High moral standard and behavioral ethics have an important role to form a society but extreme moral and legal supremacism form a great gap between human emotion and human relationship.
Japan is a law-abiding country ranked in the top 10 in the grovel peace index but Japan has made light of the emotional connection between people instead of realizing high ethical code and social order.
If you work in Tokyo, you might understand the situation. Your boss and colleagues always work with you together but the emotional distance between you and them are as far away as they are strangers for you. It is a meretricious relationship anchored firmly by mere interests. No matter how polite you are treated by a Japanese waiter in a restaurant, What a waiter look with a full smile and great politeness at is not you but profit behind you.
Japanese people’s emotion released from interests is as cold as a left soup that loses people to serve. They lavish affection only on their family, relatives, and friends they know really well, and try to take an uninterested attitude towards people without interests. People in Japan are really unsentimental to others no matter how serious the situation they are in even though it makes people realize the necessity to extend their helping hands to others. Japanese people have become very cold recently.
Teachings such as “not causing trouble to others” and “be nice to people” are Japanese unique ethic standard based on the lessons of ancient people’s lives. These teachings are originally an individual ethic standard that Japanese people keep it in their minds with their conscience. This is not a law but a basic of behavioral moral.
Currently, people tend to fully leave their moral problems to justice and rely fully on laws and assert their rights irrationally without thinking other’s position. Egoism is spread around in people’s emotion as if people want to say that every single justifiability can be proved by the law that governs a law-abiding country.
A criterion, if the thing is good or bad, has been left to a court without thinking it with individual conscience.
As long as Japan adopts a capitalism policy, it is inevitable that Japan devotes its consciousness to the most successful capitalist country and it is natural for Japan to be very influenced by the economics of the United States.
And the range of influence even reaches people’s way of thinking. Compared to the postwar period, the present Japanese people’s mind is amazingly similar to the mind of American in terms of how reasonably and logically they have a perception about things. Of course, there are arguments about the advantages and disadvantages of this thing. However, from the viewpoint that the majority of young people have great faith American’s sense of value, it is natural for them to refuse following Japanese traditional sense of value.
Even if Japanese ethnicity is a little more unique than other country’s, people’s thoughts and virtues of refraining from boasting and putting others before themselves go wobbly before asserting their own rights and desires without considering others. To make matter worse, people have no negative opinions about such a sense of value.
People looking at things with interests think that intervening to trouble proactively results in having disadvantageous excrement even if they face a situation that they need to extend someone moral support without counting their chickens.
“Working hard”, “Courtesy”, “Respecting seniors” are thoughts based on self-discipline to make ourselves admonish but it is not the standard of how you are estimated by people. However, unnoticeably, these words have become just a tool to show a good face externally.
So Japanese society gives heavy pressure to Japanese nations in order to appeal what Japanese people are with the expectation of ideal Japanese. Working without selfish motives and keep any required rules and manners thoroughly even if there is no one to watch you.
In such a peer pressure environment, mutual surveillance society is formed and individuality has a power of police in an implicit way. People attack someone persistently by taking advantage of own justifiability about warning someone’s behavior with manner or rule violation at every single public place such as train, bus, cafe, restaurant.
People who want to avoid unbeneficial trouble with others naturally take emotional distance with others and try not to speak with anyone even if they find someone who is really in trouble.
Tranquility in a train in Japan is not made by Japanese people’s politeness but fearful peer pressure that nobody wants to pull a trigger of trouble in a public space. Japanese people have no room in their minds.
Japanese people’s built-up resentment and complaint originated from such a surveillance society directly connects to denial or refusal against own country’s tradition and customs, and have great faith in western cultures. The way of thinking that they complain about the current situation and believe the western standard is the global standard has not changed since the Meiji period.
“Caring about what people think about me”, “Doing something as working about the public eye”, and “making as good results as everyone expects” are very unique Japanese people’s sense of values but these features press all the wrong buttons to the western sense of values that Japanese believe it best for a law-abiding country.
In my opinion, there is no perfect doctrine that leads one country to success in many ways but the nation’s happiness at least exists on the extension of ancient people’s footsteps. Countries inevitably shoulder a destiny to evolve but there is no necessity to refuse and change own country’s tradition and customs that have cultivated for a long time in history. The seeds of growth are always are laid around your foot. I think people should not look down on their own country’s culture easily because of the permanent economic downturn.
People in mature society tend generally to leave morality to laws but the important thing to regain confidence and get back Japanese unique morality in people’s mind is learning lessons of ancient people’s lives from the history. It is darkest under the lamp post. It is always hard to notice own situation while the feeling is self-torturing and attracted by something believed to be the best thing that changes it for the better.