On face: I have to wonder whether face is so important in consensus based societies because the decision-making skills of the members are so remarkably weak. For the members, decision-making and other aspects of what we in non-consensus societies consider to be part of the natural thinking process, are an effort requiring prodigies of sweat and likely to result in accusations of heresy and result in ostracism.

Is there any harsher social comment in Chinese than, "You're strange"? (And notice how feminine that sounds too, suggesting the run of our women-folk have poor reasoning skills, ergo the various epithets I learned as a country teenager for women, "mindfuck" "headfuck" "can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em") And how many times have I found that praising a Chinese person for being different was actually an accusation they felt had to be defended.

Those who can only think poorly for themselves naturally have weak staying power in hierarchies because they can't defend themselves verbally during office politics and similar skirmishing. Ergo, pride (face) and the imposition of shame become non-violent defense/offense tactics. Note how face is silent, mute, dumb. As opposed to the banter, cant, spin, and slang-whanging which constitutes the gift of the gab so highly appraised in our society.

Given that consensus based societies arise due to weak reasoning skills in their members, and given that poor logic skills must have been something all of our ancestors suffered from in earlier generations, I also have to wonder whether consensus based societies are remnants of an earlier, primitive preliterate human society stage. Perhaps I've been butting my head against the Paleolithic age all these years. That would explain much...haha..