Dogs and Demons   ::   Керр Алекс

On the other hand, it's doubtful that these nations will sign on the dotted line to unquestioned Japanese leadership.

For the next few decades, Japan has enough savings to coast on. This is Japan's tragedy, for only bankruptcy could shock people out of Chuto Hanpa. After the Asian crisis of 1997-1998, Korea, which did not have the luxury of relying on its savings, was forced to make major structural changes. By 1999, the results were making themselves seen in a jump in growth and a revivified political life. However, Japan has not yet suffered such a shock, and despite the loud calls for change, one cannot underestimate the public's complacency. Schools have taught people to ask few questions and to follow a routine, to «endure.» The propaganda machine continues at full tilt, with the voice of Hal reassuring everyone that the rivers and lakes are beautiful, the banking mess has been cleared up, recovery is around the corner, Japans «unique model» is superior and will lead Asia, have a nice day. Children who have grown up in the Chuto Hanpa environment of Japan's cities and countryside reach adulthood knowing of no other way to live. The feeling that it is «too late» exerts a psychological undertow in all Japan's cultural and environmental movements. People naturally wonder what is the merit of enacting new zoning and environmental legislation when the cities and countryside have already been damaged almost beyond repair. What it would take to restore Japan's rivers, mountains, and seaside to ecological health boggles the imagination. What do you do? Strip cement away from river bottoms, grow vines over concrete embankments, cut down the sugi cedar plantations? How will you keep the vast number of people who depend on construction employed? These are difficult questions, and only a determined few have the bravery to face them. Meanwhile, the bureaucracy continues on autopilot for one simple reason: the funds are still flowing. There is no lack of money to continue to build highway loops in the shape of eight-headed dragons and fill in a few more meters of Osaka Bay. Foreign economics experts insist that Japan «must» rein in its overspending on construction, but why must it? The country is eating into its savings-of this there is no doubt. But for the time being there are still trillions of dollars of assets in savings, much of it deposited in the postal-savings system, one giant piggy bank for the bureaucrats to play with. At the turn of the century, hopes for the future remain balanced between revolution and stagnation. Stagnation is most likely in the absence of a major shock to the system, such as a wholesale economic crash. But revolution could happen. The world is full of surprises – who would have imagined in 1985 that by 1990 the whole of Eastern Europe would have shaken off Communism? It is exactly such a surprise that millions of Madame Defarges are quietly waiting for. Sadly for Japan, a crash is highly unlikely. The chances are that for the next decade or two there will never come a moment when the nation stares disaster right in the face. The water will remain lukewarm, and the public will sleep comfortably in a soup of Chuto Hanpa while their country slowly degenerates. When it comes time to carve the epitaph for «Japanese-style capitalism as a civilization,» the legend on the tombstone will read «Boiled Frog.»



Conclusion

E pur si muove (But it does move).

– Galileo Galilei, said under his breath after he was forced to recant his belief that the earth moved around the sun (1632)





 In contrast to most books by Europeans and Americans on Japan, this one has avoided the words «Japan must» and «Japan should,» for I do not believe that foreigners should make demands on Japan. Nothing is more damaging to U.S.-Japan relations than Washington's noisy insistence that Japan rationalize its financial markets, boost domestic demand, and so forth. It enrages – rightly – politicians like Ishihara Shintaro, who resent American insolence, and it frightens the average citizen, who is aware of how misguided such advice often is. For example, American pressure to «pump-prime» the economy does real damage, for pouring money into public works only exacerbates Japan's worst problem, which is its addiction to government-subsidized construction. Writing this book has not been easy, for many of the issues raised here are close to unknown overseas. It has been challenging to describe in a believable way Japan's cultural trauma, so beyond most people's experience in Western countries that it strains credibility. Yet the situation that I have been describing is all too real, and the hope for the future, I believe, lies in seeing the condition of modern Japan for what it is – only from recognition and understanding will come change. I have written to describe and not prescribe. That said, it would be ingenuous to claim that I have no personal hopes for Japan. For one who loves Japan's culture and its rivers and mountains, the disaster overtaking cities and countryside has been heartrending to witness. I've written this book for my Japanese friends and millions of others who have so far had very little voice in the foreign media, who feel as sad and angry as I do. Although I'm skeptical of Japan's ability to change (the very roots of the tragedy lie in systems that repress change), in my heart I dream of change. Modern Japan is an emotional minefield. Old-line Japanologists, in my view, are so convinced that their duty lies in preaching Japan's glory that these subjects deeply frighten them. People are afraid to open the closet, afraid that the sight of the skeletons inside might undermine what they love about Japan, and fearful, too, lest the high-powered international forums they belong to do not invite them back to future meetings. While this situation has changed in recent years with regard to finance, it is still largely true when it comes to culture. The popularizers of Japanese culture, the people who write about Zen, flowers, the tea ceremony, architecture, design, and so forth, are still writing as if they hadn't noticed that there is trouble in Eden. But there is trouble, and it has happened once before in the past century when a similar process led the nation into disaster. One may easily draw parallels between the collapse of the Taisho Renaissance of the 1910s and 1920s and the Heisei Depression of the 1990s. In both cases, systems of inflexible government and education stifled a generation of freedom and creativity. The same mechanisms that caused Japan to veer off course before World War II – a ruling elite guiding a system aimed single-mindedly at expansion – are at work today.