[ExI] The Catholic Impact (was Re: Origin of ethics and morals)

[Kelly Anderson]

2011/12/24 Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>:
> On 24 December 2011 09:47, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Sorry to barge into the middle of this... but while Japan is not
>> xenophobic in the sense of ideas or visiting people, they are still
>> one of the most "racially pure" focused peoples on earth. Racism (such
>> as against Koreans) is still pretty widespread in Japan, is it not?
>
>
> I do not know whether this is "racism", but certainly is a cultural trait
> quite essential to Japanese identity. Curiously enough, it is in fact
> historically coupled with an extreme xenophilia (with China for most of
> Japanese history and with the West later).

Japan has a history of racial purity that goes back far beyond Hitler.
They are the most genetically homogenous population on earth. It is
still frowned upon to marry outside the culture. I have known a number
of Japanese women who married Americans at the university. Few of them
went back to Japan, and when they did, they received rather cool
homecomings from their families and friends. And of course we all
remember how well the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were treated
by their fellow Japanese.

This is not to say there aren't admirable characteristics of the
Japanese culture, as there most certainly are many!

>> And I would add parenthetically, that Japan suffers greatly from the
>> lack of an imported underclass... their population/age dynamic is
>> messed up! No kids, lots of old people... it's gonna bite them hard,
>> and probably already is.
>
> I am inclined to see the things in reverse in this respect. Japan is
> actually suffering, and is going to suffer severely, from its population
> dynamic. An imported underclass could hardly remedy that, and its absence
> sofar may have attenuated some of its consequences...

Well, at least we agree they are suffering from their population
dynamic. The National Geographic agrees with me (or maybe I agree with
them) that America (with Mexicans) and Europe (with Arab and African
immigrants) have put off the problem of not having enough young people
about, and how that at least puts off the problem of too many old
people supported by too few young people.

The world may yet benefit from the Japanese population dynamic as
robots to care for the elderly are a huge priority for them, and that
research has led to Asimo, and will lead to other great leaps forward
in robotics and AI, IMHO.

-Kelly