JК
Dogs and Demons :: Керр Алекс
Страница: 36 из 270 «It won't be cheap to produce small amounts of concrete on the moon, but if we make large amounts of concrete, it will be very cheap.»
The Ministry of Construction, like many businesses and public institutions in Japan, has its own anthem. The lyrics of this Utopia Song, unchanged since 1948, include «Asphalt blanketing the mountains and valleys ... a splendid Utopia.»
Japan will not have long to wait for Utopia. At home, the Construction Ministry is well on its way to blanketing all of the country's mountains and valleys with asphalt and concrete. The next challenge will be the natural landscapes of Southeast Asia and China, which are already destined for numerous dams and roads paid for by ODA money.
And then – it shouldn't take many more five-day workweeks – the moon!
2. Environment
Cedar Plantations and Orange Ooze
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
– Omar Khayyam, The Rubáiyát
In the construction frenzy described in the previous chapter, we can see that Japan's economic woes are linked with deep cultural trouble. The sterility of Japan's new landscape, so far from everything the nation once stood for, denotes a true crisis of the spirit. Something has driven this nation to turn on its own land with tooth and claw, and simplistic reasons like «modernization» do not explain it.
In seeking the roots of today's crisis, we need to take another look at what happened in the nineteenth century, when Japan first encountered the West. Japan woke from centuries of isolation to find itself a poor and weak nation in a world where many ancient kingdoms were rapidly being swallowed up by European colonial powers. Shocked at the nation's precarious position, Japan's new rulers set out on a crash program to build up the economy and the army, first to resist the Western powers and later to challenge them for dominance. From the beginning, this meant making industrial output a top priority to which almost everything else had to be sacrificed.
Japan's defeat in World War II had the effect of intensifying the emphasis on manufacturing, for it burned into the national memory the desire to build power so that Japan could never be defeated again. In the process, the environment, quality of life, legal system, financial system, traditional culture-everything – suffered.
The Ministry of Construction, like many businesses and public institutions in Japan, has its own anthem. The lyrics of this Utopia Song, unchanged since 1948, include «Asphalt blanketing the mountains and valleys ... a splendid Utopia.»
Japan will not have long to wait for Utopia. At home, the Construction Ministry is well on its way to blanketing all of the country's mountains and valleys with asphalt and concrete. The next challenge will be the natural landscapes of Southeast Asia and China, which are already destined for numerous dams and roads paid for by ODA money.
And then – it shouldn't take many more five-day workweeks – the moon!
2. Environment
Cedar Plantations and Orange Ooze
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
– Omar Khayyam, The Rubáiyát
In the construction frenzy described in the previous chapter, we can see that Japan's economic woes are linked with deep cultural trouble. The sterility of Japan's new landscape, so far from everything the nation once stood for, denotes a true crisis of the spirit. Something has driven this nation to turn on its own land with tooth and claw, and simplistic reasons like «modernization» do not explain it.
In seeking the roots of today's crisis, we need to take another look at what happened in the nineteenth century, when Japan first encountered the West. Japan woke from centuries of isolation to find itself a poor and weak nation in a world where many ancient kingdoms were rapidly being swallowed up by European colonial powers. Shocked at the nation's precarious position, Japan's new rulers set out on a crash program to build up the economy and the army, first to resist the Western powers and later to challenge them for dominance. From the beginning, this meant making industrial output a top priority to which almost everything else had to be sacrificed.
Japan's defeat in World War II had the effect of intensifying the emphasis on manufacturing, for it burned into the national memory the desire to build power so that Japan could never be defeated again. In the process, the environment, quality of life, legal system, financial system, traditional culture-everything – suffered.