This is the third letter in the series of letters to my Nana In which I review a paper I had written for a seminar several weeks ago concerning getting to know Japan.
Unfortunately, I am a rambling mess. Hopefully this at least gets us thinking about some ideological differences between how ‘Western’ notions of the individuals are different than those of the Japanese. Fear not, there are many more rambling entries to come I’m sure. (Also, here is a blog post on this same topic that I hope might clarify a few things I’m trying to get at.)
There is also some discussion of my upcoming backpacking trip through the Kansai (Mid-west) area of Japan.
So finally I listened to all your podcasts. Now I need to finish up with the videos, which is harder to do because listening time is infinitely easier to get…
I loved listening to you work through your ideas. Some really interesting points about the differences in culture, even though you snobbed your Commonwealth cousins down here in your mentioning of every other damn country… I forgive you because Canadians don’t know any better…
I wonder if you would find the Korean culture interesting? The reason this occurred to me as I listened was that Korea is the only country in the world to have had Confucianism as their official state ‘religion’. Not even the Chinese were brave enough to do that! I really does make for an interesting national psyche. My wife, a Korean, was complaing the other day that she was finding it hard to break the Confucianist way of thinking… Confucius is probably what you would term and Eastern ‘Philosopher’ I suppose? Maybe the comparison would be France giving up Catholocism for the Descartes or something like that? Anyway, just a thought…
i appreciate it san! sorry i forgot about ‘oceania’ or whatever you’re called down there.
interesting note about the confucianism, and these are the kinds of things i don’t really have exposure to, which is why i tried to explore that space of ‘eastern’ ideas a bit more. i’m really going to try to visit korea before leaving to canada this summer, it seems REALLY interesting and i’d like to hear more of what you have to say about it :)
since working heavily on contract theory, i’ve been moving away from it, and finding out exactly why i hate it so much. it’s rooted in individualism, and representationalism. the holism project i’ve started on is the branch away from it i think.