As mentioned in the class PowerPoint slides, there is a very famous saying in Japan, “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down”. The phrase is used to explain how Japanese society traditionally prefers conformity and social harmony to independence and individual expression. I found it very interesting to see the comparison between Japan and the US in terms of individualism. Japan at 46 and the US at a whopping 91! Huge difference there.
In Japan they believe that the group is more important. They believe that society is and should be made up of groups and that people as individuals are less important than groups as a whole. Some advantages of a collective society, like Japan, are that it reduces the amount of psychological pressure people feel. They do this by lowering the amount of individual stress people feel, because society spreads out the stress rather than loading it up. It also allows for more consensus and achievement which is needed by a community. Each one takes care and helps one another to fulfill a certain goal. It takes better care of society. As different people have different strengths and points of view, more people
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Some disadvantages of Individualism are that the more individualist the people are, the colder it gets. It also does not allow for other people to experience that person’s talents and creativity. Learning to cooperate with others is what builds character, friendship and important life skills. This also results in people having more problems with finding good friends, because they don’t care about other’ opinions. It can lead to difficulties with social life. This is something we talked about in our first class. How here in the US, we barely see people have really good friends for a long time as opposed to Japan, people stay friends since kindergarten and are very close to one
Individualism is when an individual is different than everyone else in their actions, thoughts, and opinions. The government can punish those who act differently than how the rest of the populace acts. They can give the person a trial or secretly deal with the problem. This involves the disappearing aspect of a dystopian society. Clarisse is a character in Fahrenheit 451 and she is different than everyone else.
More than 400 million years ago, Japan was once a peninsula, it was connected to the huge land known as Asia. Because of many Volcanic eruptions, this caused Japan to move away and form the shape it is today. Over the years, Japan has developed its own independent culture with its own religion, art, literature and government. The Japanese people being isolated, affected their culture greatly, without influence from other countries during the time of the isolation period. By the early 17th century Japan had forced all foreigners to leave and barred all relations with the outside world.
Having a society where conformity is highly valued can be dangerous and lead to fatal effects. Japan, for example, is one of these societies where people are expected to look and act like everybody else. The effect this has
Many themes in Japanese society have been impacted by their surroundings.
Individualism is beneficial for American society. (P.20) For most people, individualism contains negative concepts and sounds bad. Actually, modest individualism constructs for American society because considerable moral ideas in line with their own opinions. For example, my older brother has individualism in his career.
This will prevent one group making assumptions about another and there being misunderstandings. I learned this from the poem by Langston Hughes Visitors to the Black Belt. Through the use of this poem Hughes talks about how people look into a community and see one thing while in reality the community is a complete other thing. When people talk about one what will be best for a group of people in a community might not actually be hat is best for them. This is because people make assumption about think which they have little knowledge of, and this is more harmful than helpful.
America has had a tumultuous existence, replete with war, progress, and ideologies. The most formidable of these is individualism, or the shift of society’s focus from the group to the individual and a growing emphasis on their personal needs and desires. Despite wide criticism, it has become the societal norm, spanning all generations, genders, races, and walks of life. Individualism, while indeed centered on the individual, is more accurately described as the changing and shifting relationship between the individual and society.
It allows leaders to serve others in diverse ways. It allows trust to build and a sense of pride for both
Conformity and individuality are important themes. We apply them to our lives. Conformity is everywhere, but individuality is very rare to find because everyone is afraid. Conformity versus individuality is important to study in order to better understand
However, it is not practical to compare Japan with the USA because the US is a multination country with different types of ethnicities that have different types of cultures. People in the United States strongly believe in individualism while in Japan the group orientation is strongly
Firstly, conformity creates a safe atmosphere and a safer environment for the citizens to live in. Conformity eliminates all the negative and positive differences in each other. Yes, individualism does urge people to pursue personal achievements, which creates competition between individualism with a desire to besiege each other that can unfold a war within the civilisation, an onset of development of dangerous, harming and deadly weapons that lead to illness, mental and physical disorders in addition to deep dejection in the society. To prevent this from originating, we can abolish all the distinctions between each other and as Jonas said “we can gain control of many things.” which can be achieved together as a community.
Japan has many interesting adventures you can do. There are so many places, activities, smells, sites, and tastes you can explore! The way Japanese people live is their tradition to take their shoes off before entering their own home. Also not every Japanese person sits on a pillow and eats at a low table. Making assumptions are made by what you heard or think.
Collectivism is also a big part of Japanese sense, which has been dominated Japanese sense. It is said that the start of Japanese collectivism is an ancient culture of agriculture because people who live in the agricultural area have to live helping each other as a group for the big purpose, harvesting in contrast with nomadic culture prompts autonomous individuals (Hayasaka 111). Therefore, it might be true that because of such a closed environment, Japanese people had been cultivated the strong sense of community, and it leads to cautiously care about their behavior, so it can be interpreted Japanese ambiguity has a historical bond. Also, it will be said that it is essential for Japanese people even today. It is formed as an effective method of getting along in a community in Japan, and it is used in many situations today.
Japan is a country filled with rich history and culture, and it has a completely different sense of history than any other country that we have seen so far. Archaeologists where surprised to find out that the world’s first property was in Japan dating 10,000 B.C.E which is before other cultures developed their ceramic traditions. Japan was known for following Chinese traditions, which is why that discovery was hard to believe. For a big time of Japan’s history, it was called as Nippon or Nihon (日本), which is the origin of the name Japan. Moreover, Japan’s culture mostly revolves around religion and most of their traditions involve religious rituals.
However, it is not as collectivistic as most Asian neighbors. The most popular explanation for this is that Japanese society does not have extended family system which forms a base of more collectivistic societies such as China and Korea. At 95, Japan is one of the most Masculine societies in the world. However, in combination with their mild collectivism, you do not see assertive and competitive individual behaviors which we often associate with Masculine culture.