Why
Where Japan is heading is very frightening!
Japan's constitution states that the people run the country.
For this reason, power has been decentralised and various decisions have been made under the name of separation of powers.
What about nowadays?
Every day, people who do not do what is their duty to the people are evading their responsibility, making no apologies and deciding national policy on their own.
On New Year's Day this year, an event occurred that instantly wiped out the festive atmosphere.
The earthquake in Ishikawa Prefecture.
The situation is still devastating and reconstruction has not yet taken place at all.
There is not enough food and water supply.
It has been six months since the houses collapsed.
And yet, the quiet people of the country are finally beginning to look askance at a country that only gives aid money abroad.
I think we have paid the price for believing that politicians were there to improve the country.
Politicians are hereditary, and their power is growing unchecked.
The people who can benefit from them will not give them up.
There is plenty of tax revenue, but they keep on making various nominal taxes and half of the revenue is paid to the state.
Young children are not provided with school lunches, and Japanese university students are burdened with scholarships carrying large amounts of interest.
Older people have their employment terms extended, the pension age extended and many are not even accepted on welfare.
Yet people from other countries are easily passed through welfare, and foreign students receive aid money to attend university.
Japan does not value its own people.
But there is no media to report it.
There is a great deal of collusion.
It is a dictatorship in the name of democracy.
Even the 'renunciation of war', which was learnt from a big mistake, there are many people in politics who want to change the constitution and start a war.
I am really fed up with many things.
Who owns Japan with its beautiful culture and courtesy?
Everyone is so tired and exploited that the original character of being diligent, hard-working, smart and kind is lost.
How do people abroad view the current conduct of Japan?
Do they think we are a puppet of other countries?
I sometimes wonder if Japan would have remained in isolation during the Edo period.
I know that IF is pointless.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
To understand why things are so askew in the contemporary age, we must look back on history. When we look at the Edo period aesthetically and with a sense of historical "nostalgia," we might see only the common virtues of the farmers and the samurai, the unforgettable artistry of the ukiyo-e style, and the healthy minimalism of a pre-modern infrastructure. Of course, we know the real reason this period ended: the arrival of Matthew Perry to the shores of Japan. But Japan was living in the same world as the West. Why did the West grow so powerful, modern, and aggressive?
ReplyDeleteFamine. Natural disasters. Harsh weather. For most of human history since the Neolithic, the great majority of people have been farmers. Their entire livelihoods were reliant on the ability to grow enough crops. At all times, any person's life could be cut terribly short by an uncontrollable force of nature. And starvation is not a peaceful death. It is why grain was kept in abundance, why cities began to be built, and why technology started to evolve. To grow more crops and be more prepared in the case of a disaster. The Europeans had the extra challenge of being surrounded by many different hostile peoples. They were under extreme adverse conditions and had to adapt, quickly. In a world like this, they would one day invent their own warships and knock on Japan's door. The world is too adverse to live eternally in simple harmony with nature. Look at the extreme exploitation of Africa, a continent with little innovation compared to the Europeans.
China had constant flooding throughout history, and sometimes these floods would ultimately lead to entire regime changes. They, too, needed to evolve to a point where infastructure and industry were immune to the effects of flooding. And by the time of the Opium Wars, they had to compete with the Europeans in industry, technology, education, and military.
In the Edo period, there were very many famines. We like to think of the political harmony established by Tokugawa Ieyasu over the daimyo, and of the relative intellectual flourishing during the period. But we cannot forget the famines.
We also cannot forget the hereditary roles of all people in Japan's historical society. We may like to think that even some of the greatest writers in Japan, such as Murasaki Shikibu, were women, and feel a sense of fairness and opportunity. But these writers were part of the hereditary aristocracy, apart from those who wrote as Buddhist monks. Most people in Japanese history would have no way to participate meaningfully in politics, even through the arts, which I think for modern intelligent people is a kind of existential dread. It is because of Western progressive values that I can read your blog on politics. If Japan remained as it was in the Edo period, you may have been gathering rice rather than discussing politics. Maybe it would sound like a comfortable and peaceful life, but there are those of us who want to do more for the world than be mere peasants. It is fundamentally why we are so concerned about politics. We care not just for ourselves but for all those who struggle in our country.
We see interesting parallels between modernity and history. In the past, natural disaster aid was a huge material challenge, and so it came slowly, or not at all. In modern times, natural disaster aid is really a mere economic setback, and the only thing slowing it down is the tunnel vision of internationally-obsessed politicians.
DeleteIn the United States we had a wildfire in Hawaii in 2023, and many people's houses were destroyed. Even today, victims are still involved in a legal case to get insurance settlements. All while, of course, U.S. international aid is massive. But the U.S. is fundamentally a world power built on diversity. Japan is much more isolated. Perhaps it is more egregious there. Though I don't personally know the details of this problem in Japan.
I think most people see Japan as mostly independent. But I've seen many people online who are critical of the extreme conformism of the Japanese people, a natural result of Confucianist values.
Conformity was a virtue until the Western world got involved. Now there are more than just a few people in Japan who can see critically the negative side effects of a culture built so heavily on reverence to authority. In ancient China, there are only a relative few known dissident intellectuals. Most, by far, were unapologetic supporters of Confucianism, despite how its flaws crept into every facet of Chinese politics. We saw parallels in the "self criticism" of the Communist Chinese. It is something we satirize and look at with scorn. Democracy had existed in ancient Greece. Peasants were represented in Roman government. We hate to see the arrogant boldness and global manipulation of the West creep into a place like Japan. But we also have to remember what the Western worldview revealed to be absurd and ridiculous in the East.
Education in China, Japan, and South Korea is second to none. The historical and literary knowledge of the students of these countries is immense. But they still follow the stiff, rote methods of Neo-Confucian examination, so where knowledge is vast, wisdom is empty. Knowledge of history is only useful when you know how you ought to use it. The Japanese know not how to put their knowledge into practice. That, and only that, is politics.
If the West appreciated and mimicked the academic diligence of the East, and the East appreciated and mimicked the freethinking spirit of the West, the outcome would be the greatest civilization in human history.