Japan did not sacrifice itself and its homogeneity to alter of "diversity." The Japanese have a great sense of honor and it is to their great advantage in times of crisis. There was a time in the U. S. when immigrants here desired to be Americans, but those days are long gone and one can only imagine the scenes of riot and looting that we would reap because of our "cultural sensibility" and chronic dumbing down. [Mooserider]
Respect for property even in the middle of disaster (Photo: EPA)
The landscape of parts of Japan looks like the aftermath of World War Two; no industrialised country since then has suffered such a death toll. The one tiny, tiny consolation is the extent to which it shows how humanity can rally round in times of adversity, with heroic British rescue teams joining colleagues from the US and elsewhere to fly out.
And 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, and I’m not the only one curious about this.
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 Countryabandoned 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?
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