JК
Dogs and Demons :: Керр Алекс
Страница: 32 из 270At the same time, it was a terrifying existence that could wipe out our peaceful lives in the space of onenight. With regard to Shirakawa, I have very complicated emotions in which both love and hate are mixed.» It's a sophisticated message reminding the public that Japan has no choice but to hate its rivers, that they are dangerous and need to be walled in or they will unsheathe their fearful swords. Similar warnings of nature's destructive power, issued by respected intellectuals, flood the media.
The media campaign is related to Japan's special Law of Inertia as it applies to bureaucratic policy. Newton's law is that an object will continue to move in the same direction at a constant speed unless it is acted on by an outside force. In Japan, the rule has a special and dangerous twist, for it states that if there is no interference the object (or policy) will speed up. Former prime minister Lee KwanYew of Singapore once commented:
One particularly outspoken chap told me, «I don't trust us, the Japanese people. We get carried away to the extreme. It starts off small. It ends up by going the whole hog.» I think it's in their culture. Whatever they do, they carry it out to the apex, whether it's making samurai swords or computer chips. They keep at it, improving, improving, improving. In any endeavor, they set out to be No. 1. If they go back to the military, they will set out to be No. 1 in quality, in fighting spirit. Whatever their reasons, they have built total dedication into the system, into the mind.
Total dedication drives Japan's self-sacrificing workers, and underlies the quality control that is the hallmark of Japanese production. But the tendency to take things to extremes means that people and organizations can easily get carried away and set out to «improve» things that don't need improving. Recently, driving home from Iya Valley, I passed a small mountain stream, no more than a meter wide, which the authorities had funneled into a concrete chute, flattening the mountain slopes down which it flowed and paving them for fifty meters on each side. One could see the «fail-safe» mentality of the Construction Ministry's River Bureau at work: if ten meters of protection will prevent a landslide for a hundred years, why not fifty meters, to make sure there will be no landslide for a thousand years?
Take the ideology of «An Archipelago of Disasters» and marry it to «Total Dedication.» Sweeten the match with a dowry in the form of rich proceeds to politicians and bureaucrats. Glorify it with government-paid propaganda singing the praises of dam and road builders.
The media campaign is related to Japan's special Law of Inertia as it applies to bureaucratic policy. Newton's law is that an object will continue to move in the same direction at a constant speed unless it is acted on by an outside force. In Japan, the rule has a special and dangerous twist, for it states that if there is no interference the object (or policy) will speed up. Former prime minister Lee KwanYew of Singapore once commented:
One particularly outspoken chap told me, «I don't trust us, the Japanese people. We get carried away to the extreme. It starts off small. It ends up by going the whole hog.» I think it's in their culture. Whatever they do, they carry it out to the apex, whether it's making samurai swords or computer chips. They keep at it, improving, improving, improving. In any endeavor, they set out to be No. 1. If they go back to the military, they will set out to be No. 1 in quality, in fighting spirit. Whatever their reasons, they have built total dedication into the system, into the mind.
Total dedication drives Japan's self-sacrificing workers, and underlies the quality control that is the hallmark of Japanese production. But the tendency to take things to extremes means that people and organizations can easily get carried away and set out to «improve» things that don't need improving. Recently, driving home from Iya Valley, I passed a small mountain stream, no more than a meter wide, which the authorities had funneled into a concrete chute, flattening the mountain slopes down which it flowed and paving them for fifty meters on each side. One could see the «fail-safe» mentality of the Construction Ministry's River Bureau at work: if ten meters of protection will prevent a landslide for a hundred years, why not fifty meters, to make sure there will be no landslide for a thousand years?
Take the ideology of «An Archipelago of Disasters» and marry it to «Total Dedication.» Sweeten the match with a dowry in the form of rich proceeds to politicians and bureaucrats. Glorify it with government-paid propaganda singing the praises of dam and road builders.