[MD] empathy

[Jan-Anders]

Dan wrote 2011-03-18 23.54:
> Hello everyone
>
> On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 2:28 PM, MarshaV<valkyr at att.net>  wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >  My heart is aching for the people in Japan. ?I don't get the hype from
>> >  television, but I have been paying attention to events posted on the
>> >  Internet, and it is all awful beyond words. ?It is so awful it is hard to
>> >  believe it is really happening, yet I know it is. ?The question 'Why?'
>> >  sticks in my throat and I choke. ?It is unbearably awful.
> Hi Marsha
>
> Like you I don't have cable tv so I've been following the unfolding
> disaster in Japan via the Internet. What strikes me most is how
> differently the Japanese culture handles such catastrophes as compared
> to our own.
>
> Take the Katrina disaster in New Orleans as an example: Rather than
> doing something to help themselves, most New Orleans residents
> affected by the hurricane seemed to sit and wait, expecting someone
> else (the government) to help them. There were surges in lootings and
> crime. Bitchings and moanings were heard throughout the city: "why us,
> why us". Still now, years later, many homes there are sitting empty
> and a third of the city's residents are gone, relocated at government
> expense and probably still living off government aid.
>
> In Japan, not so. Rather than sitting around waiting for help, the
> residents are already busy cleaning and rebuilding their homes... even
> elderly people. There are no reports of looting. No one taking
> advantage of the situation for their own gain. They're helping one
> another out in any way they can. One elderly couple when interviewed
> said they were hurrying to clean and restore their own home so that
> they could then help others do the same. No one is asking "why us, why
> us". They are simply getting on with it.
>
> Why are there such differences?
>
> I think it may have something to do with how we in the West are
> socially conditioned to the desire to possess value rather than
> realizing that that is impossible... rather, value possesses us. It
> struck me in my recent conversation with Ham (and in past
> conversations with Platt) that the desire to possess value, the love
> of money if you will, is indeed the source of all suffering.
>
> This is quite foreign to me personally. In the past I shrugged it off
> as inconsequential... that most people didn't feel that way. But more
> and more, I am seeing that our Western culture is infected far more
> deeply with this sickness (and it is a sickness, though of social
> significance rather than biological) than is the East. It is this
> negative face of Quality that we tend to mistake for better.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Dan

Could it be how Celebrity is defined in a society? If celebrity is 
depending only upon how much money you can gather. I have a feeling that 
in Japan, Celebrity is based more upon social talents like reputation, 
decentness and social compability.

I see money and economy systems as pure intellectual matter. To be a 
good economic man you must loose your social bonds and act rational.

best

J-A