The Corruption Of Japanese Culture

Japan. Land of mystery, intrigue, tradition, technology, and oneness within the culture. A unique hybrid society of traditional animism and Buddhism, a theme of combining outside structures with national ideas that appears throughout its history, the Japanese culture has little standing in its way of social progress as compared to the thick stew of conservative religion that is pervasive in the United States. Combined with its beautiful vistas, clean cities, and incredibly low crime rate, Japan does indeed seem like the perfect liberal democracy for individuals that do not follow the heteronormative guidelines set forth by Western society. However, it 's more complicated than that. While Japan is indeed a stunning example of the superiority of a liberal democratic society, the isolation of the country throughout its history has led to a very nuanced societal world-view. Japanese culture itself tends to use a completely different spectrum of political and societal relationships than Western society, regardless--either fortunately or unfortunately--of external powers ' meddling throughout its history. This leads to some rather interesting comparisons: religion and politics, like Europe, are not explicitly linked, but until the end of the Second World War, …show more content…
While it lends itself to the perpetuation of a beautiful and unique culture that may have died off like others before it throughout history, it complicates the problems Japan is facing in the current century: its birthrate is perilously low and its population is rapidly aging in return; its economy still has not recovered from the "lost decade" that resulted from the burst of the real estate bubble at the end of the 1980s; social reforms such as a revitalized justice system have yet to come to fruition; the edge the country once had in manufacturing and electronics is waning rapidly; and the country must once again face a nuclear disaster on its own