The Land od the Rising Yen

to achieve their war-aims. That’s only how it looks
today; it did not happen that way.
    Others resent the basic injustice of
the thing. They do not think only in patterns but also in categories. Some
people should wear kimonos, others should wear Western garb; some should be a
nation of samurai, others a nation of vice-presidents. Similarly, there
are victorious nations and defeated nations and both categories — in all
decency — should stick to their stations in this post-war era. But the sad
truth — and many of us must feel a trifle middle-aged or even elderly as a
result of it — is that the post-war era is now over. It may have lasted for a
generation, but by the nineteen-seventies we are surely the post-post-war era
(and, let us hope, not another pre-war era): a very different epoch in mood,
outlook, attitudes, fortunes and misfortunes. We must stop thinking in the
outworn terms of the Second World War. It is not victory or defeat in that
encounter which determines our fate and fortunes, but our behaviour, politics,
exertions, wisdom and luck in the last quarter of a century. The Second World
War may have been the latest of wars; but it is now in our past and
consequently part and parcel of our lives, our character, our present (like the
Napoleonic Wars, the Crusades, the Norman Conquest, the Peloponnesian Wars) and
must take its proper — and admittedly very important — part in history.
    Others again go to the other extreme.
They feel guilty (particularly because of the A-bombs) and ashamed of being the
products of European civilization. They welcome the emergence of modern Japan
and look forward to the emergence of modern Africa, rub their hands with glee
and await with malicious joy their own destruction.
    It is easy and comforting to feel a
guilty European (a ‘European’, somewhat incongruously, means American,
Australian, etc. as well). It is equally easy to remain an unrepentant European
and come back from the Far East convinced of the superiority of our ways. They
are indeed superior in many respects, partly because they are better suited to
the rotten, automated, money-grabbing society we have built and partly because
they are indeed the best by any standard. It is easy to acknowledge virtue in
others and belittle ourselves: admitting our weaknesses is simply another way
of asserting our moral superiority. For many people it is easier to give than
to receive; easier to acknowledge their own guilt than to blame others. About
half of humanity is masochistically minded and this way of thinking suits and
satisfies this half. It is more difficult to accept our own virtues; to beat — however
reluctantly — our chests and to do it without conceit. We Europeans have, after
all, achieved a great deal and we might as well give a graceful bow and accept
some praise — without humility, because humility is one of the most repulsive
virtues, nearly always false. But while admitting our undeniable excellence, we
should also reflect upon the fact that our present predominance in many fields
is due as much to historic and climatic factors, including an element of sheer
luck, as it is to our outstanding qualities; and, in any case, it is only
temporary, as was the hegemony of Babylon, Sumeria, Egypt or Greece. Our victory in the battle of electronics may prove as ephemeral and evanescent as our
victory in the Second World War or as the victory of the Greeks at Marathon. But there is no need to think in terms of victors and vanquished; in terms of we and they. If humanity — Europeans, Africans, Asians and all — were just
a shade more intelligent, we could be victors all; we could be all we.
     
    In Japan something is happening now
which happened in India some time ago: a new culture, a new way of life is
being superimposed on the old one. An alien culture is being superimposed on
the indigenous.
    ‘You can’t superimpose one culture on
another,’ people are fond of saying. ‘The result is bound to be a mongrel.’
    Quite. But what is wrong with
mongrels? Of course, a mongrel is neither one thing nor another, neither an
Alsatian nor a fox-terrier, but this is no final condemnation. The mongrel is
still a dog — with eyes, ears, feelings, passions, jealousies, frustrations and
joys of his own. He may be more intelligent, more sensitive and altogether
worthier than either of his inbred, aristocratic parents. The verdict: ‘He is
not a pure-bred Alsatian,’ is dismissive and debunking only in the