Too good a piece for this site...Wow... and... I don’t think nihilism should be blamed for our supineness, but I don’t want to bore you by Marx’s theory of self-estrangement.

I had a somewhat similar talk with an American guy in his late thirties, more than two months ago. I sent the above piece to him and here’s what he wrote back. 

“Interesting!  It (maybe unintentionally) points to what we had talked about in having ‘no country,’ though this seems to be against that concept.  Actually, even though the final paragraph seems to talk about it in a negative way, I found it a little thrilling, almost a kind of purification process (taking out the specific cultural references, of course!  Nothing ‘pure’ about an Anglicized name).  I can also see the logic, though, in taking action to stop your country from repeating a cycle of stagnation, which is what they’re really pushing here[in Japan].  I’m just nervous about what that ‘action’ would entail.  Anyway, a lot to think about in such a short piece!”