Spengler discovers Japan....

Ammianus
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Spengler discovers Japan....

Post by Ammianus »

Again !

His most recent piece, why American culture will descend into anime,moe, pedophilic hentai, and.... oh, sorry, I mean, sexless, joyless S & M.

http://atimes.com/atimes/Japan/NC13Dh01.html
A Japanese government study that should have shaken the psychology profession to its shoelaces went through the news media with a mild degree of titillation last month. Almost a third of Japanese boys aged 16-10 and three-fifths of girls say that they have no interest in sex. That is daunting, for all the world's cultures have believed that women enjoy sex more than men, as the Greek seer Tiresias told the gods according to Ovid.

The hormones of late adolescence evidently rage in vain against some cultural barrier that makes young Japanese "despise" sexual relations, according to the Japan Family Planning Association's report [1]. The whole edifice of liberal social policy should have tumbled upon the news, which refutes Freud's premise that libido is the driving force in human character. For 60years, the sexual revolution insisted that repressed desire is the root of all evil. It turns out that the ultimate victim of sexual revolution is sex itself.

What makes the Japanese hate sex? The same things that make a growing proportion of Americans hate sex. Joan Sewell's 2007 book I'd Rather Eat Chocolate became the manifesto of American women who don't like sex, hailed at the as "the next wild turn in the female sexual revolution" by Sandra Tsing Loh in The Atlantic Monthly [2].

Pharmaceutical companies are racing to market a pill to revive fading female libido, to no avail: women do not want to be sex objects, and a culture that objectifies women will make them hate sex, as I wrote in this space five years ago [3]. But the problem has gotten worse than I imagined it would.

Japan is a step ahead of the United States, as the first industrial country to bring sadism and pedophilia into the mainstream. Mere possession of certain Japanese manga is a criminal offense in other countries.

"In recent cases in the United States and Sweden, authorities have made arrests over manga books imported from Japan depicting sexual abuse of children," the New York Times reported Feb. 10, 2010 [4].

A streak of cruelty pervades Japanese culture, for example, the emphasis on the aesthetic in suicide, a concept alien to the Judeo-Christian West. But the West has begun to embrace cruelty in sexual relations on a scale comparable to Japan, and the consequences most likely will be identical.
A thorough deconstruction and lambasting of that "study" :

http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/suckers/
WHEN last we met, I promised that the next post would discuss Japan’s best options for responding to geopolitical conditions in East Asia. That post has required a lot of time to collect, translate, and organize the information, however. At the same time, my primary attention shifted to a large influx of paying work, which still continues. Finally, it has been difficult to resist the temptation to slide over to YouTube and watch and listen to the videos in the excellent Pakistan Coke Studio series.

The stimulus which pulled me out of that mini-orbit was the festival of cheap thrills in the English-language blogosphere this week touched off by another provocative bit of Japan-related flummery.

Specifically:

A startling number of Japanese youths have turned their backs on sex and relationships, a new survey has found.

The survey, conducted by the Japan Family Planning Association, found that 36% of males aged 16 to 19 said that they had “no interest” in or even “despised” sex. That’s almost a 19% increase since the survey was last conducted in 2008.

If that’s not bad enough, The Wall Street Journal reports that a whopping 59% of female respondents aged 16 to 19 said they were uninterested in or averse to sex, a near 12% increase since 2008.

Not only did everone fall for it, they sucked it up so quickly one could almost hear the kids loudly slurping the last drops of the beverage at the bottom of the cup through their straws.

Now really: Are the popular perceptions of Japan so warped that anyone anywhere 16 years of age or over could take that story at face value? I’ve regularly associated with Japanese kids of high school and college age — in the Japanese language — since 1984, and the idea that they have a widespread aversion to sex caused a snort louder than any straw slurp. But then I’m also familiar with the dissatisfaction many Japanese have with the inferior quality of local public opinion surveys, which seldom finds expression in English.Some research on the Japanese-language sector of the Internet was in order. The first place I headed was the website for the Japanese Family Planning Association, which is the Japanese affiliate of Planned Parenthood. I spent a few minutes at their Japanese-only site looking for the report, but found nothing. Then I plugged their name into the Japanese version of Google News, but I still came up empty.

I returned to the original article, published by that paragon of accuracy and sobriety in journalism, the Huffington Post. The headline read, “Japan Population Decline: Third of Nation’s Youth Have ‘No Interest’ In Sex”. Part of their article is quoted above, including the claim that this is a “new survey”.

How odd that nothing about this new survey and its remarkable findings can be found on the Japanese Family Planning Association’s website or Google News Japan. The reason became apparent when I accessed the link at the HuffPo piece to a related Wall Street Journal article. Rather than being “new”, the survey was released in January 2011 — more than a year ago.

That explains the absence of stories in Google News; links to Japanese newspaper stories seldom survive longer than a year. After I added some terms to the search query, some information finally started turning up. It helped that the survey was sponsored by the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare.

Nevertheless, it was curious how little information actually surfaced. Blog post links last longer than a year, but Japanese bloggers were rather uncurious about this report. Then I ran across this comment from University of Tokyo grad school researcher Furuichi Noritoshi, a sociologist who specializes in studies of contemporary Japanese youth. Mr. Furuichi — who is just 26 himself — wrote in the weekly Pureiboi:

The viewpoint is growing among young people today that it is “smart” (i.e., stylish) to behave as if one has little interest in sex. People think they should not superficially demonstrate that interest, even when they are interested. They even consider it a pain to put up with the generation that spun their tales of triumph, bragging about how many people they bagged. I suspect that viewpoint is reflected in the answers to the survey.

In addition, they only surveyed from 61 to 162 men or women in each generation. That’s a rather small sample size. Further, the response rate was only 57%. It would be difficult to gain an understanding of an entire generation from this survey alone.

N.B.: In Japan, “difficult” is usually a euphemism for “impossible”.

After that observation about the sample size, I knew I was getting close. Sure enough, the next site that turned up was the original Japanese-language report from the Ministry itself on the survey. (You can read the .pdf file here.)

Here’s how the survey was conducted: 3,000 people from the ages of 16-49 were selected at random from residential rolls. The association explained and distributed questionnaires to 2,693 people, eliminating from the original 3,000 those who were never at home or not at the address. They returned to pick up the completed questionnaire later, and received 1,540 (671 from men and 869 from women). That’s a recovery rate of 57.2%.

As page four of the .pdf file shows, they broke down the respondents into seven different age groups. For the age group of 16-19, they received responses from 61 males and 65 females.

In other words, the Internet was agog over a report that 22 males and 38 females aged 16-19 said either that they had no interest in sex or despised it. When the Huffington Post spun this story as “a third of the nation’s youth” disliking sex, they were basing it on the response of 60 self-selected people. The HuffPo also thinks 38 girls is a “whopping” number.

That explains why so few people in Japan took the survey seriously. We already knew there was little reason to take the HuffPo or Wall Street Journal’s coverage of Japan seriously, based on their track record. This story follows the pattern: Discovering the essentials of this survey took only 10 to 15 minutes, but then I was interested in the truth instead of entertainment.

Another peculiarity was the survey’s finding that only 6.6% of the boys and 1.6% of the girls had their first sexual experience at the age of 16-19. That’s not even close to the numbers from this data reported by Kyoto University for surveys of high school students in Tokyo over a 20 year-period. In 1984, the percentage of the no-longer virgin among the big city boys and girls in their senior year was 22% and 12% respectively. By 2002, a decade ago, that had risen to 37% and 46% respectively. (Yes, the girls were getting more action than the guys.)

Is this not curious? If a survey with findings that goofy were to appear in America, folks on the Internet would have mobilized immediately, and the information to refute it would have been found, presented, and widely disseminated in fewer than 24 hours. Recall what happened to Dan Rather of CBS News when he tried to use bogus documents to discredit George W. Bush in 2004. Just last week, an attempt to discredit Newt Gingrich among Republicans by deliberately misquoting his comments about Ronald Reagan was also exposed in less than a day.

When Japan is the subject of goofy surveys, however, the same people forego their critical facilities and become Grade-A suckers.

This phenomenon demands ruthless truth-telling, and it is not possible to be too ruthless. Here’s the truth: If you choose to believe what you read in the English-language mass media about Japan, you choose the course of ignorance.
Last edited by Ammianus on Tue Mar 13, 2012 12:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Miss_Faucie_Fishtits
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Re: Spengler discovers Japan....

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okay.......

1. Someone in the Japanese government commissioned this study........

2. Kunio Kitamura, of the Japan Family Planning Association, took part in this study and in getting his knickers in a bunch, said, "Policy actions are necessary"......

3. The data, such as it is, "confirmed a wider social belief that younger men are becoming "herbivorous", a label attached to passive men who do not actively seek women and sex.'* This is confirming a current bias, if you will. It is not proving anything new............

4. The decision fork is this - either there is a serious social query in galvanising the public interest in remaking the present culture, or there is what we would call here in the 'states' an 'Obama' problem, where either the nation or that particular prefecture has a bunch of clowns in public office, and has to throw them out......


Read more: Government Says Young Japanese Losing Sex Drive | MedIndia http://www.medindia.net/news/Government ... z1oyXFbR2D"
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Re: Spengler discovers Japan....

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Lack of sex drive and infertility could be a natural reaction to overpopulation. Such developments have been seen among animals, so that there is no reason to think it couldn't happen with humans.
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Re: Spengler discovers Japan....

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Ammianus, thanks for posting this latest risible article from Spenglerman.
Miss_Faucie_Fishtits wrote:okay.......

1. Someone in the Japanese government commissioned this study........

2. Kunio Kitamura, of the Japan Family Planning Association, took part in this study and in getting his knickers in a bunch, said, "Policy actions are necessary"......

3. The data, such as it is, "confirmed a wider social belief that younger men are becoming "herbivorous", a label attached to passive men who do not actively seek women and sex.'* This is confirming a current bias, if you will. It is not proving anything new............

4. The decision fork is this - either there is a serious social query in galvanising the public interest in remaking the present culture, or there is what we would call here in the 'states' an 'Obama' problem, where either the nation or that particular prefecture has a bunch of clowns in public office, and has to throw them out......

Read more: Government Says Young Japanese Losing Sex Drive | MedIndia http://www.medindia.net/news/Government ... z1oyXFbR2D"
It's on the internet, so it must be true.

In the 2000's, and earlier, one has a similar massive flood of articles about enjo kosai - compensated dating - a euphemism for prostitution, especially with regards to school girls.

One could have easily formed the impression that the typical schoolgirl's day consisted of going to class, then going out to turn tricks.

Turns out this was a tiny percentage of the population in question. Same with the herbivores meme and the no-sex-please-we're-Japanese meme.

Again because to many in the West, Japan is far away and different anything written about Japan seems plausible.

The low birth rate is not due to people not wanting to have sex, the love hotels are as busy as ever, but due to many of the same pressures experienced in other industrialized societies:

transition from extended to nuclear families,
very long working hours,
postings away from the family,
lack of social services such as daycare,
cost of raising children,
overcrowding,
etc.

Plus a few that are unique to Japan, for example, the enormous social pressures of being a mom with regards to other moms and their kids at a school.
Invisible to the casual Western observer. If anyone thinks a PTA meeting in the USA is hell, they should experience one in Japan . . .

Nothing to do with the projections of Spenglerman and other grumpy old men who can't accept that the world has passed them by and
will continue to evolve long long after they are gone.
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Re: Spengler discovers Japan....

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Endovelico wrote:Lack of sex drive and infertility could be a natural reaction to overpopulation. Such developments have been seen among animals, so that there is no reason to think it couldn't happen with humans.
I have thought that too when I have read Spengler's comments on these things.

Also, he doesn't seem to believe that it is possible to have loving and intimate sex with someone who you do not then marry.
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Endovelico
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Re: Spengler discovers Japan....

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Enki wrote:
Endovelico wrote:Lack of sex drive and infertility could be a natural reaction to overpopulation. Such developments have been seen among animals, so that there is no reason to think it couldn't happen with humans.
I have thought that too when I have read Spengler's comments on these things.

Also, he doesn't seem to believe that it is possible to have loving and intimate sex with someone who you do not then marry.
In the human species you have instincts and you have values. It's not wise to try and ignore either one.
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Re: Spengler discovers Japan....

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I like the immediate Spenglerian link between what 38 Japanese teenagers said and the failure of "liberal social policy," as though his understanding of those words has any relevance to Japanese society. Blah blah culture of death blah.

Anyway I'm sure they'll be closing down the red light district in Tokyo any day now.
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Re: Spengler discovers Japan....

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Ibrahim wrote:I like the immediate Spenglerian link between what 38 Japanese teenagers said and the failure of "liberal social policy," as though his understanding of those words has any relevance to Japanese society. Blah blah culture of death blah.

Anyway I'm sure they'll be closing down the red light district in Tokyo any day now.
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Re: Spengler discovers Japan....

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It's on the internet, so it must be true.
But the internets is the twuth. It's the core of personality and self for just about anyone under thirty. What's fable is anything you would call 'balance'........';>.........
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Re: Spengler discovers Japan....

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Spengler the sex therapist :lol:
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Re: Spengler discovers Japan....

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Only Spengler could Google " sex" and " Japan" and come to the conclusion they aren't into it.
The hormones of late adolescence evidently rage in vain against some cultural barrier that makes young Japanese "despise" sexual relations, according to the Japan Family Planning Association's report [1]. The whole edifice of liberal social policy should have tumbled upon the news,


That's just funny.
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Robot Sex Partners.........

Post by monster_gardener »

Demon of Undoing wrote:Only Spengler could Google " sex" and " Japan" and come to the conclusion they aren't into it.
The hormones of late adolescence evidently rage in vain against some cultural barrier that makes young Japanese "despise" sexual relations, according to the Japan Family Planning Association's report [1]. The whole edifice of liberal social policy should have tumbled upon the news,


That's just funny.
Thank you Very Much for your post, Demon of Undoing.......

OTOH the Modern American and Japanese Sex Scene IMVHO does have some resemblances to C.S. Lewis' description of Lunar* sexual practices in "That Hideous Strength" .... robot sex partners etc........

OTOH I like Futurama.............

*IIRC called "Sulvanus" in the book.....
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Demon of Undoing wrote:Only Spengler could Google " sex" and " Japan" and come to the conclusion they aren't into it.
The hormones of late adolescence evidently rage in vain against some cultural barrier that makes young Japanese "despise" sexual relations, according to the Japan Family Planning Association's report [1]. The whole edifice of liberal social policy should have tumbled upon the news,
That's just funny.
I'm told that long time expats in Japan have a dismissive phrase for this: "yet another newbie reporter discovers Japan"
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Re: Spengler discovers Japan....

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From the critique of the study, this is the most interesting fact of the whole affair, IMO:
Nevertheless, it was curious how little information actually surfaced. Blog post links last longer than a year, but Japanese bloggers were rather uncurious about this report. Then I ran across this comment from University of Tokyo grad school researcher Furuichi Noritoshi, a sociologist who specializes in studies of contemporary Japanese youth. Mr. Furuichi — who is just 26 himself — wrote in the weekly Pureiboi:

The viewpoint is growing among young people today that it is “smart” (i.e., stylish) to behave as if one has little interest in sex. People think they should not superficially demonstrate that interest, even when they are interested. They even consider it a pain to put up with the generation that spun their tales of triumph, bragging about how many people they bagged. I suspect that viewpoint is reflected in the answers to the survey.
Why the shift? While not going as far as Spengler's conclusion, there may something to be said for a certain level of sexual over-exposure and saturation leading at least a segment of the youth population to react against it, if only in their professed attitudes. A concern might be the psychological and social fallout from having a significant portion of a society feeling urges and having interests that they have been conditioned to believe, and outwardly profess, to be unworthy, vulgar, and low-class.
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So Spengler is mistaking a decrease in vulgar behavior for a decrease in sexual interest. How funny.
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Re: Spengler discovers Japan....

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Juggernaut Nihilism wrote:From the critique of the study, this is the most interesting fact of the whole affair, IMO:
Nevertheless, it was curious how little information actually surfaced. Blog post links last longer than a year, but Japanese bloggers were rather uncurious about this report. Then I ran across this comment from University of Tokyo grad school researcher Furuichi Noritoshi, a sociologist who specializes in studies of contemporary Japanese youth. Mr. Furuichi — who is just 26 himself — wrote in the weekly Pureiboi:

The viewpoint is growing among young people today that it is “smart” (i.e., stylish) to behave as if one has little interest in sex. People think they should not superficially demonstrate that interest, even when they are interested. They even consider it a pain to put up with the generation that spun their tales of triumph, bragging about how many people they bagged. I suspect that viewpoint is reflected in the answers to the survey.
Why the shift? While not going as far as Spengler's conclusion, there may something to be said for a certain level of sexual over-exposure and saturation leading at least a segment of the youth population to react against it, if only in their professed attitudes. A concern might be the psychological and social fallout from having a significant portion of a society feeling urges and having interests that they have been conditioned to believe, and outwardly profess, to be unworthy, vulgar, and low-class.
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Re: Spengler discovers Japan....

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re: keωl...... maybe some people out there should get the 411 on that.......
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Miss_Faucie_Fishtits wrote:re: keωl...... maybe some people out there should get the 411 on that.......
According to another United Russia apparatchik, “there are currently a total of 22 million men aged 20 to 40, the prime age group for new fathers.
‘Of these,’ however, ‘about 700,000 are in prison, 2.1 million are registered alcoholics — and how many of those are uncounted,’
Mironov continues. There are also 2.5 million drug addicts.
As a result, 5.3 million potential fathers are not as available as others”.

Of course, even a drunk knows that instead of giving away cars and fridges, the best way to boost birth rates is to make Russia a place into which couples would wish to bring a child.
Bingo.
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Re: Spengler discovers Japan....

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yah, that's the sticky.......;p'............

oh, and this:
"......The viewpoint is growing among young people today that it is “smart” (i.e., stylish) to behave as if one has little interest in sex. People think they should not superficially demonstrate that interest, even when they are interested. They even consider it a pain to put up with the generation that spun their tales of triumph, bragging about how many people they bagged. I suspect that viewpoint is reflected in the answers to the survey......."
Back when mother was pressuring me to find a guy and get married, was I gonna tell her the truth??2??........

I mean; you have to contemplate the consequenses of coming out with the observation that you are in fact, a raving bitch from hell. That you are as likely to go at a man's face with a knife as to talk to him and the thought of breaking the legs of a rambunctious two-year old makes a happy and peaceful place in yer darkened lil' heart. I see that sunday dinner going all to hell.......;P".........
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Miss_Faucie_Fishtits wrote: . . .
Back when mother was pressuring me to find a guy and get married, was I gonna tell her the truth??2??........
Considering the time and place, that could have lead to certain difficulties . . .

Image
Miss_Faucie_Fishtits wrote:I mean; you have to contemplate the consequenses of coming out with the observation that you are in fact, a raving bitch from hell. That you are as likely to go at a man's face with a knife as to talk to him and the thought of breaking the legs of a rambunctious two-year old makes a happy and peaceful place in yer darkened lil' heart. I see that sunday dinner going all to hell.......;P".........
Many a married woman has had similar thoughts cross her mind. Fortunately, for the hubby and kids at least, most don't turn such thoughts into actions. :wink:

Outside of a Norman Rockwell painting, Sunday dinners are emotional minefield.
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Another swipe from that other board . . . not limited to Japan, but since Japan is the home of cosplay . . .
hoosiernorm wrote:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... dolls.html
Young girls are fast becoming internet sensations not because of their vocal skills or dance moves, but because they resemble living dolls.
Staring doe-eyed at the camera, with cupids bow lips and a porcelain complexion Dakota Rose has been hailed a real-life Barbie.
Known to her fans as Kota Koti, she has amassed a global audience with her YouTube fashion and beauty tutorials.
J4-GRH2nDvw
Spengler wrote: . . .

This is really sick stuff.
I have to wonder how much civilization is at risk due to a small group of teen girl playing dress up Barbie?

PIb6AZdTr-A

It has payed off for one of them who now has a modelling contract . . .

Bravo Models

ZyhrYis509A

Should all the comic conventions [comicon] be shut down for attempting to corrupt the morals of youth through costume play [cosplay]?
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A good post shamelessly swiped from the other board . . .
ding73ding wrote:
lzzrdgrrl wrote:So, if we do a reconstruction of the accident scene, do we care if the passengers were killed in a head-on collision instead of traumatic impact to the front quarter panel?......;p'.......
Hmm not sure who you are talking to... if you imply that moe, lolicon and ecchi are the same coin, then you are wrong. If that's not your intention, then I pre-apologize. To a car accident which may or may not have happened it makes a difference between alcoholic drivers in the July 4th weekend which killed finite number of people every year vs. the hypothetical risk of getting killed by a fiery meteorite (or errant Russian/Chinese/NK satellite).

Moe is exactly comparable to Barbie dolls. Or more precisely, 40-something men dressing up as Transformers and Stormtroopers, borderline freaky for most people, but there's nothing immoral or sick about it. Yes perhaps a few individuals have sexual fantasies (even acts?) involving Stormtroopers and Jedis but no one ever think to brand Star Wars as sick. By and large, someone dressed up as Stormtroopers tend not to have a very rich sex life. Just like we know there are sick people jack off to image of Virgin Mary doesn't make Virgin Mary sick.
But I think he picks up on it. The repudiation of active sexuality and even mature gender differences suggest self-loathing and a desire to become one with the angels because the world is too base, squalid and humiliating to deal with any more.....
Ok that's a long string of words that 10^9 monkeys can't type out in 10^6 years. Anyhoo... maybe we are on the same page, just different dimensions.

In recent years, my circle of young parents were mildly concerned our young daughters were enjoying pops that seems slight too mature for them. While we were expecting them to still be immersed in Dora the Explorer, instead they were bobbing to Hannah Montana, Selena Gomez, even Taylor Swift. My (then) 5 year old were trying to learn the lyrics of You Belong with Me and asking about the "good" and "bad" versions of her in the video. Little boys seem more reassuringly obsessed with fast cars and guns.

Moe is exactly the opposite phenomenon, it's about 20-something girls who ought to be marrying, dating or at least have some hormonal crisis over boys but instead wish they were 6 years old not having a worry about the messy physical and psychological intercourse with men, or in extreme case, any interaction with any humans.

Anyway the point isn't to debate the finer nature of a sub-sub-genre of a foreign culture. The point is that Splenger being very intelligent and having formidable expertise in a few topics (investment, Western classical music, Judaism and Catholicism), do have a tendency to make grandiose pronouncement about other fields, especially about cultures and civilizations that he doesn't have any interest in, other then profits (investment), fandom (Mozart) and converts (Catholics). He's a leading mind in investments, but that doesn't make him particularly authoritative in economy or demographics. He thinks Catholicism promotes growth, which is at best coincidental (miserable people are easy to convert AND make copious babies, see Mexicans).

Spengler makes these prostheses about Iran, Egypt, Japan and France, but he understands (by will) nothing of their problems and his solutions are useless. I've read him on-and-off for many years now, when he writes about America and Western Europe, which he is very knowledgeable of, he's insightful and sharp, even when he's wrong. When he writes about Japan, China and especially Middle East, he's ignorant, disrespectful and infuriating, even when (once in a blue moon) he's right.

A Russian-American asked me about the similarity/difference between Chinese and Japanese and brought up his observation that men (even boys) openly consume violent pornographic manga on crowded trains in plain view of young pupils. Japan has a serious demographic problem, and it's at least partly connected to some oddity in their morals. But their moral oddities are very unique to that island nation and not very meaningful outside of its border, whilst there are significant lesson(s) we can learn from Japan that has some universal application, the decline of family value is not it. In fact family value is very robust in Japan but because of or despite family value, family creation is going downhill. In a market economy, a Japanese mother is most unappealing job in the developed world. If you inject Catholic religiocity into the mix, you might get a lot of nuns, but not babies and economic recovery. Also, go ahead and cut tax and impose austerity, get rid of social healthcare and public education and see how many Japanese women line up to get pregnant, quit their jobs and raise babies.

If Spengler wants to draw a lesson out of Japan for other countries (esp. USA) he's failed completely. If Spengler wants to offer advice to Japan, he's failed completely. He only able to reinforce a emotional revulsion about foreigners and your moral superiority, it's mental self-gratification, nothing more.
Modulo some points . . . bingo.
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Miss_Faucie_Fishtits
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Re: Spengler discovers Japan....

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"Hey, uhm...... you don't talk to the colonel, you listen to him...... ah, the man has enlarged my mind. He's a poet-voyeur in the classic sense. Well, you say 'hello' to him and he'll walk right by you, right, and he won't even notice you, and then he'll uh, suddenly grab you and throw you in a corner and say, 'do you know that IF is the middle word in LIFE?'.................. ;) .........
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Typhoon
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Re: Spengler discovers Japan....

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Miss_Faucie_Fishtits wrote:"Hey, uhm...... you don't talk to the colonel, you listen to him...... ah, the man has enlarged my mind. He's a poet-voyeur in the classic sense. Well, you say 'hello' to him and he'll walk right by you, right, and he won't even notice you, and then he'll uh, suddenly grab you and throw you in a corner and say, 'do you know that IF is the middle word in LIFE?'.................. ;) .........
:lol:
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Re: Spengler discovers Japan....

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In a market economy, a Japanese mother is most unappealing job in the developed world. If you inject Catholic religiocity into the mix, you might get a lot of nuns, but not babies and economic recovery. Also, go ahead and cut tax and impose austerity, get rid of social healthcare and public education and see how many Japanese women line up to get pregnant, quit their jobs and raise babies.
Exactly. This is one of the reasons why I find Spengman both ridiculous and intellectually dishonest. He is a dedicated apologist of market economy, but refuses to take into account any of its effects on people. High cost of living? Specialization and career demands effects on private life? Just believe in the old desert god and everything will be fine.
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