paul childs wrote:
>
> I guess my point, apart from trying to ram my morality down everyone's throat, was that if you're looking for an explanation for this there are broader cultural elements of Japanese culture you can link it to (IMHO) than imputing it from almost 10 years of economic agnst.
>
Engels remarks someplace, I think in the Anti-Duhring, that one can't explain every element of daily life. I doubt that any one abstracted thread in a whole society can _ever_ be explained. Anyone can make up a just-so story for any one cultural phenomenon, but such stories are worthless without some sort of control -- what they call overlap in cryptanalysis (two or more messages encrypted with the same additive key).
There could be scores of equally persuasive explanations, all unsupported except by the rhetoric of the explicator, of any given fad/fashion at any given time. One decade, men can pull their pants on over their shoes. Next decade they can barely get them on. Following decade the cuffs are wide again.
The direct tie to the economy that Paul rightly sniffs at is, agreed, pretty silly; but no sillier than any substitute.
Carrol