r/SeriousConversation • u/Air_Quick1 • 7h ago
Serious Discussion Why are americans so individualistic and self-centered?
[removed] — view removed post
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u/Siukslinis_acc 6h ago
Both usa and japan are in extremes. There needs to be a balance.
In collectivistic cultures you can be dismissed because it would negativelly affect the status quo of the group. You have to suffer in silence.
While in individualistic cultures - you carry all the responsibilities and no one would step in to carry it with you.
In individualistic cultures you have more freedom, but also responsibilities. In collectivistic cultures you have less individual responsibilitoes, but also less freedom.
In collectivistic cultures being the odd one is a death sentence and thus people are forced to do stuff that they would not do just because others are doing it and if they don't to it - they will be exiled. Like, you have to participate in a genocode because everyone else is participating.
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u/dgtbfan 7h ago
Can't have a serious conversation when you lead with the premise that your way-of-life is indisputably superior.
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u/BlackLodgeBrother 7h ago
I’m not sure that OP is actually Japanese. Their post reads like something a culturally infatuated westerner would write.
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u/Shrimpywimps 4h ago
Japan sucks balls for the average person, especially young people. So many people are basically homeless and living in pods and being overworked to literal death. They also have an awful rape and molestation culture.
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u/LT_Audio 4h ago
Agree. As an American, though admittedly one that's done a lot of traveling and actually lived abroad in eastern cultures for considerable spans, I don't entirely disagree with many of these comparative themes. Though I'd likely never frame them in such argumentative and unbalanced contexts. There are balancing costs to all of them.
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u/Harbinger_Kyleran 7h ago
Communal living raises its own sets of problems with no one system being perfect for everyone.
Some folks genuinely don't like their family and wiill go to great lengths to avoid them
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u/scrandlle 6h ago
Lol, 'your culture is inferior' combined with 'why is X so self-centered?' is top quality irony.
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u/MyEyesSpin 7h ago
So, lots goes into this
1) we are a very wealthy country, even if an individual is in poverty there are land & resources in abundance - often waiting for someone to just come up with a way to profit
2) economic & military superpower, lots of the world is centered around us, Ntm being in a key geographical/logistical spot
3) we have all kinds of issues from various conservative religious ideas which often making getting your own space a priority over efficient use of resources. all kinds of -isms...
4) Japan still has plenty of individual living situations, its also common for young people or even one/both parents to live away from home for work, but the communal childcare also goes back to #1 - its pretty easy to find something that rewards/incentivises/pays better than watching a child in the US
5) Japan has a higher tax rate specifically to provide a better social safety net, the lack of which is why the trade off in pay/incentives to watch a child matters so much in the US
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u/Birdy1072 7h ago
There's a lot of fallacies with this. Japan is not perfect -- the bureaucracy alone will have you dying of old age (or wanting to) before you can get changes enacted or even just getting some basic paperwork through. Carries down to their work culture as well. They sell more adult diapers than baby diapers consistently because no one wants to have kids any more. The one-income life style is gone in Japan as well and that, plus an extreme stigma against working moms, have women choosing between either having kids or having any kind of career. Some prefectures are paying women to have children. The stigma is getting better but it's a slow process (like everything else over there), but the country is still rapidly aging. Everyone's hoping they get it together before they end up like South Korea.
Work culture over there also quite literally kills people. Younger generations have veered more towards having part-time jobs or "nonconventional" jobs to escape the toxicity. Certain parts of living are cheaper or subsidized in some way, but you still have crime, homelessness.
I've had many friends tell me they wish their culture were more like the US because we're so straight forward in our language and efficient.
This all has effects on the dating culture too but don't need to go down that rabbit hole too.
So yeah, we could learn to be a bit more community oriented. De-stigmatize multi-generational families. Make safer neighborhoods so kids can walk to school by themselves. But neither Japan nor anywhere else more collective-oriented is some kind of utopia either.
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u/LT_Audio 4h ago
Agree. There's a lot of "the grass is always greener" going in these types of eastern vs western cultural comparison narratives.
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u/AceDreamCatcher 6h ago
What I’m going to say may sting a bit and I beg for your forgiveness beforehand.
Sometimes it really is better to say less than to speak confidently about things you clearly don’t understand very well.
For starters, nobody said Japan is a utopia.
The original point was about specific features of Japanese social organization (collectivism, stronger communal expectations, multigenerational living, and the relative independence afforded to children) not that Japan has no bureaucracy, labor problems, demographic decline, homelessness, or crime.
Listing every problem you can think of in Japan doesn’t actually refute that argument.
And some of what you’ve written is either misleading or presented without the context necessary to make it meaningful.
Japan’s aging population and low birth rate are real (as with many advanced economies in the world), but “they sell more adult diapers than baby diapers” isn’t an explanation for why people aren’t having children which is largely a consequence of having an unusually old population combined with very few births.
Yes, Japan has a very strong work ethics, but invoking them doesn’t demonstrate that collectivism or community oriented living is inferior. Those are separate questions.
People work hard because they really care about they do. Whatever you find yourself doing, you intuitively (and from what you see your coworkers doing) know that your best is expected.
The claim about an “extreme stigma against working moms” also reduces a complicated issue to a simplistic choice between “children or a career.”
And that “some prefectures are paying women to have children” is an oddly loaded way to describe pronatalist policies and financial incentives for families, which aren’t unique to Japan.
Most importantly, “I have friends who told me…” isn’t evidence about what Japanese people generally think of American culture. A handful of acquaintances cannot establish the attitudes of a country of more than 100 million people.
If you’re going to correct somebody for oversimplifying another society, replacing their oversimplification with a different collection of stereotypes, anecdotes, and unrelated social problems isn’t much of a correction.
Sometimes knowing that a country has problems isn’t the same thing as knowing what you’re talking about.
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u/258peony 5h ago
I don't think this is the stinging rebuttal you think it is oh wait someone already said that
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u/HouseplantHoarding 6h ago
Leave your kids? What kids? Isn’t Japan facing down extinction because of a negative birth rate?
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u/LexEight 7h ago
We are all narcissists because we're #1
It's a completely bankrupt mentality that is unfortunately extremely lucrative
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u/jerrythecactus 6h ago
You're kind of using two very simplified and extreme ends of the topic to describe what each culture is like. In America it is common for tight knit communities to look after their neighbors and work together toward local goals. A general culture of individualism does not mean everybody is self centered and unconcerned for their neighbors peers and friends. There are stronger notions toward self sufficiency and "making your way" but that doesn't mean everybody lives the same way and to the same extent.
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u/Unable-Barber1511 6h ago edited 6h ago
A lot of cultures are centered on individualism, independance, autonomy. Most western ideals and cultures are like that. Whereas eastern ideas fall more into collectivism. It's just the way these cultures and worlds have existed. No need to compare, they're just different.
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u/Playful-Mastodon9251 7h ago
Why is individualism more unnatural than individualism? Your making a lot of assumptions here and not backing them up at all. And to say loneliness is better in Japan is a very odd take.
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u/firecatstef 5h ago
Have you read any American history? Read some and it will be obvious why individualism is overemphasized.
You describe some good things about collectivism but you leave out that in practice, it means anyone who is even slightly different from the norm, whether or not it is their choice, is shamed. So only people who are sufficiently conforming get the good stuff.
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u/Top_Willow_9953 4h ago
Japanese culture is 16,000 yrs old, roots of American culture are 400 yrs old. The US was populated by individuals from many varied cultures and has not yet established a homogenous identity. Give us another 15,600 yrs to figure things out.
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u/ProfileBest2034 4h ago
Individualism and collectivism work at multiple levels. There's the individual, the community, state, region, national, etc.
The chief problem with those who want collectivism is that they want it at the wrong level. They want it at the national level and I cannot get behind that and nor should anyone conscious of history.
Collectivism works at the local level and not much beyond that. And there are obvious reasons why that is the case. Dunbar for example talks about this.
Europeans are making the same mistake which is centralizing at a national and supranational level their ideas around collectivism and that will prove and is proving to be, a colossal mistake.
The Japanese are different by the way. They have a culture which cedes their collectivism at the local level. In fact, the Japanese have the most skeptical attitudes towards the state and institutions of any developed country. The key for this lays in the fact that they have a strong cultural bind which insulates them from the misplaced impulse to concentrate collectivist policies at the national level.
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u/chupsneeze 3h ago
Idk, it seems logical to assume that individualistic Western societies would favor national level collectivistic efforts where the cost is mostly monetary(tax funded programs) with a smaller sacrifice of personal autonomy. As opposed to culturally collectivistic societies where personal autonomy often takes a backseat to social, cultural, and familial obligations and expectations.
For myself, as a member of the ur-example du jour of current day Western Individualistic Society, the US, I think we could definitely use more collectivism here on a national and state level. I mean I don't necessarily want to pay higher taxes for no reason. But if what I'm paying for increases the health, education, effectiveness, and general prosperity of my nation/state/city, than it is of benefit to myself as well as my fellow countrymen. And, I would prefer to pay a percentage of my earnings to take care of all that instead of tradition and obligation essentially forcing me (with the threat of ostracism or social exile) to personally care for, educate, organize, and look after anyone other than my close family. Not to mention an individualistic society's emphasis on personal autonomy allows the option to live a collectivist-minded life(at least on a local community level) to those that choose it.
Also, I realize I'm effectively being stereotypically American saying I'd rather just pay someone else to give a fuck, but hey, that's what the money is for.
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u/ProfileBest2034 3h ago
My point is that you cannot be collective at a national level. I mean you can if you want authoritarianism but I suspect you do not.
And your last sentence is the key. Robert Nisbet's 'the quest for community' lays alot of this out extremely well. What he claims, and I agree, is that the American impulse to offload community to ever great levels of abstraction (up to the federal government and political parties) is one of the chief reasons why America doesn't work.
When you abstract responsibility out to some external institution you remove yourself from your actual community and you get the very response you've uttered here which is "i'd rather just pay someone else to do it."
But what you are not reconciling is that: that doesn't work. That's the point. America has been doing that very thing for 70 years and as a consequence we have no community left. We've gutted it entirely. So what you are really saying is: I want more of the same.
My response to that would be: how on earth could you look at the trajectory of America and think -- yeah this looks good, let's do more of that.
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u/chupsneeze 1h ago
I think the trajectory for America has been pretty fucking atrocious in many aspects for at least ten years and it wasn't necessarily the squeaky clean shining light on a hill before that. But, there was progress, an increase of quality of life, and expansion of human rights and liberties for some good stretches of our timeline.
I haven't read Nisbet, but I'm sure his argument and evidence supporting the fact that we have offloaded focused community support to more abstract levels (governmental institutions, as you say) is concrete. However, as a mostly functional adult who is capable of abstract thought, I can conceptualize that I would personally prefer to pay a monetary fee for good works to be done that I would otherwise not want to personally perform through lack of expertise, time, effort, or simply inclination.
I mean the abstraction of material responsibility has been the trajectory of the human race since the concept of skill specialization and currency. If I want to make spaghetti, I don't have to grow my own wheat, process it into flour, and cut it into pasta shape. I buy dry pasta (made in a factory, delivered to a store, and stocked on a shelf) with money I got from working my job (non pasta involved industry). And, the people, in my community and elsewhere, working those jobs that allow this convenience are all able to buy dry pasta or whatever they like with the money they get from making this all possible. While the efficiencies of scale make it more cost effective than if we were all trying live like yeoman farmers.
Although I agree that it is not currently working in this country to a standard that I find sufficient. I don't necessarily agree that more macro national or state level collectivist systems cannot exist where local personal community involvement is less ingrained in the culture. However, I can see how the communication of and gathering of support to institute said systems would be more difficult in culturally individualistic societies than in culturally collectivist ones. And, the opponents of such systems would have a simpler time appealing to ingrained individualistic inclinations of members who cannot abstractly conceptualize the benefits of social welfare and upliftment.
And, while that difficulty is one of the reasons its not working in this country. I don't think it is absolutely insurmountable. Also, I think it might be easier to convince an individualistically minded culture to accept a little bit of socialism (as a treat) at the cost of an extra deduction line on their pay check than to fundamentally change society on a local level everywhere in the country.
For me, I wouldn't view Universal Healthcare, taxpayer funded education and job training, food and housing security for those who need it, public funded scientific research, and things like that as Authoritarian oppression. I'd view it as me contributing to the creation and maintenance of a sweet ass society that I get to live in and benefit from.
Perhaps I simply enjoy a pared down community as well. I have my wife, friends, coworkers I like, and family I see/talk to sometimes. I enjoy their company when I can and enjoy time with my wife or by myself when I want. I moved from a city of 2 million to a city of 200,000 and I prefer it. I prefer driving my personal vehicle to wherever I wanna be whenever I want to be there over relying on public transportation. I prefer living in a detached house that I own and sitting in my backyard typing this over doing so in an apartment that I don't own with shared walls, floor, and ceiling.
Ergo, so as to remain as stereotypically American as possible, I want to have my cake and eat it too. But, I think we got enough cakes to go around to make some of this possible.
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u/tallbrain1019 3h ago
The US was founded on individualism. It was essential to keep people separate and categorized in order to control wealth and profit off of others. Slavery may be illegal now but this aspect of the culture remains and is clearly evident in multiple aspects of our govt policies and sociology. It is much easier to control and profit off a population of people who don’t give a f* about each other.
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u/No-Tennis-9026 3h ago
I’ve never found operating as a group to be more fulfilling. It’s more annoying and less fulfilling because I didn’t do it myself. I also dislike too many social connections and prefer to be left alone. I will say that within a family though it’s very different because what you describe absolutely exists within families and on a local level. But for me it’s miserable and for many of my family members as well. We also tend to live very long lives into our 90’s and 100’s since the 1800’s when we became Americans so I think we are just people who prefer that way of life. Not everyone is the same with the same needs and people with similar needs and expectations tend to group together.
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u/Previous_South2756 2h ago
The rugged individuals mythos is a thing in the US. I am not a historian so I don't know how far back it goes. But I am guessing it stems from the days when Americans were compelled to "tame the wild frontier". Of course, that "taming" was not something that individuals did all by their lonesome. But most Americans have an image of a husband and a wife claiming stake on a homestead out in the "untamed" Plains and battling it out with nature and "savage" foes with the sheer strength of their own hands, never asking for handouts or for anyone's assistance as they successfully raise 10-14 children in a one-room shack. That image is elevated over ones where the couple is living in the "tamed" city, in a home they didn't build with their own hands, where the foe is unscrupulous capitalists, where resources are shared by families and neighbors.
Having said all of this, I think individualism in the US is not as deeply entrenched as people make it out to be. I grew up in the Deep South. There is a deep honor culture in the South, where you simply don't talk bad about someone's family, their neighbors, their community, or their town unless you want a verbal or physical beatdown. I am black and I was raised with the notion that I am not just representing myself. I am representing my people, so I better not do anything to bring shame on myself or my people. Finally, if we were truly individualistic, most Americans would not be much as conformist and status-driven as they are. Popularity and being well-liked by ones peers are aspirations that the vast majority of young adults have.
True, American young adults are also encouraged to not care so much about pleasing their elders and kowtowing to cultural expectations....but most of them nonetheless do. I don't know any 20-something who wants to disappoint their parents and is totally indifferent to what "society" says they should be doing with themselves. 90% of posts on Reddit are written by people worried about how ashamed they feel because they are "losers" with respect to societal expectations. Many if not most of these people are Americans or Westerners.
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u/KittiesandPlushies 7h ago
But how will they nickel and dime us for every single possible service if we are helping each other as a community? Daycare, utilities, housing, furniture, etc… they can charge us more if we aren’t splitting our bills.
I think our capitalist culture fuels this issue because so many companies make more money if our households and communities are split up.
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u/MyEyesSpin 7h ago
Japan is just as capitalist as the US, arguably better at it, they jump right on opportunities for private education, new products, trends, marginal growth, corruption, bank loans...
they do have a much better social safety net/expectation around what government can/should do in providing
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u/Historical-Relief777 7h ago
America is founded upon liberalism which fundamentally believes string unique individuals create a better society. What about being self interested is necessarily self centered as long as you are respectful to those around you?
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u/Xylus1985 7h ago
It’s a big country so you can live away from people if you choose. It’s also a rich country, the land of opportunities, so you can live and even become rich without depending on other people. So naturally some people who like this life style move towards it.
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u/BlackLodgeBrother 6h ago
Get rich and then go broke should you ever get seriously ill. Or better yet, spend all you have on nursing home facilities (should you live long enough) since advanced age care isn’t subsidized here.
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u/OkCluejay172 4h ago
The American culture of individualism is unnatural and inferior compared to eastern nations like Japan whose culture is collectivist
Well let's see which culture is superior by seeing which one would win in a war. Oh wait we already did that
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