Somebody was saying something like successful societies look like the clan writ large. In a community small enough where everyone knows each other, you'd expect the neighbors to help because there is accountability. These people will see each other again. What Japan has done successfully is mirror that in a large society. to the point where people are shamed out of society the way they'd be shamed out of a family for bad behavior. I would argue the West lost that feeling, first, or maybe never had it. Even before people were worried about getting mugged by a black thug in LA, they were worried about getting mugged in England somewhere. People were strangers, enough, to attack each other and suppose they'd get away with it on account of anonymity.

I was watching Wardens (Montana), and a warden was following a drifter. I was thinking "this place is safe because you can't survive on your own out here. Though it's vast, such people as are out there know each other as they frequently help each other, which vastly increases the survivability out there."