Why is there no looting in Japan?

Telegraph ^ | March 14, 2011

[NCjim]

The landscape of parts of Japan looks like the aftermath of World War Two; no industrialised country since then has suffered such a death toll. The one tiny, tiny consolation is the extent to which it shows how humanity can rally round in times of adversity, with heroic British rescue teams joining colleagues from the US and elsewhere to fly out.

And solidarity seems especially strong in Japan itself. Perhaps even more impressive than Japan’s technological power is its social strength, with supermarkets cutting prices and vending machine owners giving out free drinks as people work together to survive. Most noticeably of all, there has been no looting, and I’m not the only one curious about this.

This is quite unusual among human cultures, and it’s unlikely it would be the case in Britain. During the 2007 floods in the West Country abandoned cars were broken into and free packs of bottled water were stolen. There was looting in Chile after the earthquake last year – so much so that troops were sent in; in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina saw looting on a shocking scale.

Why do some cultures react to disaster by reverting to everyone for himself, but others – especially the Japanese – display altruism even in adversity?

[GOPJ]

Rumor has it the New Orleans Police Department had their own corruption issues. Is that a surprise?

[tuffydoodle]

I thought a good portion of New Orleans was underwater as well, due to the levee breaks, and the city basically being a bowl filled with water afterwards.

[trisham]

Only 18 men were charged. There may have been as many as 28 who raped the 11 year old girl:

http://www.freerepublic.com/^http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365112/Horrific-gang-rape-18-men-girl-11-Texas-sparks-racial-tension.html#ixzz1GOCijZnR

[Alberta's Child]

Why is there no looting in Japan? Two anecdotes and a photo immediately come to mind:

Anecdote #1: When Japan co-hosted the soccer World Cup back in 2002, I saw a number of media reports about how Japanese soccer fans would stay behind after a game they attended -- to clean up the garbage in their section of the stadium.

Anecdote #2: There was a story posted here on FreeRepublic a few years ago about a business traveler from the U.S. who left his laptop computer on a Tokyo subway train. He reported the lost computer to the police, but the police told him that nobody had turned anything in. Later that day, the visitor's office in Tokyo was visited by a local stranger carrying the missing laptop. The Japanese guy had found the computer on the train and then spent the entire morning tracking the American visitor down, so he could return it to him.

To me, nothing personifies Japanese culture more than this photo:

That photo says it all: (1) one group of Japanese people willingly subjecting themselves to manhandling by government employees so they can get stuffed into a crowded subway car; (2) well-dressed subway employees doing their job, without so much as a hat out of place (and wearing white gloves, of course); and (3) a second mass of subway riders waiting at patiently at the foot of a crowded stairway for their turn to get on the next train, while doing their best to keep anything more than a stray foot from crossing the white line painted on the subway platform.

[mountn man]

An Holder wants to lower testing standards for blacks, to be on police forces.

He wants EVERY city to have a NOLA type PO-lice department.

[tuffydoodle]

Oh my God. I’m going to be sick.

[agrace]

Exactly. Just this week my 13 yr old and I were talking (some days I really love homeschooling) about modernism, marxist socialism, progressive education and how they all contributed to the moral relativism and lack of personal responsibility so prevalent in our society over the past few generations. I told her how back when her grandfather was in school, it was unheard of for a teenager to be disrespectful in class.

This is what her book says:

“[John] Dewey [father of progressive education] emphasized permissiveness in the classroom, saying that children should be permitted to ‘do their own thing’ because they learned best when allowed to follow their own instincts. He stressed social adjustment rather than academic learning. According to progressive education, problems are the result of social environment; this philosophy eliminates individual accountability and responsibility. Progressive education eventually led to the breakdown of academic and moral standards in American schools in the latter half of the 20th century.”

[tsowellfan]

OK, what does diversity mean?

It means we are an immigrant nation, Japan is not. Neither is China, nor Korea, nor Vietnam.

While we consider looting as illegal some peoples coming from 3rd world nations to live with us may not see looting as a bad thing. They have not learnt right from wrong.

Non-immigrant nations do not need to spend the time teaching newly arrived basics to immigrants they can actually take that extra time and money to teach their own more advanced lessons such as how important a good education is and getting good grades.

[tsowellfan]

Yeah, but look at the city you’re comparing Japan too, I mean we’re talking about New Orleans. At that time (before everyone left) it was like the murder city of the world.

[tsowellfan]

HaHa! You’re doing quite an injustice to the United States using New Orleans as our representing city to compare to Japan or any nation. LOL! I think even Honduras (on a good day) would be offended by that comparison. LOL

[trisham]

I hear you. It’s really unbelievable that so-called “human beings” could be so inhuman.

[agrace]

I doubt the 60 inch HDTV would still work after being submerged under 8 feet of sea water and beneath a bullet train.

I'm sorry but that's funny right there.

[GladesGuru]

“Why no looting in Japan?

No feral black population.”

Dat be racis!

You be forgettin dem Messicans, an dose MS-13 bad a$$ dudes!

Or, in ebonics free speech:
“The negative impacts of the Meso-American, cannibal
descended, population of featherless, bi-pedal
predators is both difficult to underestimate, and is
also impossible to analogize with the behavior of the
post earthquake behavior of the Japanese population.”

[JimSEA]

Your intense hatred for Blacks and Hispanics blinds you to the entitlement behavior of the White union thugs in WI. Where you have an entitlement mentality (I am owed things because my ancestors were the abused victims of 1. Slave Owners. 2. European Colonial Masters 3. Capitalist Robber Barons. ), you have people willing to take things from their perceived enemies ( 1. Whites 2. Capitalist Businessmen. ).

[GraceG]

Amazing, that people would rather do without that to take something form the government.

Something we used to see in this country.

[patriot08]

RESPECT is something that Japan never abandoned.

________________

Agree with most of your compliments re; Japan, but
let us not get too carried away here.

http://www.ww2pacific.com/atrocity.html

[Sherman Logan]

Au contraire, the issue, IMO, is not one of them “not knowing” the difference between right and wrong. Very few of the NO looters, if questioned, would have been surprised to have what they were doing described as wrong.

It’s one of internalizing the importance of doing what you know to be right. To where it’s important enough to do it even when financial and recreational incentives point in the other direction.

[wideminded]

He looked puzzled and then said there was no word for “looting” in Japanese because their citizens would never do that to their community.

"The lack of resistance from Chinese troops and civilians in Nanking meant that the Japanese soldiers were free to divide up the city's valuables as they saw fit. This resulted in the widespread looting and burglary." - link

[agrace]

No feral black population.

There, fixed it. It's not about color, or blacks would have been "feral" as you call them for 200 years. The truth is our society as a whole has seen drastic moral degradation over the past several generations and this is a product of culture not color. It is about education (or lack thereof), the breakdown of the family, moral relativism and the intrusion of government in all of the above.

[tsowellfan]

It’s one of internalizing the importance of doing what you know to be right. To where it’s important enough to do it even when financial and recreational incentives point in the other direction.

I assume what you mean is, if your child is starving and no stores are open... let him die.