High density societies engender a higher default level of goo(tm)*
This goes hand in hand with high co-ordination high co-operative activities. And rice.
Wheat comes from the steppes and the deciduous. Their culture is more loosely bound, individualistic, allowing lot of free movement in wilderness, hence fending on their own a lot. Still there is a lot more win-win thinking than compared to desert cultures ,where territorial harshness leads to win-idontcare strategies thriving blooming.
The Japanese are, by default, considerate of the impact of their actions on others.the Others live rent free in their head. In my family they call it dakshinyam or obligation, it's the culture of never saying no to anyone asking them anything. The one who asks shamelessly, wins. With the centre not holding , with the elders not available to generate a code of conduct as rapidly as the demographics and the techno-economics changes, the herd-cells are at a loss,
rationalisation means to rationalise. by virtue of asking why , one arrives at the conclusion that we rationalise only because something isn't. How do we know we're rationalising ? one highly fallible way is if something cleanly makes sense when said to someone else. too pat.
when all of a group internalise a story which has 2 components
1. others, and their attributes of not-good-enough-ness
2. the internal hierarchy, of function and reward, to maintain
then we have an organism that is a gang +. Gangs are the smallest unit of society, not individuals. Friends, colleagues, companies, religious groups, govt departments, hobby clubs, all are gangs. Gangs enforce their boundaries, negotiate with each other,
The cheapest internal hierarchy to maintain, given man's propensity for violence, is the pirate-loot-distribution scheme. Just compare the richest to the poorest in any group, and you'll get the distribution scheme. Listen to their stories, and you'll get an idea of their moralisations and rationalisations which keep the status quo. Simplistically, a gang is a set of outward facing prickles, with the goo's inside. some prickles are pointed inwards, to handle the internal hierarchy and distribution.
* Alan watts prickles & goo theory
+ https://web.archive.org/web/20180224133710/http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com:80/2007/11/lisp-programmers-and-anarchists.html