Hello everyone On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Jan-Anders <[email protected]> wrote: > > Dan wrote 2011-03-18 23.54: >> >> Hello everyone >> >> On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 2:28 PM, MarshaV<[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > My heart is aching for the people in Japan. ?I don't get the hype from >>> > television, but I have been paying attention to events posted on the >>> > Internet, and it is all awful beyond words. ?It is so awful it is hard >>> > to >>> > believe it is really happening, yet I know it is. ?The question 'Why?' >>> > sticks in my throat and I choke. ?It is unbearably awful. >> >> Hi Marsha >> >> Like you I don't have cable tv so I've been following the unfolding >> disaster in Japan via the Internet. What strikes me most is how >> differently the Japanese culture handles such catastrophes as compared >> to our own. >> >> Take the Katrina disaster in New Orleans as an example: Rather than >> doing something to help themselves, most New Orleans residents >> affected by the hurricane seemed to sit and wait, expecting someone >> else (the government) to help them. There were surges in lootings and >> crime. Bitchings and moanings were heard throughout the city: "why us, >> why us". Still now, years later, many homes there are sitting empty >> and a third of the city's residents are gone, relocated at government >> expense and probably still living off government aid. >> >> In Japan, not so. Rather than sitting around waiting for help, the >> residents are already busy cleaning and rebuilding their homes... even >> elderly people. There are no reports of looting. No one taking >> advantage of the situation for their own gain. They're helping one >> another out in any way they can. One elderly couple when interviewed >> said they were hurrying to clean and restore their own home so that >> they could then help others do the same. No one is asking "why us, why >> us". They are simply getting on with it. >> >> Why are there such differences? >> >> I think it may have something to do with how we in the West are >> socially conditioned to the desire to possess value rather than >> realizing that that is impossible... rather, value possesses us. It >> struck me in my recent conversation with Ham (and in past >> conversations with Platt) that the desire to possess value, the love >> of money if you will, is indeed the source of all suffering. >> >> This is quite foreign to me personally. In the past I shrugged it off >> as inconsequential... that most people didn't feel that way. But more >> and more, I am seeing that our Western culture is infected far more >> deeply with this sickness (and it is a sickness, though of social >> significance rather than biological) than is the East. It is this >> negative face of Quality that we tend to mistake for better. >> >> Thoughts? >> >> Dan > > Could it be how Celebrity is defined in a society? If celebrity is depending > only upon how much money you can gather. I have a feeling that in Japan, > Celebrity is based more upon social talents like reputation, decentness and > social compability.
Hi JA That's interesting. I just read a historical novel called The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet which concerns Japan back in the late 1700s and the interactions of Dutch traders there in search of riches. Conversations between the Japanese and Dutch were always started by reciting the ancestry of the Shogun with whom they were dealing... the social standing, in other words. The novel depicted a very harsh moral code. Women were virtual slaves, most men too. To buck the code meant certain death. I would imagine the cultural mores today are perhaps a blend of those times with more modern Western morals. But I do understand that it is one of the most honest countries in the world. Dishonesty brings misfortune upon the whole family, from what I understand, so it is virtually unheard of. >JA: > I see money and economy systems as pure intellectual matter. To be a good > economic man you must loose your social bonds and act rational. Dan: That seems right. But what about the love of money? Do you see that as the root of all evil? And if so, how do we reconcile being a good economic man with loving money? Thank you, Dan Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
