Not 'doomed' so much as 'restricted'...
I've just shocked myself by finding that the single book that most reinforced my "world outlook", Tribes by Joel Kotkin, is almost 20 years old. Yet in that time I've not seen anything that contradicts the impressions I derived from that book of the nature of the various world cultures.
The impression of Japan is one of a fundamentally, even necessarily insular, inward-looking society. Fascinated by all that is gaijin, it still treasures at heart only what is Japanese. Thus while there may be adoption for appearance's sake of alien conventions, there will be reliance (comfort?) only on what stems from values internal to society.
(Already some have reached for the downvote button.)
As you say, individuals are, well, individuals and can easily be treasures in themselves. And this is a great hope for Japan and all cultures, that individuals may internalize that which is good, or should I say better, from 'outside' cultures and integrate that back into the then richer home culture. This is one of the effects noted in the book, how cultures have been enriched by the various diasporas.
I am afraid that my outlook has been only reinforced over these 20 years. _As a society_ neither Japan nor India will be able to stay at or push to the foremost rank. Individuals will be successful, to be sure. But individuals from those societies are more likely to be *individually* successful outside of those societies, due to the self-reinforcing limitations on individuals inherent in those cultures.
China has a chance to outdo many cultures if it escapes its own inherent traps. But even there many of the same pitfalls seen in India and Japan, heirarchicalism for example, are possibly too embedded to be escaped. This is after all where the people quote the saying "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down". (Hmm, people seem to disagree whether that saying came from China or Japan... hmm...)
Now lest you condemn me as some ... whatever your current demon description of choice is... I am not particularly ignorant or backward. I surprised my doctor by guessing she was named after Sonia Gandhi's daughter, given her likely age. I understand why a friend is trapped in a foreign land by its distinctly better social system, and can't return to my benighted state. And I regret not being able to speak the other language of this region, and because that ignores our local history.
Rather, please understand that what the book looks forward to, the hopeful result for "the future", is an increased and fruitful cosmopolitanism, with each of us enriched by the 'other', while still retaining our 'selves'. Whether we will be able to do that while still surrounded (contained?) by our "home culture" is an open question. Unless, of course, that home culture is able to expand and accept influences from those 'others'.
One can hope that the honorable AC can come away from the last 7 years with sufficient positives to counter-balance the trials. AC-san will surely now treasure both politeness and being forthright.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
