Archiv der Kategorie: Culture

Here you find posts about life styles and mindsets of different countries, indtustrial sectors and business functions.

Advantages of modesty

Restraint (遠慮) became in the course of the centuries a central attitude of the Japanese culture. The associated, apparently non-binding nature that is perceived as cagey in the west, has the purpose to avoid embarrassing the other people. This is done by rarely expressing directly the personal opinion in formal meetings with several participants. Messages are rather indirectly formulated without words and in a vague way. Contrary to the western “the winner gets all” mentality, in which there is always just one winner, the modesty offers everybody the possibility to save their face. In the last seventy years that did not stop Japan of becoming an economic global power.

Which advantages could we exploit in the west?

  • More substance than appearance
    Many results are not really as bad as it seems at first sight. Since the involved people tend to create too high expectations in their communication and often use superlatives, even in case of eventually modest results, it is difficult to get realistic evaluations. Additionally there is not enough leeway for the evaluation of really genuine results. This leads to the fact that the protagonists actually hold high demands on themselves – I can do everything. At the same time expectations are driven into illusory heights. This kind of high expectations cannot be fulfilled any longer.
    With the appropriate modesty goals could be agreed so smart that they are really attainable. To get more substance than appearance you should use superlatives only in exceptional cases, like for example: best, fastest, safest, most reliable, most favorable…
  • Rather Daedalus than Icarus
    Icarus is the classical example of hubris. This extreme form of pride and boastfulness produce unrealistic strategies. Icarus paid with his life for it. But as long as the individual survives his misjudgment, he will plan ever more risky ventures. And if the moment of truth comes, then the responsible person leaves the place of occurrence, carries his hubris forward and turns the next time a still larger wheel. The evolving collateral damage destroys the points of reference in the respective area. The employees get infected and are likewise addicted to a presumptuous exuberance.
    With the appropriate modesty the complacent hubris would be limited to a healthy level. For this purpose you do not have to put your light under a bushel, but to follow the example of Daedalus. With the appropriate attentiveness concerning your own behavior, you have the chance to nip the hubris in the bud.
  • Avoiding colonialism
    The overconfidence leads after a certain time to a form of colonialism. The others are perceived as inferior. This steadily increasing craving for recognition needs results in ever more unrealistic imaginations. One day the colonialists are no longer taken seriously.
    With the respective modesty the momentum to heal the world with your own essence would be reduced. All actions that load the team with negative energy harm in the end you. As soon as that you understand it, you have the choice – going on as before with the risk to fail on a long-term basis or to suppress the colonialism and to make everybody successful through an appreciating interaction.
  • Avoid populism
    Populism shows up in active offenses and continual insults. The others are dumb. Only we have the truth. Thus everybody, who does not belong to, is systematically excluded. This creates resistance of the people concerned and leaves the populists in ignorant hubris.
    With the respective modesty there would be sufficient room for respect. And respect would offer the affected people the possibility to master the assigned tasks. The largest destroyers of creative power are negative messages. Thereafter the apparent revaluation of oneself does not help anymore.

Some people believe that modesty drops one back. However, since the excessive promises of the other people rarely produce satisfying results, soon the chaff separates from the wheat. The result is determined by the bar height that has to be crossed. If the bar is too high, you can only tear it. Only the fulfilled order is the order fulfilled – and eighty percent is a good result, not twenty percent.

Bottom line: Since superlatives are too often used, it is time, to try the proven Asian modesty also in the west. Thus the rising requirement attitude and only with difficulty fulfill able expectations are brought to a realistic level. That way the hubris, the associated snobbism and the insulting defamations do evolve not so often. Eventually better results are possible through the advantages of modesty, since all involved people can make their utmost contribution.

As far as my feet will carry me

Only contemporaries can remember. All the other people learn from history by hearsay. Just seventy years ago Germany lay in ruins. Humans were uprooted and on the run and frequently without belongings, the same way as nowadays in Syria (look at rubble women of Berlin on the left and on the right a street in Syria in the following scribble). Many of today’s later born are descended from such fates. Nevertheless, it appears that some of those lost their common sense and history. With a lack of sympathy for today’s refugees, it is maybe necessary to bring the situation of a refugee to mind.

Ruinen Sandwich Berlin-Syrien

We are not aware in these days that our daily life is determined by routines that achieved the current state due to decades free of war. Without an intact infrastructure that provides the society functioning traffic, health, supply and disposal systems, energy and telecommunications as well as without a smooth administration, we also would be back in the Dark Ages. This would imply

  • No means of public transportation,
  • In the absence of fuel private transport would be limited to bicycles and walks,
  • Medical care would lack of supplies, as soon as the medicines are depleted,
  • Doctors would no longer be attainable,
  • Running water would be rationed at best and given at fitting water stations,
  • dysfunctional toilets would result in diseases and epidemics,
  • on all streets would be lying stinking, morbid garbage,
  • electricity-depending devices and services, like refrigerators, stoves, light, television would be no longer available,
  • the telephone systems would go belly up,
  • Authorities and banks would not function any longer in shortest time

In such a situation we have no access to our properties and documents stored in computers, which we collect in an organized society in the course of our life – bank counters do not provide cash, no more cashless payment, no public services, no access to stored data. If additionally fires break out and destroy the inventory of personal documents, then all you have is what you can bear and actually carry with yourself.

Certainly all populists, who require refugees to have all their papers on themselves, have a fireproof box with all their passports, birth certificates, school reports, any kind of other certificates, work proofs, pension proofs and with enough cash prepared, for the worst case. And of course they would protect their family and above all their box, when they are escaping on foot.

In which spheres are politicians, who ask refugees, who escaped from the disaster described above, that they are able to prove their identity and vocational qualifications. Is it thoughtlessness, missing sympathy or simply fatuity?

Bottom line: In the absence of sympathy it is necessary to be aware that an escape is not a package tour that one booked at a smuggler organization with a guarantee to receive the desired support in the target country. A look at Syria shows that no stone rests on another. At the same time different parties maraud through the ruins. Who would not run away, as far as the feet will carry? The uncertainty of an escape is always better than awaiting to be killed.