Dogs and Demons   ::   Керр Алекс

Japan's elaborate Dogs and Demons monuments are a sort of defensive bulwark, a desperate attempt to shore up its embattled systems against the crushing weight of real value. The strain can only worsen, yet in the end reality will prevail – the earth does move around the sun. Japan has departed so far from jitsu, I believe, because during the past century the nation did not in fact respond well to new ideas coming from the West, as classical «modernization theory» preaches; instead, Japan has had one long, agonizing struggle with these ideas, and the struggle is by no means over. As in the 1930s, the nation is repeating a pattern whereby huge initial success eventually leads to disaster. In the early stages, Japan finds its own innovative way to do what the West does – and with spectacular results. We should remember that it is only a decade or so ago that the whole world was studying Japanese management, manufacturing, finance, and merchandising techniques. In the second stage, however, these very innovations that amazed the world are carried too far; the whole system goes onto automatic pilot, and the ship runs up on the rocks. The cultural troubles are long-term and chronic. There is a way out, of course, and it's the way of jitsu -getting back in touch with reality. The reality that Japan needs to get back to, however, is not necessarily reality as it is seen in the West but Japan's own moral and cultural roots. As we have seen repeatedly in this book, much that parades as quintessentially Japanese today – for example, money that earns no interest and companies that cannot fail – would be unrecognizable to Saikaku and the hearty tradesmen of old Edo. The manualized flower arrangements are a denial of everything that flower masters taught for centuries; the bombastic architecture a slap in the face to a long tradition of restraint and aesthetic sensitivity; the smiling baby faces an absurd end to the sophisticated adult culture that gave us Noh drama, Basho's haiku, sand gardens, and so much more. Most tragic of all, the construction frenzy that is a core part of today's distorted system is destroying the very land itself, the land that the Japanese have always considered to be sacred. The result of Japan's war with jitsu has been to tear apart and ravage most of what Japan holds most dear in its own culture, and this lies at the root of the nation's modern cultural malaise: people are sick at heart because Japan has strayed so far from its true self. The challenge for the Japanese in the past two centuries was how to come out of isolation and assert themselves in the world, and in this they succeeded brilliantly, to the extent that Japan is now one of the world's most powerful nations. Success came, however, at tremendous internal cost.