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Alienation Is Killing Americans and Japanese

nautil.us

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Re: Alienation Is Killing Americans and Japanese

#61

Post by zellyn »

brightball wrote: post #56
zellyn wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so difficult to find a church that (a) values community, and (b) hasn't made some kind of big, public decision against LGBTQ people. And that doesn't preach guilt and condemnation in a thousand overt or subtle ways…

Episcopal

We lasted about five minutes in the Episcopal church near us. Our two-and-a-half year old was happily talking about the stained glass windows (months later, he still talks about them), when someone came up to "helpfully" tell us where the nursery was. "People are trying to be prayerful." She was slightly confused when we headed towards the exit rather than the nursery.

I think we're going to give it another try - we've since met some other members who were horrified at our experience. :-/ We'll see. If they want to drive away families with young kids, I figure they'll last another 20 years or so…

Re: Alienation Is Killing Americans and Japanese

#62

Post by euroclydon »

brightball wrote: post #35

A big part of this that's unpopular to discuss in current culture is people actively avoiding going to a church. Whether you actually donate and believe everything that is said isn't really a factor in whether or not you can show up every week, meet other people in your community, participate in events, be there for each other at during the hard times in life, have fun activities for your kids where you can meet othe…

Not sharing orthodox beliefs may not be an impediment to joining and participating, as you say, but it will be a dividing factor over time, unless you 1) fake it, or 2) go to a liberal church. The problem with liberal churches is they're small and don't grow.

People are attracted to confidence, so when the preacher, members and staff continuously and confidently proclaim their certainty in that which is difficult to believe, attendance and membership swell. People with marginal faith would fit in better at a liberal church, but mostly they're turned off by it.

Re: Alienation Is Killing Americans and Japanese

#63

Post by rebeccaskinner »

brightball wrote: post #35

A big part of this that's unpopular to discuss in current culture is people actively avoiding going to a church. Whether you actually donate and believe everything that is said isn't really a factor in whether or not you can show up every week, meet other people in your community, participate in events, be there for each other at during the hard times in life, have fun activities for your kids where you can meet othe…

I think in a lot of places churches have served as a defactor "third place" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place) for communities. It seems like the decline in church attendance mirrors the decline in a lot of third place spaces. None of my grandparents ever attended church with any regularity, but I know that they were all involved in various social and community activities with the types of clubs that don't seem to exist anymore. Friends of mine with kids have parenting meetups, and I try to make technical meetups when I can, but the rotating group of people and the fact that they can be difficult to get to make them quasi-substitutes at best.

Re: Alienation Is Killing Americans and Japanese

#64

Post by nabla9 »

logicchains wrote: post #36
simonbarker87 wrote: post #5

Not the main focus of the article but I've been wondering lately why Japan is considered to have done poorly over the last 30 years economically when a lot of the big multi national brands that are very popular all over the world during that period are Japanese. I'm not an economist (or Japanese) but from the outside when you can list Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Suburu, Shimano, Nintendo, Hitachi, Yamaha, Sega and Mu…

Because for some reason many commentators find it perfectly reasonable to use absolute GDP growth as a metric for comparing Japan to America, ignoring the fact that America's population is growing at around 3% while Japan's population growth is around 0% or negative (which means all things being equal one'd expect America's GDP growth to be around 3% higher). In terms of GDP growth per capita, which is the metric tha…

Japanese government debt to GDP ratio is 229%. Japanese government has kept lights on with 15 years of constant deficit.

Fortunately most of this debt is internal and in local currency (no fear of hyperinflation). But Japanese are getting old. In a few years Japanese insurance companies and Japanese savers turn from net buyers of government debt and stocks into net sellers.

It's interesting to see what happens then.

Re: Alienation Is Killing Americans and Japanese

#65

Post by further_tech »

Your argument is dominated by pragmatism, which often obfuscates what religion is all about.

Great communities are a consequence of the chosen lifestyle and morality of religious people. You could gather just as many atheists and the response wouldn't be the same.

EDIT: I'm not saying an atheist community would be WORSE than Christianity.

I'm saying it would be DIFFERENT from the Christian one.

Re: Alienation Is Killing Americans and Japanese

#66

Post by [deleted] »

minikites wrote: post #17
tristor wrote: post #15

Another part of this I think that people don't really talk about is increased social isolation as a direct cause of Internet addiction and the rise of social media and online gaming. There is a term for this concept in Japan 'hikikomori', but it's just as true in the US. As someone who recently turned 30, yet has remained single most of my life despite my other successes, I see it very clearly. I grew up along with t…

>remained single most of my life despite my other successes I think the media has a role to play here too, the idea that you need romantic love in order to be successful or complete is a toxic one. Edit: a lot of replies to my comment are misinterpreting what I'm saying as "romance is a new idea invented by the media" when all I said is that it's possible to have a complete and successful life without romance.

[deleted]

Re: Alienation Is Killing Americans and Japanese

#67

Post by meric »

coldpie wrote: post #52
brightball wrote: post #35

A big part of this that's unpopular to discuss in current culture is people actively avoiding going to a church. Whether you actually donate and believe everything that is said isn't really a factor in whether or not you can show up every week, meet other people in your community, participate in events, be there for each other at during the hard times in life, have fun activities for your kids where you can meet othe…

I've thought about this a lot, and I agree with you. I'm a pretty devout Atheist (is that the right term?), but I do recognize the social role that churches play and I wish there was some similar secular organization that could fill that role. Or course there are hobby and special interest groups, but I can't think of just a general gathering where everyone is a regular and friendly like my church was growing up.

Religion consists of a set of superstitious beliefs and a set of philosophical beliefs. When setting aside the superstitious part be careful not to lose sight of the philosophical part that makes sense. I think the reason a church provides social cohesion and belonging is because it is literally a group of people trying to become the best human beings they can be, a process that involves feeling their own and being aware of other's emotions every day, and that is a beautiful thing. I suggest finding a philosophy that involves looking into yourself and follow it with a group of people. Personally I am fond of fundamental Taoism. It involves worshipping no deity, but rather to be aware of the inter-connectedness of the universe.

'I point at the stars and the sky ripples.'

I would disrespect people who feel lonely by calling myself lonely - I have a handful of very close friends and am in a relationship. I don't find it easy to connect to other people in meaningful way. What needs to happen is both persons being in a spontaneous state, and that's a rare thing to find because at least one person always has somewhere to go or something to do, or is scared of something or is too attached to something, preventing the two people from enjoying the present moment.

One more word about 'science and atheism': I'm put on notice every time someone mentions those two as axioms to follow. Atheism means to me disregarding spirituality at all costs, and considering only scientific facts means invalidating personal experiences of themselves and people around them.

'A; Today I went X and saw Y and felt Z'

'B; it is scientifically proven when you X you feel Z but it doesn't mean you Z1'

The reliance on facts puts the emotional part of the conversation aside in favour of logic and rationality and reduces the potential of building a connection.

But hey, I'm not an expert at building relationships in the first place, these are just my thoughts and personal experiences, compare them with your own and build your own framework.

Re: Alienation Is Killing Americans and Japanese

#68

Post by CPLX »

minikites wrote: post #17
tristor wrote: post #15

Another part of this I think that people don't really talk about is increased social isolation as a direct cause of Internet addiction and the rise of social media and online gaming. There is a term for this concept in Japan 'hikikomori', but it's just as true in the US. As someone who recently turned 30, yet has remained single most of my life despite my other successes, I see it very clearly. I grew up along with t…

>remained single most of my life despite my other successes I think the media has a role to play here too, the idea that you need romantic love in order to be successful or complete is a toxic one. Edit: a lot of replies to my comment are misinterpreting what I'm saying as "romance is a new idea invented by the media" when all I said is that it's possible to have a complete and successful life without romance.

I'm pretty sure we've been hardwired to seek sexual/romantic companionship since long, long, before there was such a thing as "media" or even the written word.

Re: Alienation Is Killing Americans and Japanese

#69

Post by panglott »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #54
brightball wrote: post #35

A big part of this that's unpopular to discuss in current culture is people actively avoiding going to a church. Whether you actually donate and believe everything that is said isn't really a factor in whether or not you can show up every week, meet other people in your community, participate in events, be there for each other at during the hard times in life, have fun activities for your kids where you can meet othe…

Churches are definitely a great community resource, but I imagine that many people (myself included) don't want to be preached something we don't believe in every week even if it means losing out on those community benefits. I wonder if something else could be established, or even if such a thing as "athiest/agnostic churches" could be organized.

Atheists go to the Unitarian churches.

Re: Alienation Is Killing Americans and Japanese

#70

Post by kerkeslager »

brightball wrote: post #35

A big part of this that's unpopular to discuss in current culture is people actively avoiding going to a church. Whether you actually donate and believe everything that is said isn't really a factor in whether or not you can show up every week, meet other people in your community, participate in events, be there for each other at during the hard times in life, have fun activities for your kids where you can meet othe…

I'd love to see a public discussion on this. Intuitively, I think you could be right that church participation brings about happiness and reduces alienation, but it's hard to discuss in a complete void of data. I admit I didn't look very hard, but a quick search only yielded a Pew Research study which showed that weekly church attendance was correlated with happiness, but being in good health had a much stronger correlation.

There are a bunch of related issues I'd like to discuss:

1. Church attendance isn't available to everyone. Specifically, LGBTQ folks are often excluded. In a broader sense, does church attendance still make you happy and reduce alienation if you don't agree with the church's dogma? You claim that "Whether you actually donate and believe everything that is said isn't really a factor" but in my personal experience that was a very large factor.

2. Why do people believe that this is unpopular to discuss? You're not the first person I've heard claim this.

3. Instead of comparing church-attendance to non-church-attendance, is there data which compares church attendance to attendance of other social groups (clubs, activity groups, etc.) which meet weekly?

4. Have there been any attempts to replicate the benefits of church with secular community organizations; i.e. a group that meets weekly and someone gives a talk about some topic (science!)?

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