze asses because we outproduced their war machine. We are not warriors. We do not honor bushido, the warrior's code. We are bourgeois and it is time that we embraced that as a virtue. Have you ever read Atlas Shrugged?

We have Big Ideas. They made small advances. Japanese kaizen manufacturing identifies failure points and prevents them. One guy who did this, Shigio Shingo tells of explaining to his workers that he was following the American way for making things "fool proof." A woman broke down crying, "Have I been such a fool?" He realized that he had humilated her and changed the name of the process to Zero Defect.

Edward Deming could not get heard here. We did not want to make small improvements for perfection. We want to invent the Next Big Thing. I could go on... and on...

It is clear. We need them and they need us. If neither of us existed we would have to invent each other.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[sjw]

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/15/tokyo-governor-apologizes-for-calling-quake-divine-retribution/?hpt=C2

[algernonsidney]

Those are good observations, Michael. And it is interesting that Japan has not produced many innovators. However, they are very good copying the ideas of others and improving on them. They didn't invent the automobile, for example, But they build better ones than Americans do now.

It's hard to find a culture that worships conformity more than Japan does. I don't think you need to have that kind of society to achieve this though.

[kiaer.ts]

Loot what? Why? The country is largely intact except where the tsunami wiped out everything including the people. They have a functioning military acting to rescue people, not a nonexisting thugocracy as in Haiti, regardless of the low testosterone of Japanese men and their inbreeding as an insular people.

[pippi]

Good question, but the real question is why it is shocking or refreshing that it was asked at all.

[Backlighting]

While in the Army, I served 20 months in Yokohama. Although its been many years, what I remember most was how well the people treated us G.I.'s. & that crime was almost non-existent.

[william.scherk]

regardless of the low testosterone of Japanese men and their inbreeding as an insular people.

Regarding this purported low testosterone in Japanese men, measured when, and as compared to whom?

Regarding the purported inbreeding (with its implied tendency to genetic defect), measured how and compared to whom?

Regardless, if a weak and inbred Japanese stock does not tip the balance against looting behaviour, why raise this quasi-factual inferior physical status for everyone to disregard?

Regarding a purported fat and stupid North American, with his bloated and degenerate children and a surfeit of aggressive hormones surging through his flab, why wouldn't the difference between national testosterone levels well explain non-looting, at least to some degree?

[kiaer.ts]

regardless of the low testosterone of Japanese men and their inbreeding as an insular people.

Regarding this purported low testosterone in Japanese men, measured when, and as compared to whom?

Regarding the purported inbreeding (with its implied tendency to genetic defect), measured how and compared to whom?

Regardless, if a weak and inbred Japanese stock does not tip the balance against looting behaviour, why raise this quasi-factual inferior physical status for everyone to disregard?

Regarding a purported fat and stupid North American, with his bloated and degenerate children and a surfeit of aggressive hormones surging through his flab, why wouldn't the difference between national testosterone levels well explain non-looting, at least to some degree?

You, of all people, should not need irony explained to you.

[syrakusos]

You, of all people, should not need irony explained to you.

Well, I thought that you were serious.

Now, I wonder at the difference between irony and sarcasm. Irony accepts that the premise is true. Sarcasm denies the premise.

Edited March 17, 2011 by Michael E. Marotta

[caroljane]

You, of all people, should not need irony explained to you.

Well, I thought that you were serious.

Now, I wonder at the difference between irony and sarcasm. Irony accepts that the premise is true. Sarcasm denies the premise.

I thought it was serious too, since the topic is serious and the previous posts were also. And Japan is pretty ethnically homogeneous. You should have put in an emoticon or something Ted.

[sjw]

You, of all people, should not need irony explained to you.

Well, I thought that you were serious.

Now, I wonder at the difference between irony and sarcasm. Irony accepts that the premise is true. Sarcasm denies the premise.

I thought it was serious too, since the topic is serious and the previous posts were also. And Japan is pretty ethnically homogeneous. You should have put in an emoticon or something Ted.

I knew he wasn't serious, but only because I'm familiar with Ted's style.

Shayne

[kiaer.ts]

The posts explaining this as a result of insular ethnic homogeneity struck me as rather odd.

All I could think of was the South Park episode Chinpokomon.

Japanese penis so smarr, so smarr

[caroljane]

The posts explaining this as a result of insular ethnic homogeneity struck me as rather odd.

All I could think of was the South Park episode Chinpokomon.

Japanese penis so smarr, so smarr

kekeke. Did you ever see Russell Peters's hilarious routine on the anatomical diversity among white, black, brown and Oriental men? (Peters is brown)

[BaalChatzaf]

Have a loot at this:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/03/16/exp.Velshi.Takei.Gaman.cnn?iref=allsearch

Ba'al Chatzaf