Sultan Knish
by Daniel Greenfield
September 1, 2013

It's an article of American faith that Japan is an incredibly strange place. The world has been mapped and GPS'ed to death ruining much of the thrill of discovery. There probably aren't any hidden cities with remnants of lost civilizations lurking in the deserts of Africa or the jungles of South America. That just leaves the land of the rising sun as the X on the map, the strange place that suggests that the world that we know all too well, might still be odder than we can imagine.

But Japan isn't really all that strange. We are.

(excerpted)
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

Palinists you beat me to it.

Taking the liberty of doing the ping thing:
@/Greenfield Ping @FP123@algernonpj@Palinista@W-Girl

There are some incredible insights in this article and great comments at eh end.

Zitat

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The future doesn't belong to Japan. It may not, at this rate, belong to anyone. Japan hurled itself into the future, but didn't find anything there.

Korea hurled itself into that same future and found only emptiness. Now China's elites are rushing into that same void and are beginning to discover that technocracy and materialism are hollow. That is why China is struggling to reassert Communist values even while throwing everything into making Walmart's next product shipment. Like Japanese and Korean leaders, Chinese leaders are realizing that their technological and material achievements have left their society with a spiritual void.
. . .
A country should move toward the future. But it should have a goal that it's moving toward and a sense of connection with its past values.

The thing we have in common with Japan, China and Europe is that we have all moved into a post-modern future while leaving our values behind and our societies have suffered for it. It is a future in which stores have robots on display but couples are hardly getting married, where there are high speed trains and a sense of lingering depression as the people who ride them don't know where they are going, and where the values of the past have been traded for a culture of uncertainty.
. . .
Asia and Europe have both witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations. It isn't technology that destroys civilizations, but a lack of values
. . .
America is destroying its values on an industrial scale. In a post-industrial nation, the destruction of values has become one of its chief industries. And while there is value in challenging values, in the conflict and clash of ideas, that requires that values go on existing, or there is no longer anything to challenge. And then there is nothing left but emptiness and madness.

Another stupid product from an infomercial. Another ridiculous politician. Another protest. Another indicator of economic decline. Another day, week, month, year of empty nothingness.

That is the modern abyss. And Japan is waiting for us there.

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Thank you both for the Post and the Ping!