Q2. When the United States assumed control over Japan, Japan had experienced a reactionary period in which worship of the Emperor and a military dictatorship eradicated any democratic leanings that had existed in the country before. The victorious United States was determined to democratize Japan as a way of ensuring that Japan's remilitarization would never happen again. As well as disarming Japan, the U.S. created a Japanese national constitution that, in effect, imposed democratic values upon Japan. The 1947 Constitution enshrines individual rights as part of its essential fabric.

The economic and political success of Japan would seem to suggest that the U.S. was successful in its mission. However, it should be noted that certain aspects of Japanese culture remain fundamentally unchanged, despite the institution of the American-authored document. Collectivism remains a stronger philosophical value than individualism in Japan than the United States, and Japanese political life has tended to be characterized by far less external debate and divisiveness than in European parliamentary democracies. This suggests that changes in national culture are difficult to instate from without.

As depicted in the documentary about relationships between U.S. servicemen and East Asian women Outside, American has tended to see Asian nations as exotic and different, and either in need of taming or fundamentally different than the U.S. The 1947 Constitution began as a way of trying to make Japan like the West, and supposedly 'better' than it had been, but Japanese culture has since interpreted constitutional values through a uniquely Japanese lens. Although Japan has incorporated some aspects of European culture into itself, it has always done so with a Japanese perspective. This cultural clash between American and Japanese perspectives is dramatized in The Cocktail Party. The play suggests there is mutually justified anger on both sides: Japanese people are angry at Americans because of the mistreatment they suffered immediately after the war, while American soldiers and victims of Japanese wartime violence are slow to forgive.