Modernity and Today’s Japan

(with reference to Woman in

the Dunes)

Peter Nosco
May 30, 2013
 “The Japanese Miracle”
• As recently as fifty years ago, Japan was the
only Asian country universally agreed to have
achieved “modernity”.
• The manner in which this came about was
perceived by many to be a kind of miracle.
• This launched a quest to duplicate the
accomplishment elsewhere.
• But was it a “miracle” and could it be
reproduced?
 Let’s begin by asking what’s
“modern” about modern Japan?
Is modernity a binary between
nature and invention?
 Or is it a matter of local “old
ways” vs. global “new ways”?
To what extent is modernity
social and cultural?
Or is it industrial, modular and
international?
 Japan blurs the binary of pre-
modern and modern
As we’ve seen, 200 years ago, as now, one
finds:
 High levels of literacy
 Surplus wealth distributed broadly, but not
equitably
 Superb resource mobilization
 Excellent transportation and
communication infrastructure
 More continuities
• Strong sense of national (collective) identity
• Weak sense of public sphere, with samurai
as only true citizens.
– What Robert Ward called a “subject political
culture”
• Status society
– An organic (organism-like) understanding of
society
Periods of admiration and
disdain for foreign cultures
 Embracing modernity vs.
overcoming modernity
• Goto-Jones writes of “embracing”
modernity on the one hand, and
“overcoming” modernity on the other.
• The basis for this ambivalence depends
on who is doing the defining of modernity.
• The allure and challenge of modernity thus
conflicts with the problem of modernity.
Abe Kōbo’s Woman in the
Dunes
• Theme of escape
• Niki Junpei as
modernity and alien
• The woman as nature
and native
• The sand: relentless,
omnipresent, mythic,
archtypical
• The place/purpose of
work in life
 Woman in the Dunes
• “An amateur entomologist searching for
insects by the sea is trapped by local villagers
into living with a mysterious woman who
spends almost all her time preventing her
home from being swallowed up by advancing
sand dunes. The woman and the trapped
man begin a strange and erotic relationship
that stretches over years, as the man's hope
for escape dims.” by Vince Mattaliano”
Tokyo Waka
• A poem about a city,
its people, and 20,000
crows.
• Nature vs.civilization
 Tokyo Waka (April 2012)
• From the press kit: “TOKYO WAKA is as
much a carefully etched, lyrical portrait of
Tokyo and its denizens as it is a full-
fledged rendering of the surprisingly rich
life of crows. It’s an evocative
encapsulation of post-bubble Tokyo, when
people caught in the flux of change seek
their own precarious perches in an
uncertain future.”
 Two of Japan’s modern myths
• Ideology of hard work and sacrifice for
tomorrow has been challenged by the shin
shin jinrui (“new, new human beings”).
• The myth of a harmonious “Trust society”,
rooted in Confucianism (note vertical trust
vs horizontal trust) has been seriously
challenged.
– The triple Tōhoku (Fukushima) disaster of
3/2011
 Serious Social and Developmental
Issues
• The “graying” of the society.
• A shortage of inexpensive labor vs. a
distrust of foreign labor and residents.
• A declining birthrate, with a sharp
increase in the number of single-person
households headed by a woman.
• Average age of first-time mothers was
30.1 in 2011, up from 25.7 in 1975.
 Women and the economy
• A 2010 Goldman Sachs report estimated
that Japanese GDP could jump by 15% if
female participation in the workforce —
currently at around 60% — was to match the
80% of men who are employed.
• 70% of women leave the workforce after
giving birth to their first child.
• Female employees make only 60%of
what men earn.
 Under-15 population declines
steadily
• The number of kids under 15 in Japan has
declined each year since 1980, standing at a
record-low 16.6 million as of April 1 2012, down
120,000 from a year earlier.
• The % of children in this age-group fell for the
38th straight year to a record-low 13%.
• Japan will no longer have children under the age
of 15 in 999 years, researchers at Tohoku
University Graduate School estimate!
 Suicide rate and suicidal
thoughts
• Persistently high suicide rate
– over 30,000 suicides again in 2011
• Finally a drop in 2012?
– Roughly 1:4000 for 14 consecutive years;
– Roughly 40% are men 40-69;
– The leading cause of death for men 20-39.
• In January 2012, 23.4% of people 20 or older
percent had thought of committing suicide, up
4.3 percentage points from the first such
survey conducted in 2008.
 The despair of young adults
• “An aging population is clogging the nation’s
economy with the vested interests of older
generations, young people and social experts
warn, making an already hierarchical society
even more rigid and conservative. The result is
that Japan is holding back and marginalizing its
youth at a time when it actually needs them to
help create the new products, companies and
industries that a mature economy requires to
grow.” -- Martin Fackler, NYT 01.27.2011
 64% of Japanese say spiritual
fulfillment more important
• A public opinion survey on national
livelihood released August 2012 showed
the proportion of Japanese people placing
priority on "spiritual fulfillment" rather than
"material richness" rose to 64 percent, the
highest level since the first such poll was
taken in 1972.
 Who is Japan’s “other” today?
• A new binary – the “West” or the “States”
being the old one.
• More than 84 percent of Japanese have
“unfavorable” impressions of China, while
64.5 percent of Chinese feel the same
about Japan (June 2012 Asahi Shinbun).
Other Social and Cultural Issues
• The role of the group in decision making
and the construction of personal identity
• The individual as the total of the
macrocosms in which (s)he participates
rather than the microcosm of the self.
• The importance of vertical (sempai/kôhai)
and horizontal (dôhai) relationships
• A repressed individuality
 Still Other Social and Cultural
Issues
• The ambiguous place of organized
religion in modern Japan, and its
relationship to the state.
• The generalized belief in an animistic
spirit (kami) world
• Ethical relativism (as opposed to
universalistic ethics)
 Three widely shared
perspectives from Buddhism
Life as change (Everything
is becoming
something)

Karmic causation
(“What goes around
comes around”)

Multiple realms
(You get more than
©Asahi-net
what you see)
 Four lessons from
Confucianism
• Problems arise when
duty conflicts with
desires
• Relationships are
fundamental
• Trust is essential
• Learning is good
How has March 11 2011 and
shaped the Japan of today?
– Distrust of government and politicians
– Radical expansion of civil society and voluntary
associations
• Recall the aftermath of the 1995 Kobe earthquake
– Loss of confidence in nuclear energy
– Remarkable change of ruling party back to LDP
– Ongoing question of whether government will
honor public opinion
– The double-edged sword of putting things into
perspective
Some Contemporary Japanese
Cultural Contributions
• Japan’s “soft power”
• Popular culture (Film, J-Pop, Anime,
Manga)
• Cuisine: sushi, sashimi, udon, ramen, etc.
• Martial arts: judô, karate, jujitsu, aikidô,
etc.
• Manufacturing design
• The “Asian aesthetic”
 So what is Japan’s place in the
world today?
• A few years ago despite some clouds here and there
on the horizon, Japan’s place in the world seemed
fairly stable and quite secure.
• After brilliant post-WWII recovery and reentry on the
world stage in the 1960s and 1970s, Japan was an A+
country in the 1980s and could do no wrong.
• But events sometimes make a mockery of our
expectations, and recent events in Japan, the Korean
peninsula, China, Taiwan, the United States and
around the world have transformed what should be
relatively simple into something more challenging, and
what until recently seemed relatively clear has grown
much more uncertain
 Some comparisons of Japan with
the U.S.
• If The United States were your home instead of Japan you would...
• have 2.2 times higher chance of dying in infancy -
• have 86.64% more babies -
• spend 2.6 times more money on health care - Source:
World Health Organization
• use 71.05% more electricity
• consume 66.57% more oil
• have 66.07% more chance of being unemployed
• be 6 times more likely to have HIV/AIDS
• make 42.33% more money
• die 3.93 years sooner
• work 0.28% more hours each year

• Unless otherwise indicated, the source for these data is the CIA World
Factbook, and the web site http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/JP/US
 Modern or Post-Modern?
• In the end, does Japan seem to us more
modern or post-modern? Hint: Consider
the degree of agency.

• What does Goto-Jones mean when he

speaks of Japan’s “quest for normalcy”?
Suggestions for further reading
and investigation
• Andrew Gordon. A Modern History of
Japan from Tokugawa Times to the
Present (Oxford 2013)
• Marius Jansen, The Making of Modern
Japan (Harvard 2002)
• For country comparisons:
• http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/index/CA
• http://www.nationmaster.com/index.php