OH, WHAT MISHIMA MISSED...:

The future of Japan: Happiness is no laughing matter: a review of Japan Unbound: A Volatile Nation's Quest for Pride and Purpose By John Nathan (The Economist, Feb 5th 2004)

Mr Nathan, a professor of Japanese cultural studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara, has been observing Japan since the 1960s. Whereas most people look at economic data or the comings and goings of prime ministers, he is more interested in schools, novels, manga comic books, and the minds of young entrepreneurs and maverick local politicians. In particular, his focus is on whether Japan's famously cohesive, conformist society may be fracturing under the strain of economic stagnation, and on how such strains have been affecting the country's sense of purpose and of national identity.

Fractures are what he looks for and fractures are what he finds. On balance, they are neither obviously dangerous nor obviously positive, but they are, as he says, signs of motion which could, in time, lead in unpredictable directions. The most worrying fractures he writes about are in the schools, where violence and truancy have risen remarkably. Old Japan hands shrug wearily at such things, for worries about bullying have long existed but have never really seemed terribly serious. Now, though, Mr Nathan's numbers do make the situation look grave.

Since 1998, youths aged between 14 and 19 have been involved in 50% of all arrests for felonies, including murder. In the first six months of 2000, he says, juveniles (including even younger ones) committed a record 532 killings. In the first 11 months of 2001, juvenile crime increased by 12.5% compared with the previous year, to 920,000 incidents, a post-war high. Truancy is also on the up. A conservative estimate is that 150,000 children between the ages of six and 17 are permanently absent from school; others, says Mr Nathan, assert that the true number is 350,000 children, or 5% of the student population.

Such trends appear to be symptoms of two related phenomena: a widespread feeling of disillusionment, alienation, uncertainty or plain anger, which has spread to children too; and a gradual breakdown of old systems of discipline—part familial, part social, part legal—which appear to prevent schools and parents from dealing effectively with errant children.

Japan is, in short, passing through a national identity crisis. There are plenty of positive aspects to it too, however. One is a considerable increase in the number of actual or budding young entrepreneurs, a trend especially visible in the willingness of high-flyers to leave good, safe jobs in order to set up their own firms. The numbers remain modest, but are nevertheless surprisingly high given the state of the economy in recent years. Another is a new eagerness among popular writers and maverick politicians to try to define and encourage a new national pride.

What could be more positive than the happy confluence of youth violence and rising nationalism?

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 9, 2004 10:10 PM