Hikikomori is an extremely pathological form of loneliness, but it affects a limited number of young people. But as research from Japan shows, those with long-term problems are vast in number. A third of 30-year-old Japanese men have never dated a woman in their lives.Half of Japanese women are not interested in a relationship or sex (which is probably a result of not enough men. If there were suitors, those women would move on).
But the more interesting question is how the trend will continue. Indeed, there are reasons to believe that Japan is an example of what other parts of the world, including the US and Western Europe, will see. Logically, one would expect society to divide. That two groups of people will emerge with markedly different lifestyles – individuals and people with children. Only in that case, those without children would be at a dramatic advantage – financially, career-wise and overall socially. Those with children would be under pressure, would rapidly decline, and over time the entire national community would collapse.
Thus, the survival of nations would depend on a massive redistribution from the childless to families with children (or single parents). Can states cope with this? Some undeniably can. Take Confucian China with its strong and authoritarian government. Then states where there is a significant national upsurge and where people are quite willing to accept redistribution. These will survive and can be successful.
Those who cannot suppress individualism will not survive.
Those who cannot suppress individualism will not survive.
Covid seems to have indicated who is heading in which direction.Who was able to rise to collective action during the epidemic and where the egotistical mentality of “Don’t touch my freedom” prevailed. Who would want to limit themselves. I’m not talking about morality, because both of those groups feel more moral than the other. But one strategy leads to progress, the other to collapse.
Incidentally, it also shows what a huge advantage ethnic uniformity is. Because elsewhere, conflicts can break out over which ethnic group has how many children, and support for parenthood can effectively become support for particular ethnic groups at the expense of others.
