Very good point !
When I refer about education I should also clear that it's also the values of a society, and not just school degree. I define education as learning and values, maybe more values than degree.
Japan it's another world, the oposite of my country. I just don't understand that why they are so much in pro of comunity and so cold to a individual, who is part of comunity. I heard they don't use to help a individual, like thinking a individual must make it by their own.
USA also needs a bit of JFK remark : "Ask what you can do for your country.." But country as a comunity, and not blind "licking of a flag"
Maybe the Japanese cultural values start during some emperor's idea. Before end of WWII Japan's emperor was saw like a good by japanese people.
This value it's a lot linked to honor and feart of shame and fear of dishonor, maybe more than a true empathy feeling.
Still a decades ago Japan was very sexist against women, and very aged couples keeped the habit of women walk two steps behind her husband, as gesture of respect.
So it's difficult to find a culture where a nice thing it's linked to rational philosophic thinking, instead of brain conditioning and fear&proud. The brain conditioning can work for something nice or for useless crap. For example, other countries, the most violent ones, have honor linked to sexual "values". My country is one of them, and the result it's a disgrace and violence.
And people will think I'm eugenist, but genes have effects in everything. Som,eone can be fat or slin, if eat more or less, but genes have their influence. Empathy it's pain, we feel some pain with someone else suffering. This can be modulated by culture, education, recognise of other people as similar, but genes also have some influence.
I believe some people have more genetic predisposition for this "pain for other", and other have less predisposition. And other have no empathy at all, like sociopaths.
Of course genes for good do not ensure a baby will be good, but can help. ANd anyway, there is the famous quote : "Some of the msot terrible things were was made with the best intentions."
Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
I'll point out here that police aren't first responders, they are last responders. We must self-police to some degree to maintain order because we are the only ones present in every situation we find ourselves.
Japan's cooperation is not due to education, it's due to different cultural values that place community above individual. You even address individuals by their family name because that is their identity, part of a larger unit. Since the individual is de-emphasised, there is more prosocial behavior. The downside of this is that people who don't feel they contribute to the betterment of their group feel ashamed and depressed. Japan has higher rates of suicide than murder. In that culture, it is more honorable to die than to live on in disgrace.
A perfect society may very well be a blend of Japanese values of family and community, and US values of individual worth and freedom. Having a balanced perspective of finding value as both an individual and as part of a community protects against both self-loathing and anger towards society.
My observation is that life is a process of letting go of self-centeredness. We all enter the world complete psychopaths with no regard or concept of others, and to varying degrees grow to value the wellbeing of others.
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