The Land od the Rising Yen

comes from the Boss, as a rule everyone
will think it a magnificent idea. Even the almighty pater familias will
not announce that the family will now move into a larger house; he will ask all
members of the family how they feel about moving into a larger house. In
politics the opposition often complains about the ‘tyranny of the majority’
which means not only that they have been voted down but that it was unfair to
put the question to the vote at all. It is unfair, they feel, to use large
numbers as a bulldozer and indeed, minorities should be respected; but the
Japanese hate the very idea of voting. Their ideal is to thrash things out and
come to a compromise in which all participate and concur. The majority, on the
whole, accepts this. This attitude does not only express a respect for
democracy, but is also a prudent way of sharing responsibility. Should things
go wrong at a later stage, no one can ever pin responsibility on one single
person, be he the President of a company or the Prime Minister. Nothing is
anybody’s responsibility; everything is a joint venture.

    This may not always be the most
efficient way of doing things but it is not an unwise one. Even groups do not
bear full responsibility but are often guided by other groups. The Emperor used
to be omnipotent in principle. In practice he was only a figurehead during the
Tokugawa period, and always — even after the Meiji Restoration — he had to
listen to various groups who really ruled the land. The government of Japan was never as all-powerful as some other governments. Japan for ages has produced no
Hitler, no Mussolini, no individual dictator of any kind; indeed, not one
single truly prominent politician. Groups, however, have always been painfully
apparent. From 1931 (the Manchurian ‘incident’) to the end of the war it was
the military who ordered about an often unwilling government and a most
reluctant Emperor; today it is the zaibatsu (the powerful business
clique — a group, once again, not dominated by any individual) who offer their
forceful advice and guidance to the government. The government in Japan, a country where permanence is one of the greatest virtues, is at a disadvantage,
being non-permanent; while the army or the zaibatsu are permanent
bodies.
    These ideas — the Japanese feel — do
not clash with modern notions; indeed, they create a new harmony in an
unharmonious world. Harmony — in the Buddhist conception — is the Supreme Good.
Group decisions, collective wishes, eliminate discord, jealousy, envy. Well,
perhaps they don’t. It may be slightly naïve to relate Buddhist harmony to
modern electronic industries. But such an idea, once again, reflects our Western
smugness. Perhaps it is not so ridiculous after all, even for modern electronic
and such-like industrialists, to recall, however faintly, that certain
spiritual values always lurk in the background.

GEWALT ROSA AND THE REST
     
    Japanese society looks more homogeneous than
any other but, of course, no society of a hundred million people — indeed, no
society of any size — is ever homogeneous. As a result, when the surface of
strict, almost universal discipline is broken, when the unruly instincts and emotions
held down by the discipline erupt, they will do so with volcanic force, with
white-hot fury. Modem Japanese society has two main outlets through which
violent undercurrents can rise to the surface. The first of these is student
violence.
    Japanese universities are in an even
worse mess than most others. The famous French student riots of 1968 caused
much more violent vibrations in the political seismograph but lasted only a
fortnight or so. The main universities of Japan have been closed for months and
although some limited tutorial and seminary activities are carried on, there is
little hope of reopening quite a few of them in the foreseeable future. Out of
3,000 institutions called, somewhat liberally, institutions of higher
education, a hundred and sixteen have suffered, and they include some of the
greatest and most renowned seats of learning, Tokyo and Kyoto universities
among them.
    Reading reports of student unrest and
violence, one keeps coming across the word zengakuren. This is a
portfolio word — of which the Japanese are very fond — a concoction from the
Japanese name of the National Federation of Student Self-Government
Associations. Nearly all students automatically become members of it. Some opt
out either to dissociate