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The Huffington Post may be a popular site with good articles on occasion, their health section is often filled with ‘woo’ (i.e. articles with little to no scientific basis). Generally I ignore these, as I don’t need the stress and irritation. However a recent article by Dr. Douglas Fields entitled “Rudeness is a Neurotoxin” has compelled me to write, for two reasons:
- The comments are closed for the article, thus preventing anyone to take issue with it on the site.
- It compares the social standards of Japan and the US, therefore making it within the purview of this blog.
Dr. Fields makes the case that modern Americans are rude (not going to argue with that) and Japanese are polite (also generally true) and then makes the case that the rudeness of Americans is detrimental to society, and that we would be a lot better off to be polite, the way the Japanese are.
I get the impression that Dr. Fields knows very little about Japanese Culture. Granted, I’m by no means, an expert, but it seems that he is missing a lot of information in that article. He sounds like someone who vacationed there, rather than someone who actually deeply experienced what it means to live in the Japanese culture.
More after the fold…
