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Actually probably started around 1842 but really kicked in in 1945 when Japan was occupied.
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The Japanese were shocked by the outcome of the Opium War. It was a shocking event that the great China could be so easily defeated by the barbarian United Kingdom. The Shogunate was not exactly jolted into a sense of crisis until Perry showed up I think it's safe to say that the Opium war caused a big stir among the Samurai class in Japan because this is when they started having radical debates about the Sasoku system and forming loose alliances which would eventually lead to the Meiji Restoration. This whole period was driven by anxiety and insecurity.
Even after the industrialization of Japan, because of deep racism among the Western powers, Japan was never considered to be near equal to the West. Even though the Japanese had a lot of pride that they succeeded in modernizing their country, it was forever tempered with frustration and resentment.
Because modernization was equal to westernization, a whole variety of stresses were formed in the Japanese mind. The Japanese people are still trying to balance these out.
That is the foundation. Now add on the loss of WWII, the occupation, being subservient to the USA for 60 years, the rise of anti-militant and pacifist thought, the bubble, and finally China surpassing Japan in economic power.
Edited: 2010-10-04, 1:57 am
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Nationalism is a personality defect...
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^^ Ha, yeah. Anyone who makes an effort to tell me that they're "proud of their country" or words to that effect gets a wide berth. Congratulations, you were born between two lines on a map.
Side note: considering Australia's continued shameful treatment of its indigenous population (a gang of youths were recently convicted for beating an aboriginal man to death, the longest sentence was six years, the shortest twelve months), it would seem that they aren't actually as "proud" of their actual country as they claim to be.
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I think the popular metanarrative about Japan is often an essentialized Western phenomenon that bleeds into a vocal minority in Japan, the other more ambiguous elements that might lend themselves to a lack of nationalism folded into the narrative, spun as further evidence for a specific view.
Similar dynamics explain the entirety of such surveys, methinks.
@harhol - Isn't Australia technically still a British colony? Aboriginal abuse then seems to affirm the persistence of the imperial strain. ;p
Edited: 2010-10-04, 12:51 pm
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No, Australia is not a British colony, technically or any other way.
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So I'll just start of saying I didn't read the article or most of the posts, but I definitely disagree with the statement that Japan is last in their cultural or national pride.
I have honestly never met a Japanese person, with the exception of just one, who didn't think that Japan was the best at everything. And when they didn't think Japan was the best at something, they thought said something was stupid.
I don't think it has anything to do with Japan being too reserved to talk about their pride either. Most Japanese I know openly say they are better as a race than Chinese or Koreans, and they take any opportunity to tell how great Japan is.
Now, sure most of them may be unhappy with the political situation, but this has nothing to do with culture. They are VERY proud of their culture. That's a fact.
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OK, this is kinda off topic, and while i don't condone the beating to death of anyone, you did say "youths". Do you know what a typical jail term is for a youth in Australia who beats to death a white Australian? No? Then don't imply racism is a factor in the sentencing. We tend to have surprisingly lenient sentences for murder and assault in general, especially for minors. It's not something i agree with.
I think there are probably few countries that understand the difficulties of having a minority native population in an otherwise fully developed western country. I think Canada does quite a bit better than us; the US, no comment. It's a lot easier if you ethnically cleansed the problem away hundreds or thousands of years ago. The territory that is now England was once Celtic i believe. Anglo-Saxons are foreign invaders.
Any discussion of what's right is difficult when, objectively, we did effectively steal *all* the land that was once theirs. While i'm not saying "mind your own business", please understand that it's not as black and white as it may seem from the perspective of countries that haven't had to face these issues. You're not seeing the whole story.
Also, being proud to be a member of your culture doesn't imply blind nationalism. Australians also travel a lot. I don't think most Australians think we're superior. We like exploring other cultures and learning from them. Hell, Australian culture *is* a crazy mix of dozens of other cultures. I'm not sure what being proud of our "actual country" is supposed to mean. Aborigines are a tiny percentage of the population. The real Australia is Sydney, Melbourne, and a handful of other major cities.
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