Although we seem to have built an entire culture based on loathing of all things Japanese and admiration of all things foreign, scratch the surface of our inferiority complex and you'll find a streak of patriotism somewhere.
Once found out, we might argue that it's not the nihonteki (Japanese) aspects of Japan that stir our love, but the thing we call wa (harmony). Harmony with ourselves, with others, with nature. For us, it makes the world go round. Wa is all we need.
Wa is a concept as old as Yamato, the name by which Japan was known about 1,000 years ago, for Yamato is comprised of the characters "large" and ''wa." So Japan itself is just one big wa (or we like to think so) and the Japanese psyche is based on what we call "Yamato damashii (the soul of the big wa)."