The Short List of Cultures and Nations

Madame:

I am certainly hoping that by now the modern life juice (electricity) has been restored to you.  Four days!  Penelopean patience you have!

The failures by cultures and nations are legion, the successes exceedingly rare.  However, the Japanese, during the Meiji Restoration and thereafter, did (at great social cost and some cultural ruthlessness), go from the daunting looming certainty of feudal failure to modern success in little more than 30 years, an amazing Herculean accomplishment—and one unmatched by any other culture in breadth, scale, and timing. 

It took a bit longer, and was different in character (while also recovering from disastrous or insane forays), but modern China, since it “stood up” in 1949, is a similar success story, albeit with darker initial energy bursts and one enforced with draconian ruthlessness, particularly earlier.

Modern Turkey threw off disastrously sickly empire-thinking to become a secular-focused modern nation.

A small number of modern African nations also exhibit steps away from ruinous paths, but the time is too early to tell how well they will turn out.

However, all of these cases (and there are a few more) would be deemed various levels of “problematic” in meeting the criteria I think you’ve laid out. 

It’s undoubtedly biased, but I think that my favorite foreigners, the Finns, have demonstrated a great deal of what you’re suggesting.  After having fought bravely, but being forced to come to terms, in two exhaustive wars with the Soviets within five years, and having to accede to culturally hurtful demands by the Soviets, the Finnish people as a whole saw the abyss of ruin of continued fierce opposition and instead embraced a new mindset of not just peaceful co-existence but mutual friendship and cooperation (while still maintaining national independence).  They probably harbored a great deal of anger and resentment inwardly against the Soviets who had done them such wrong, but they swallowed it soberly and went on, taking the long view.  They dampened Soviet fears and suspicions, and charted a new course of relations, thereby setting an example for others to follow.  And in the end, they were still around, and the Soviet Union had collapsed.

The Finns are a rare people, of course—fiercely individualistic while at the same time with very strong senses of communal responsibility.  An unusual combination.  If and how their membership in the EU transforms that remains to be seen.

I see “Professor Windbag” held forth too long on all this and any additional topic must wait until next week! :)