To the thread, I really have no special interest in culture. It comes. It goes. I enjoy the moment.
But what constitutes "modernization"? In many ways in physical aspects, I feel Japan is modernizing, in the sense that better tech is being used for things and actually constitute improvements in lifestyle, comfort and security. Like Japanese toilets have gone from third world pits in the floor to heated seats and spray nozzles. But on the flip side, there is also the modernizing that seems to take one backward, such as fingerprinting people at the airport. That only creates laziness and false security if you ask me, and is in fact backward in the intangable aspects of modernization. It harks back to McCarthyism.
But its not so much the tech that concerns me. Its the attitudes, laws and behaviors that I worry about. I don't see the loss of communal bathing as "modernization". I see it as the opposite. More puritanical views of sex I also don't see as modernization, and Japan is going that direction.
I think if Japan needs modernization its with the courts and the police. But of course what aspects need changing is where I will argue with most westerners. I think Japan needs to do more to ensure those accused of crimes are given fair justice. I think the system of a three judge panel is a crock of turds, but its especially the high courts that need fixing. But I think most westerners would instead just demand harsher sentencing on par with America (which has the worlds largest prison population) but I think Japan's sentences are about right probably most of the time (but not when foreigners are involved).
