I've thought about this a lot. After living in Korea from '09 to '12 I found the reverse cultural integration difficult. I was in my twenties then, so that factored in as well. I wonder if we ever return. I think part of us cannot, and this as you say is an American alienation problem.
Yes. My first memory of not really ever returning was after military service in my early 20s, far from home and physically returning to what seemed a different place, which seemed smaller and different after traveling many other places. One's perspective fundamentally changes.
Very interesting, James. It made me think about American individualism as much as an illusion as a practice. We are socially detached, yet economically dependent in a distant sort of way. Hence, the alienation (detached from other humans but dependent on the larger distant system).
Yes. The illusion is that our choices in life are not constrained by our social networks…so we appear very free. In reality the media and a thousand bureaucracies influence what we see as those choices. Culture as impersonally transmitted vs. personally transmitted.
I've thought about this a lot. After living in Korea from '09 to '12 I found the reverse cultural integration difficult. I was in my twenties then, so that factored in as well. I wonder if we ever return. I think part of us cannot, and this as you say is an American alienation problem.
Interesting…
Yes. My first memory of not really ever returning was after military service in my early 20s, far from home and physically returning to what seemed a different place, which seemed smaller and different after traveling many other places. One's perspective fundamentally changes.
Very interesting, James. It made me think about American individualism as much as an illusion as a practice. We are socially detached, yet economically dependent in a distant sort of way. Hence, the alienation (detached from other humans but dependent on the larger distant system).
Yes. The illusion is that our choices in life are not constrained by our social networks…so we appear very free. In reality the media and a thousand bureaucracies influence what we see as those choices. Culture as impersonally transmitted vs. personally transmitted.