At the University of Wisconsin - Madison (my alma mater), I had the good fortune to hear an after-dinner speaker, a Professor Salter. He was an expert on China. I shall never forget him.
Salter made offered two insights which inform our future, or lack of a future.
1) Asian culture "rounds" persons through emphasis on good manners in human relations. When two circles collide they bounce off each other. Manners, the "rounding" of a person, in short, reduces conflict, friction between and among people. Moreover, the population densities in Asia enhance the need for manners to help people to get along with each other in dense masses.
2) The Western person in contrast is a "square," somebody who lacks the "rounding" of manners. In fact, today our society celebrates vulgarity, the lacks of manners, as an achievement. The mass media are full of this. What happens who two squares collide? They do not bounce or blance off each other. Instead, they lock, clash.
As we eliminate basic manners from our society, more and more we shall find it hard to get along with other people, domestic and foreign, especially Asians. In the West it will be "make my day."
Because of wide-open spaces in North America, it has been easy to run away, escape from other people. Today, our organizatioinal life inhibits this historic escape valve for tension among people in Western society, especially in North America.
On the other hand, those North Americans who somehow retain manners will be able to work well with Asians. At the rate the USA is collapsing, all of us will need to measure up to Asian standards of manners if we want to do business, have a future.
Yet, our educational systems no longer teach or insist on manners. It is the Titanic again.
However, those who are astute enough to know who will be in the driver's seat in the future, "rounded" Asians, will develop and practice manners as a matter of future survival.
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