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(★)([Titulo original en japones : 戦後思想を考える] (Japan seems to be one of the most successful of countries. It has the second largest GNP in the free world, a superbly efficient educational system, a mind-boggling array of consumer goods, and a booming cultural life. And yet, concurrently with the growth of the Japanese economy there has occurred an insidious erosion of human values. Japan has paid a price for all its wealth --not a price in terms of material goods or rates of pay, but in terms of the human spirit, of human autonomy. And this has taken place not in the face of popular opposition, but rather with widespread acquiescence. The Japanese people have chosen to forgo freedom and individual responsibility in favor of an ever improving standard of living.／ In this book, one of Japan´s most eminent sociologists takes a sensitive and incisive look at these problems as Japan approaches the twenty-first century. He begins with a discussion of the legacy of political passivity inherited from prewar times and shows how this has evolved into a system of irresponsibility in the name of economic progress. This ´economism´ has had devastating effects not only within Japan ; it also undermines relations between Japan and Southeast Asian countries. Based on his own experience, the author discusses the problem of individual responsibility during the war and the Japanese lack of understanding of the peoples whose contries they invaded. But while the wartime actions of individual Japanese were based on devotion to emperor and country, the individual today is motivated solely by economic self-aggrandizement. The author sees the present situation as deriving from the sudden growth of the Japanese economy from the 1960s onward and the result once again being a political passivity and irresponsibility. A decisive factor in creating this environment has been the educational system, which places primary emphasis on intensive, tightly structured rote learning, producing students, and later adults, who are submissive and wholly conformist. The passive relationship of the individual to political authority in Japan is pointed up by a comparison of popular political movements in Japan and Korea. Lastly, taking up a disease caused by industrial pollution that occurred in the city of Minamata, the author shows how all of Japan may be put into proper perspective by viewing it from the standpoint of sufferers of Minamata disease --the problems of meaningful work, remuneration, equality, and mutual help.／ In each of the carefully interwoven chapters of this book, the author takes up a variety of topics, but they all revolve around the question of human values, for the individual and for society. As the book focuses on Japanese prewar and postwar experience, Japanese industrial pollution, Japanese youth, Japanese education, and on the tension between Japanese individuals and society, the reader gradually comes to the realization that the author writes not only of Japan but of the human condition itself. ◆Rokuroo Hidaka was born in Qingdao, China, in 1917. A graduate of Tokyo University and a former professor of sociology there, he is presently professor at Kyoto Seika University. He has written numerous books in Japanese on social order, freedom of the individual, and education, and has translated Erich Fromm´s ´Escape from Freedom.´ He has been active in antipollution and peace movements. For the present book, he received the 1981 Mainichi Publication Culture Award.) |
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