America is often accused of having a culture hostile to ideas of
personal responsibility: self-help books, slip-and-fall lawyers,
12-step recovery cults, you name it, that's us. Excuses, excuses,
excuses. The converse is often said of Japan: a corporate screw-up
that produces stonewalling and indignant, legalistic defiance in
the States would instead produce a teary confession and letter of
resignation.