site banner

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 15, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

1
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Is there any research on how a nation's (its people) body language, thinking styles, communication styles, attitudes towards self, etc, etc, is affected by a past where the country was subordinate to another country/empire? Slave mentality or the like.

Russian history, perhaps? The Mongol domination was, if memory serves, fairly traumatic for their self-identity. Might be worth doing the legwork and going through a history of the Mongol period and immediately following.

Japan has an interesting postwar phenomenon where the masculine was severely repressed (i.e. pushed down from open representation) in favor of cute feminine and childlike appearances. But I’m not sure this was the American occupation so much as it was the fact that the previous ruling ideology was so overtly masculine and that it totally failed the country to the point of destroying their holdings and getting them occupied.

But I’m not sure this was the American occupation

They did rewrite the constitution to give women equal rights to men...