Japan can be incredibly inflexible, rigid, and inconsistent with the rules and expectations they follow. There is also a great deal of respect/homage paid to Buddhism and Daoism.
In short, I really don’t think rationality is by any means a linear metric, and you certainly couldn’t use it as a value-measure of how ‘good’ a society is.
The Japanese also managed to invent new superstitions like the one around the meaning of human blood groups that we in the West didn’t. (they have similar stereotypes then about people’s astrological signs)
Also, before and during WW2, Japan had the most shockingly horrifying death-cult-y style leadership and culture. Dan Carlin does a good job sketching this in his Supernova in the East series.
Japan can be incredibly inflexible, rigid, and inconsistent with the rules and expectations they follow. There is also a great deal of respect/homage paid to Buddhism and Daoism.
In short, I really don’t think rationality is by any means a linear metric, and you certainly couldn’t use it as a value-measure of how ‘good’ a society is.
The Japanese also managed to invent new superstitions like the one around the meaning of human blood groups that we in the West didn’t. (they have similar stereotypes then about people’s astrological signs)
Also, before and during WW2, Japan had the most shockingly horrifying death-cult-y style leadership and culture. Dan Carlin does a good job sketching this in his Supernova in the East series.