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Not likely. Why would the groups subject to this effect be defined at the relatively artificial level of the nation state, and not at any other subnational (states or provinces) or supranational (EU or cultural sphere) level?

Furthermore, watch out for confirmation bias: why is Japan a possible exception rather than a counterexample?



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I don't think so. As I said, those other countries didn't have the same relative demographics as Japan. This just sounds like a fringe theory that isn't really borne out by evidence.

I don't believe that is accurate. Homogeneous societies afford their citizens that opportunity, e.g. Japanese.

It would be a gain for diversity in Japan, though. These things are relative.

And apart from a flawed analysis of the Japanese society, on what historical examples are you basing your "theory"?

Oh, and just to have a counter example: Switzerland


No. Nations are lines drawn on a map. The people inside need have nothing in common other than geographic proximity.

Japan will exist as long as people live there and call it Japan. It has nothing to do with ethnicity, land, culture, or history.


Unless you believe racially japanese people are significantly different to people from other asian countries. No.

What really are the genetic basis to say Japan is a country that's markedly different from other asian populations?

The people living in Japan have not lived there for long enough for their genetic to become too different from those of other asian countries. Culture on the other hand changes much more rapidly. Culture is the "genetics" of society, it is passed down from generation to generation and it mutates and these mutations are also hereditary... it's just much faster than biological processes.

But ultimately, it seems very unlikely (and as far as I know, there's very little evidence that suggests this is the case) that race and genetics will have a huge effect on culture. Specially given that countries with similar genetic populations will have vastly different cultures.


Yes. Japan is a country. It’s a socially constructed set of boundaries and rules. It can be whatever they want it to be.

You’re tiptoeing dangerously near some very questionable ethnic/racial arguments.


Does it apply also for foreigners? Maybe it's more of a thing for japanese people?

Nah. Japan has a very insular attitude towards culture.

e.g., https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilians_in_Japan

Wikipedia mostly talks about Brazilian nikkei (fascinating).

However, and I can’t find it now, last decade Japan was in the process of pushing out Brazilian “migrant” workers, leaving the workers’ children (born and raised in Japan) in a cultural & language limbo.


I did say the Japan example is an "in-depth" example rather than a general one, so it would not necessarily apply to other asian locales.

I merely used Japan because I'm actually qualified to talk about them with some degree of specificity, and the rest of the comment is hopefully written in a more generalized manner.


Yes, it's not like a country is it's people and their culture and achievements stemming from those, and that if the "country is good" it's because of that.

No, a country is just a landmass, and when "Japanese become the minority" that would be a problem solved (the problem being entitled people from outside the country wanting in).


It might be disingenuous but not entirely false. The integration you describe is not mandatory to be accepted as a member of many societies, and the seeming inability to integrate was historically used as a legitimate reason to discriminate them even after considerable efforts.

There are so many ongoing discriminations specific to Japan [1], including aforementioned pre-1945 Korean immigrants (and by extension their descendants or all Koreans), Ainu peoples, Ryukyuan peoples and Burakumin. Sometimes they result in criminal or problematic acts; for example, Korean immigrants are a major force behind the notorious pachinko industry. Still such phenomena do not mask the underlying problem.

> At this point in time they have managed to obtain a special status that is the opposite of being oppressed and is actually a source of irritation among Japanese I know.

They have managed to obtain a special status because they have been oppressed! You are swapping the cause and the effect. Also you can't use irritation among Japanese as a rationale or whatever because they are naturally biased---it's just that, they feel so and there might or might not be a good reason.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_issues_in_Japan


The same i would mean if i said "non-japanese ", only applied to france.

Why would the loss of ethnic identity in Japan not be a bad thing? It would be a loss for diversity.

Japan also has the advantage of being populated with Japanese, so distinguishing between cause and effect might be difficult.

Perhaps, but it’s a second-order effect of America rendering postwar Japan as a de facto, right wing one party state. Whether or not Japanese society conforms to specific American social norms is less important than whether the society produced by this order serves broader US interests. You could make the same observation about other far right or monarchical regimes the US is currently allied with (e.g. Saudi Arabia).

So does racial discrimination not exist in Japan? Seems like it should be added to the figure there.

Nah, the far right are quite happy to point to Tokyo as an example of the superiority of an ethnically/culturally homogenous society.

Singapore is a better example, but requires a form of authoritarianism to pull off that would be unacceptable to both the right and the left.


My understanding is that this is not in fact true: there are significant populations of disfavored minorities in urban Japan.
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