Avoid the errors of your country.

Originally titled “Avoid Your National Error. Some might interpret “national error” to mean “your country is doing something wrong, not you.” Rather, we tend to take “the environment in which we were born and raised” for granted, so we underestimate any shortcomings there. There is no country without flaws. There are similar “environmental shortcomings” not only in country, but also in family, status, position, and age. All of these “environmental shortcomings” create “environmental drawbacks” in a person, and if not carefully defended, can make an intolerable monster.

Typical of the “environmental shortcomings/deficiencies due to the environment” in Japan today is the distortion in the future forecast of the world economy: Which countries are driving the world economy today?

from The Art of Worldly Wisdom Avoid the errors of your country. ix Water shares the goodness or badness of the strata through which it flows, and man shares the goodness or badness of the climate in which he was born. Some owe more to their birthplace than others because of the favorable sky at its zenith. There is no country, even among the most civilized, that is without its own peculiar shortcomings, which other countries condemn for boasting or warning. It is a triumph of cleverness for such a country to correct or conceal its own shortcomings. And the less it is expected, the more it is appreciated. There are also family shortcomings and shortcomings due to position, office, and age. All of these in one person, if not carefully defended, make an intolerable monster.

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