Slashdot Mirror
William Gibson On Japan
An Anonymous Coward writes: "There's an interesting rant by William Gibson on his fascination with American futurist conception of Japanese culture over at The Observer. Also of note is one readers take on it." This is a little odd, not usual slashdot fare. But I thought it was interesting reading, so maybe you will too.
But this is also the country in which there are no full access ATMs,
...but it's safe to carry loads of cash.
no Birth control (until last year)
But abortions were cheap and plentiful...
and no law against denying somone a promotion because they are a woman... (well, also not until last year)... The contradiction of the techno idolatry and the hedgemonc morality of the society amazes me.
Also no law against denying employment/promotion to white guys like me. Actually, there is almost no form of institutionalized artificial equality. Even so, I like the fact that the government doesn't regulate every aspect of corporate life here. It just means you have to try harder is all.
You forgot to mention that in Japan there are no surveillance cameras, no drug tests, and no background checks. Civil servants and customer service representatives are polite, and most of all competent. Even the police. That's a future I could go for.
And as for the "pressure to conform"... Who applies that pressure? The government? The army? Or is it completely voluntary?
I understand how it could be difficult for an American to understand why anyone would ever conform, believe in a religion, obey the law, or respect other people unless they were somehow forced or coerced to, but that is because America's social contract has ruptured and everyone mistrusts everything and everyone else. Not because the Japanese are somehow gullible mindless automatons.
There is no more pressure to conform here than anywhere else. All that's different it that the Japanese are not nearly as cynical about each other and their social institutions. Everyone benefits from a society that runs smoothly and where everyone does what is expected of them.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
I think the Japanese and American cultures are locked in a twisted symbiotic relationship. The Japanese are masters of perfecting technology and Americans are masters of thinking of insane new things that break the mode. Other cultures tend to be someplace in the middle.
:)
An exmaple.. Look at out robots.. America has Battle Bots.. an over pumped wrestling federation type of robot fighting game with big bad to the point robots.. the British have Robot Wars (I think that is the name) which is a lot like Battle Bots but the robots tend to be more goofy and cute and look less like something designed to beat your neighbor up. Their show in general lacks the over the top behavior of the American counterpart. The Japanese take robots and slap them into cute little bodies and give them some basic AI abilities and make a forture off it all.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
This type of diatribe seems to come from people who have been in love with Japan for years, then go there and see exactly what they were looking for without noting anything that would interfere with their schoolgirl crush on the country.
Yes, this is the country in which every girl has to have a portable phone, the newest CD single by a shitty boy band (ok, so that's not different), and the newest fashion trend the moment that they are announced in the magazines...
But this is also the country in which there are no full access ATMs, no Birth control (until last year) and no law against denying somone a promotion because they are a woman... (well, also not until last year)... The contradiction of the techno idolatry and the hedgemonc morality of the society amazes me.
Granted their fad driven economy is full of high tech gadgetry the likes of which would make any japanophilic geek drool, but the shortsightedness of the culture as a whole scares me... Ever seen how much trash is piled in the woods by their mountain expressways? Or stacks of ten year old cars that were crushed for being too old... (A friend of mine had a 1990 Honda CRX crushed because the road tax would have been too much. He had to pay $200 to get them to take it and it had 60K on the odometer). It seems like the technological climate in Japan is due mostly to high pressure advertising, high pressure to conform, and a lack of visible available alternatives.
Different, yes,
But THE future? I hope not.
+++ ATH0 +++
I think Gibson is over-romanticizing what goes on in Japan. Yes, like many Asian cultures, they are very receptive to fads influenced by the "latest thing" and they are something that is very rare in the West nowadays: technophilic.
I suspect, however, that, in their 140-year leap from virtual feudalism to modernity, not all has progressed at the same rate, and the technological effects on society are playing out in ways that have already shaped Western society.
It's only been in the past 30 years that Japan has been a truly affluent society. So the concerns of a society that has grown comfortable with widespread wealth are just beginning--there's a feeling, reinforced by the collapse of the Bubble Economy, that without hard work to maintain it, prosperity could vanish as quickly as it arrived. So the Western concerns with social equality, environmental protection, the extremely marginal dangers of new technology haven't set in yet.
In short, there's still a lot of the 1950's-era Europe and America in Japan. The benefits of technology are still much clearer than their downsides, and a workaholic, traditional culture still lingers. If, in the 50's or even the 20's, America had the same level of technology the Japanese do today there would undoubtedly be Mobil Girls, robot bars, and the like.
But don't forget the downside to this progress: Japan is not a tranquil, natural place for reflection that NPR and yuppie magazines sell to Americans: it is a chaotic place where almost all buildable land has been built upon and parks are sadly rare but extremely welcome escapes from the unrelieved concrete and cacophony of the city. Women have a distinctly second-class place: female CEO's aren't a rarity, they just don't happen. Cutting off land from business development is similarly rare, and the salaryman still comes to work at 7 or 8 and leaves at 10 to drink with the boss until 1 and expects to do this for one company his entire life.
So yes, consumer technology is a few minutes into the future, but Japanese society isn't necessarily "ahead", if such a concept even applies. But Western society would be better off for examining the Japanese to see what we've lost: the confidence that technology can still improve your life and is sometimes worth the cost.
Japan and GB are similar because they were both strong island nations.
Both cultures developed a "we are the best" culture because they were relatively immune to being conquered, and didn't have external ideas forced upon them.
With no frontier, both produced a culture of politeness, and a system that tolerated eccentrics (but not radicals.)
First, some credentials. I am of Japanese descent, and although I make my home in Canada, most of my family is still in Japan, and I've visited Japan at least a half dozen times.
Gibson makes the sweeping generalization that Japan is "several clicks down the time line" (and I'm sure he'll be first to admit that it's a simplified generalization), but I'd like to point out that there are some places where technology has made less inroads than in North America, at least for the common consumer.
Automobiles, for instance. You may scoff at that; after all, it was the Japanese car makers that gave American manufacturers a swift kick in the pants a few decades ago by exporting higher quality products for much less cost. But the per capita use of cars in Japan is far less than here in America. Here, it would be tough to imagine a 5-member family without a car. But it would be no surprise in suburbs of Tokyo or Osaka.
Now, admittedly, that's primarily because of the mind-bogglingly efficient train systems that are the envy of the world. But it goes to show that adoption of technology is not uniformly advanced in Japan.
Secondly, there is the technology that concerns us Slashdotters most: the personal computer. Adoption of the PC, E-mail, WWW, etc, were far behind in Japan. Game consoles have been common, but general purpose PCs have seen far slower acceptance. This might also seem bizarre, when the majority of the chips in our computers come from Japan (or Japanese companies). I think it has to do with language and culture.
In common households, you are most likely to see an ordinary refrigerator, a gas stove, two or three separate water heaters (one for the sink and one for the bathtub), a TV, radio, and maybe a game console if there's a young boy in the house. And oh, yes; one of those (in)famous fuzzy logic washing machines.
For regular folk, I don't think there's all that much difference between Japan and North America, technologically speaking. (Although I have to admit, those people who like gadgets really like their gadgets!)
--
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
TV say Donuts are high in fat
Kazoo
Found a hobo in my room
It's Pricess Leia
The yodel of life
Give me my sweater back
Or I will play the guitar
Hyakugojyuuichi!
Secondly, the article barely mentions America (other than a brief post-World War II period). It's about London and, secondarily, Vancouver. So all the comments about America's fascination with Japan, while interesting, show little relation to the actual article.
Gibson writes an article talking about the mutual fascination between the British and the Japanese. The American /. editors/readers then come along and assume he was talking about America instead?
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