Western values 'are causing mental illness'

[andrewducker]

THE rapid spread of Western business practices in Japan has causedwidespread mental illness and is responsible for a deepeningdemographic crisis, government officials say.

A spokesman for the Mental Health Institute said that the emphasis on individual performance was driving Japanese workers — particularly those in their thirties — to mental turmoil. “People tend to be individualised under the new working patterns,” he said. “When people worked in teams they were happier.”

From here.

I'm not entirely convinced, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. Anyone got any links on what keeps people sane, and how society does exactly the opposite?

Comments

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

Globalisation bad. From personal experience.

[andrewducker]

That depends very much what you mean by "globalisation". So far _some_ bits of globalisation have brought poverty relief to large numbers of people in poor countries, by giving them jobs.

Unfettered capitalism is what causes the problem, I think.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

This is slightly ironic since at various points over the last ten years, Japanese business practices/cultural models have been held up as being the ones to aspire to. Of course, just as in this case, their practices/business culture don't work when brutally slapped into our corporations, as much as the reverse is true.

I'd also suggest that the Western Values TM that are referenced in the article, or at least the downsides, are ones that some of the more succesful/popular/clever big US companies avoid.

The statistics about mental illness at the start of the article are rather similar to ones you see bandied about regular Western companies. ie the poor Japanese employees are becoming as ill as their western counterparts already are.

And saying "globalisation bad" is just silly. I like being able to eat fruit from Israel, read comics from the USA and (much as the accents can be problematic) I still prefer someone answering the phone when I call the bank rather than just being trapped in an endless touchtone phone cascade loop system. Sure, there are many, many bad aspects of globalisation, but not all of them.

If it wasn't for large multinational corporations/banks doing business (or indeed owning other businesses) outside of their original home country, the economy of Britain would be in a very, very bad state these days, it's safe to say.

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

And saying "globalisation bad" is just silly. I like being able to eat fruit from Israel, read comics from the USA and (much as the accents can be problematic) I still prefer someone answering the phone when I call the bank rather than just being trapped in an endless touchtone phone cascade loop system. Sure, there are many, many bad aspects of globalisation, but not all of them.

This is why I tend not to involve myself in internet debates. In my particular experience, which is of course what I was refering to, the multinational's I've worked for have shifted responsibilties from country to country and put a lot of people I know, myself included, out of work. This is not pleasant, hence "bad".

[andrewducker]

Of course, the French person who now gets your job may be very happy about this.

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0262541467?v=glance

the above book - culture and subjective well being - does what it says on the tin. Its main conclusion about Japan is that unlike the west (which is an idiocentric society) Japan has always been an allocentric society ie the locus of personal well being is located in their particpiation in the group/collective. So it would make sense that importing idiocentric values intto an allocentric culture will cause problems. Whether this is anything more than adding fancy labels to the basic insight you quote is questionable; but its nice to have the fancy labels. Plus its a good book in that it has collected a series of empirical, trans-national, contemporary and differential studies into well being and its construction in different societies.

[andrewducker]

Cheers - added it to my wish list.

[taromazzy.livejournal.com]

anomie is a terrible thing.

[balthial.livejournal.com]

Bullshit. I think Japanese working men have emotional problems because they work too hard and never see their wives. Japanese women have a lot of education (which lowers birth rates), families are expected to raise kids in a way which is expensive and incredibly stressful for the mother. In Japan, the single life can be good but the married life is usually pretty bad.

That's my impression from studying a lot of Japanese culture. The birth rate was low well before business practices started "westernizing". Less job security and more inequality arn't helping anything, sure, but blaming those trends on "westernization" is awfully convient for the Japanese government.