It's All Relative, You Know

Almost 7,000 miles from where I am sitting, there is a country that once glorified duty, honor, and even death before shame. Debasing acts were a death sentence for the individual and carried social burden for one’s kin. An honorable and painful suicide, called seppuku, was preferable to living without purpose or the unique kind of social esteem and honor that Samurai bushido demanded.

Now fast forward a few hundred years and zoom back to the Western World. Individuals are their own champions. Philosophy is constantly butting heads (and collaborating) with psychology as we try to desperately understand the “self.” Collectivism? Unheard of. The community is merely something the individual participates in, it has no agency of its own. We are the center of our own lives and we are the ones that should take charge. What a staggering difference in attitude from feudal Japan!