Why is there no looting in Japan?

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Maverick74, Mar 14, 2011.

  1. Maverick74

    Maverick74

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100079703/why-is-there-no-looting-in-japan/

    Katrina vs Japan

    Why is there no looting in Japan?

    By Ed West World Last updated: March 14th, 2011

    The landscape of parts of Japan looks like the aftermath of World War Two; no industrialised country since then has suffered such a death toll. The one tiny, tiny consolation is the extent to which it shows how humanity can rally round in times of adversity, with heroic British rescue teams joining colleagues from the US and elsewhere to fly out.

    And solidarity seems especially strong in Japan itself. Perhaps even more impressive than Japan’s technological power is its social strength, with supermarkets cutting prices and vending machine owners giving out free drinks as people work together to survive. Most noticeably of all, there has been no looting, and I’m not the only one curious about this.

    This is quite unusual among human cultures, and it’s unlikely it would be the case in Britain. During the 2007 floods in the West Country abandoned cars were broken into and free packs of bottled water were stolen. There was looting in Chile after the earthquake last year – so much so that troops were sent in; in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina saw looting on a shocking scale.

    Why do some cultures react to disaster by reverting to everyone for himself, but others – especially the Japanese – display altruism even in adversity?
     
  2. Ricter

    Ricter

    They are a more egalitarian society than the other examples...?

    But, give human nature time. There will undoubtedly be some looting, somewhere.
     
  3. pspr

    pspr

    I've looked at those huge piles of junk after the Tsunami hit. What's left to loot?

    Seriously, the Japanese are a disciplined bunch. Got to give them credit for that.
     
  4. Maverick74

    Maverick74

    And New Orleans was Beverly Hills? New Orleans was a shithole even before Katrina hit. Wasn't much better after. And what about the rapes? The gangs? The assaults? I'm just sayin...
     
  5. 377OHMS

    377OHMS

    They have crime in Japan. But it is highly organized.

    They don't seem to have the small-scale random crime that we have in the West. It must be cultural.

    I can only say that my experience on a Tuesday night at 2:00AM in Tokyo is that the streets were filled with smiling well-dressed inebriated people stumbling along brightly lighted streets.

    Downtown LA at 2:00AM on a Tuesday night, well...dark, empty and a bit scary.
     
  6. Shagi

    Shagi

    Thats a bullshit story by the telegraph paper written by a boy who does not know his history. They easily forget that Japanese looted China at a monumental scale during the period of 1895 to 1945. At the hieght of their powers the Samurai rulers looted from their fellow citizens at a gigantic scale.

    Moral of story is - under certain conditions no society is immune to these crimes - lets just not quote recent events to judge society's propensities.
     
  7. This was the aspect of the catastrophe that most impressed me. Long lines of japanese, no doubt desperate, waiting patiently. No angry mobs, no line cuttring, none of the mad scramble we are used to seeing in typical third world disaster relief scenes.

    This totally refutes the multiculturalist lie that "diversity" somehow strenghtens a country. It almost always weakens it, with concern for group rights and grievances overwhelming any sense of common purpose. Japan is probably the least diverse developed country in existence, and they aim to keep it that way. Can't say I blame them.
     
  8. 377OHMS

    377OHMS

    Thats a war circumstance and difficult to compare to people looting their own neighborhood after a disaster.
     
  9. Ricter

    Ricter

    I think you're wrong about the diversity angle. There are other largely homogenous cultures around, but with worse gini coefficients (to lean, warily, on that shorthand) that would have massive looting. Chile was already mentioned.
     
  10. 377OHMS

    377OHMS

    Disagree. I saw lots of americans and brits there making good money. Anybody can live in Japan and get a job etc. Its not like they try to push us out or anything like that. There is an enormous language barrier.

    Its easy to learn to speak Japanese but I found it almost impossible to learn to read or write it. Probably the same for most people. There are multiple huge character sets.
     
    #10     Mar 14, 2011