Ours is a society that rewards sociopathy

[Belacqua]

The macho man tough guy approach to dealing with difference of opinion is far more in evidence in the US than in Japan. In discussing metaphysics and other ideas, a person in Japan almost never has to put up with the Clint Eastwood approach that is common elsewhere (e.g. this forum).

Do you think that comes with a downside though? I was reading something awhile back how they were trying to reintroduce Samurai values back into the culture, in some sense to encourage the sort of masculinity of the Eastwood type, as a way to encourage the idea of marriage, fatherhood in young men, the sort of strong male figure that desires these things,  etc?

I’m sure their attempt to do so would fail,   but I don’t think their reasoning is flawed.

It makes sense. The big topic in the trendy press is the soushokukei men -- so called "grass-feeders" (as opposed to red meat-eaters) who are uninterested in sex and mature commitment with anyone other than an anime character pillow. Even the current TV "idols" look very androgynous to me. More than once I've asked my wife "who's that girl" about a TV person and heard "that's a boy." 

So maybe it's not tough-guy fighty-fight as much as just -- men who want women, who want to succeed in a career, who know how to make babies, etc. 

But your question is a good one... Could this more traditional masculine view be revived without the tendency to abuse one's spouse and tell her "make me a sandwich, bitch." 

Here as always I blame economics. Little by little they've been allowing women into the workplace (good) but slowly switching to a kind of mild austerity program where a family needs two incomes to live as well as one used to (bad). And the switch from big families with free-range kids swimming in the rivers to single-child families who raise their children like hothouse flowers doesn't help. This is a thing in America too, isn't it? Little kids have all their free time scheduled, I hear, whereas I used to just run wild all summer.