I think a lot of those differences and distinctions are less pronounced once you get outside of the Anglosphere but still "western" - a lot of them just have to do with bad urban planning and architecture. The continent probably sits in the middle there w.r.t public spaces.
But based off of what you said, and I of course have never lived in Japan, is there really much difference in practical, day-to-day activities in terms of being westernized? For example, you mentioned "the workplace is more important than the home" and I genuinely wasn't sure if you were talking about America or Japan.
Of course there are differences in government, but are the differences more pronounced with England's style of government versus Switzerland, or are there more differences between France and Japan? Nevermind the Big Tent approach of the American 2-party state.
Genuinely curious to hear your thoughts. I know what you're getting at, I guess I wonder if it's a meaningful distinction w.r.t at what point does one country become roughly westernized? Is Brasil westernized? Mexico?
There are some pretty distinct cultural differences between Western and Eastern cultures, far too many and far too nuanced for me to explain in a brief HN comment. We’re talking thousands of years of culture, language, history, etc.
As my original comment was saying, the reason Western people get so confused by Japan is that it is technologically “ahead” in many ways while apparently “behind” culturally, from the Western perspective. This cognitive dissonance is a result of the Progress ideal which merged culture and technology into one entity. This isn’t the case with other countries that are just perceived as being “behind” entirely, technologically and culturally.
But is Japan perceived as being behind culturally? Many would look to something like housing costs in Tokyo, lack of prevalence of firearms, or universal healthcare as progressive values that Japan has that are "ahead" of at least America in (housing costs probably more progressive than the Anglosphere at least and probably the west in general).
I have a hard time reconciling the general nature of your comments w.r.t Japan isn't westernized with the specifics as well. If westernization is mainly about philosophical traditions (secularism, individualism, etc.) I think Japan is certainly less westernized in some ways (think like many attributes that skew in different directions), but if you look at other things, maybe it's not? You could examine attributes such as the tight alliances with the west to how anime characters are represented.
I'm still wondering if what we're talking about here is just a different expression of being "westernized" versus a meaningful difference.
Personally I actually have a view that's moreso that the Anglosphere (US, Canada, Australia, UK, New Zealand) + Japan and perhaps to a lesser extent South Korea are more "westernized" together than say the Anglosphere and Germany and France.
But based off of what you said, and I of course have never lived in Japan, is there really much difference in practical, day-to-day activities in terms of being westernized? For example, you mentioned "the workplace is more important than the home" and I genuinely wasn't sure if you were talking about America or Japan.
Of course there are differences in government, but are the differences more pronounced with England's style of government versus Switzerland, or are there more differences between France and Japan? Nevermind the Big Tent approach of the American 2-party state.
Genuinely curious to hear your thoughts. I know what you're getting at, I guess I wonder if it's a meaningful distinction w.r.t at what point does one country become roughly westernized? Is Brasil westernized? Mexico?