http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mualafindonesia/message/14404 Why is there no looting in Japan?
http://goo.gl/RAKZf New York – A lawless atmosphere often follows natural disasters. How has Japan managed to maintain order in the aftermath of last week's earthquake and tsunami? The chaos and theft that have followed many earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis have been noticeably absent in the wake of Japan's 8.9-magnitude quake. Instead, people have formed long, orderly lines outside grocery stores, where employees try to fairly distribute limited supplies of food and water. "Looting simply does not take place in Japan," says Gregory Pflugfelder, an expert in Japanese culture at Columbia University, as quoted by CNN. "I'm not even sure if there's a word for it that is as clear in its implications as when we hear 'looting.'" How has Japan managed to avoid this common after-effect of disaster? (Watch an Al Jazeera report about the wreckage) Discipline, discipline, discipline: "The Japanese are now reaping the fruits of having been taught, and drilled in, discipline and resilience since childhood," says Federico D. Pasqual Jr. at The Philippine Star. In grade school, lunch is free, but often "spartan," and kids learn to expect and deal with lean times. This unfathomable calamity is one of those times, and "the instilling of that value or attitude seems to be paying off." "Japanese discipline rules despite disaster" The Japanese are no strangers to hardship: The easy answer is that the "legendary politeness" of the Japanese people is simply shining through, says Thomas Lifson at The American Thinker, but that's only part of what's happening. Japanese society has been honed over generations into a system "capable of ensuring order and good behavior." The country's "vast reservoir of social strength" carried it out of "the devastation of World War II," and, compared to that, "even the massive problems currently afflicting it" are "relatively small." "Why the Japanese aren't looting" Japan isn't superior, just different: Japanese people are "taught that conformity and consensus are virtues," says James Picht at The Washington Times. To Americans, who prize individualism, "those virtues sound almost offensive." In normal times, "concerns about appearance and obligation" may be stifling, but in adversity they may be what trumps "the urge to smash and grab." Japanese culture isn't "superior," it's just "well suited to maintaining public order immediately after a major disaster." Where are the Japanese looters? http://goo.gl/D0tCV Monday, March 14, 2011 - Stimulus That! by Jim Picht NATCHITOCHES, La. — March 14, 2011 - The absence of looting in Japan has taken many western observers by surprise. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans experienced looting on a scale that astonished even American cynics. After last year's earthquake, the looting in Chile was serious enough to require military intervention. People walk to receive water supply through a street with the rubble Monday March 14, 2011 in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, northern Japan following Friday's massive earthquake and the ensuing tsunami. (Photo: Kyodo News via Associated Press) There was looting in Haiti after its earthquake last year and in England during the 2007 floods. So far, though, there is no looting reported from Japan. Is it really that surprising? The politeness, honesty and orderly behavior of the Japanese are widely admired. A Brazilian friend in the jewelry business, under the influence of severe jet-lag, left an unlocked briefcase containing thousands of dollars in cash and hundreds of thousands of dollars in gem stones on a Tokyo commuter train. His host talked him out of cutting his wrists and escorted him to the next station served by the train, where the briefcase and its contents were waiting for him at the lost-and-found counter. If stories like that are credible in Japan and unthinkable in New York, Paris or London, the question is, "why?" There's substantial internet chatter on the subject, and the chatter is disturbing. The answer most people seem to settle on is, "race." Many argue that Japanese homogeneity is a strength, diversity a weakness. The Japanese aren't looting because they're all one big happy culture with none of the predation that occurs when people of different cultures look longingly at each others' possessions. Before you argue that tsunamis swept all their possessions away, remember that millions of people affected by the quake weren't in the path of a tsunami. A distressing number of writers have noted that there are few black, Hispanic or Arab people in Japan. As one put it, "Japanese do not loot, black Americans in Louisiana do. If that is a fact, how is it racist?" A related idea is that Japanese culture is superior to those lesser cultures, less inclined to reward people who loot and riot. New Orleans is a largely black city; enough said, some might say. Whether Japanese culture is superior to others is a question of values and perspective. The victims of Japanese atrocities in China might beg to differ, as might the builders of the bridge over the river Kwai and the "comfort women" conscripted from other Asian countries to entertain Japanese troops. Those who blithely report on the social altruism of the Japanese seem never to have heard of Japanese criminal gangs like the Yakuza or of Japanese sex tourism in Thailand. And yet the general behavior of the Japanese people in this crisis is different than we would expect in the U.S., remarkably so, hence it invites speculation about the causes. I reject racial explanations out of hand. Without any evidence of genomic differences yielding significant differences in behavior, the observation that New Orleans' looters were largely black is indeed racist. We might as well observe that they were mostly American, mostly Louisianan, and that very few had doctoral degrees. Those observations aren't explanations, and to insinuate that they are is a slander. Cultural explanations are much more to the point than racial explanations, but the correct ones probably have nothing to do with cultural (read "racial") homogeneity or the superiority of Japanese culture in general. Consider, for instance, the fact that Japan is a very densely populated country of people who are taught that conformity and consensus are virtues. To someone raised in a culture that prizes individualism and independence, those virtues sound almost offensive, yet they make much more sense in a place like Japan than in the sparsely populated American wild west. In the latter setting, the "cowboy" mentality has better survival value. The Japanese national character is shaped by the interactions of necessity, environment and history that give it peculiar strengths and weaknesses, just as the French and American characters are shaped. To say that the Japanese aren't looting because they're "better" or racially mono-cultural ignores history and ignores the very serious problems Japan has faced before this weekend's disaster. In some ways their behavior will strike us as extraordinarily admirable. In others it will be, at best, baffling. There are always tradeoffs, in cultures as in economies as in political institutions. There's much to admire in Japanese culture, much that's good and beautiful, just as there's much to admire in a falcon or a shark. Launch a shark into the air over Colorado or release a falcon a hundred feet under the Pacific, and they seem less admirable. Japanese culture hasn't revealed itself as a superior culture, just one that's well suited to maintaining public order immediately after a major disaster. We can entertain ourselves endlessly speculating why the Japanese aren't looting now. Perhaps they are, but they do it so politely we don't notice in the videos of the disaster region. Perhaps concerns about appearance and obligation trump the urge to smash and grab. Whatever the reasons, they speak to the variety of cultures and institutions in this world. They shouldn't serve as excuses to gloat or to damn diversity. James Picht teaches economics at the Louisiana Scholars' College in Natchitoches, La., where he went to take a break from working in Moscow and Washington. But he fell in love and there he stayed. Now he teaches, takes pictures, and with wife Lisa raises two children. A German Hispanic married to an Englishwoman, he's a great fan of diversity, though as a German who also teaches Russian, he has to struggle with his constant urge to invade Poland. He tweets and has a blog at pichtblog.blogspot.com. Read more of Jim's columns in Stimulus That! in The Washington Times Communities. -- imr -- imr
