Hi everyone!

Obviously there are multiple factors at work here, but rather than cultural

traits supposedly particular to the Japanese people, I would like to raise

a number of structural elements that help explain the present situation.

First of all, it's important to note that many if not most Japanese people

*are* concerned about climate change. However, the keenest awareness of the

true gravity of the crisis tends to be limited largely to highly educated

urban elites who regularly interact with English-language international

media and social media. Moreover, even these people often feel disempowered

to take action.

I would dispute that a lack of interest in abstract moral principles is in

any way peculiarly Japanese. After all, "all politics is local" is a

widespread English saying in the United States. Most people around the

world only find mental space to worry about things that affect their daily

lives.

In many ways, Japan is a victim of its own success in creating something

approaching a "universal middle-class society." Although inequality has

been growing in recent years, the majority of people are very comfortable

in their daily lives, and thus tend not to get involved in protest

movements.

Moreover, many people feel that Japan is already doing what it can to fight

climate change. After all, climate change is ubiquitously taught in

schools, climate denialism is non-existent in public discourse, Japan

signed the Paris Accord, and companies and the government are constantly

touting new initiatives to reduce their carbon footprint (even if this is

often not followed through or mostly just lip service). By constantly

talking about climate change, Japanese corporations have successfully

co-opted the issue in ways that avoid questioning mass- and

over-consumption. As a result, many people have convinced themselves they

are actually *fighting* climate change when they buy a new appliance, as

long as it is "sho-ene" or "energy saving."

Another issue is that one corporation - Dentsu - has been allowed to

dominate all corporate advertising across all types of media, resulting in

a near monopoly (or at the very least, Dentsu-centric oligopoly). This is

why Japanese TV commercials, for example, have massive budgets and look

amazing, while actual television programs have small budgets and usually

look like the do. The result is a very impoverished, monotonic media

landscape. Small media outlets with alternative viewpoints simply cannot

access the advertising money they would need to survive let alone thrive,

so mostly they don't get created. Imagine if the extremely conservative

U.S. Chamber of Commerce could decide which media companies live or die.

The government, especially through its quasi-control of NHK, also exercises

significant control over media narratives. A recent example was the

forcible ouster in 2016 of the only mildly muck-raking Hiroko Kuniya as

host of the political affairs show "Close-up Gendai."

Japan has also been highly successful in creating a society in which people

do not need to know any language other than Japanese. Combined with the

impoverished media landscape, this means that most Japanese people do not

have good access to global trends if the Japanese media chooses not to

report on them. Greta Thunberg writes and speaks in English, and thus her

global impact is primarily an English-language phenomenon. It's actually

not true to say that Japanese media did not report on her at all, but her

words have had much less impact in Japan, being that they are in English.

Another major factor is Japan's aged society. Combined with the persistence

of aged-based seniority systems in media and government, this means that

much older people tend to set the national policy agenda and determine

media narratives. And older people are less likely to report concern over

climate change not only in Japan, but worldwide.

But at a broader level, Japanese people, the state, and institutions have

collaborated since the 1960s to delegitimize and even stigmatize street

protest (and especially, strikes) and even "politics" in general. Japan

witnessed a long series of strikes and popular protest movements in the

1950s and 1960s, so we should be under no illusions that broader Japanese

culture precludes such actions and concerns. But the Japanese micro-culture

of the present historical moment perhaps does, as these earlier actions

ended in violence and societal disruption that many people ultimately

deemed intolerable. I talk about this in much more detail in my recent

book Japan

at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo (2018). Also along

these lines, I am organizing a panel on "The Politics of Anti-Politics in

Modern and Contemporary Japan" at next year's AAS conference in Boston.

Lastly, I would mention the structure of the Japanese education system.

Even setting aside educational content or teaching styles, Japanese middle

and high school students are kept incredibly busy with their "circle"

activities and attending juku cram schools, and college students are kept

busy with incredibly high-states "shukatsu" corporate recruitment. Insofar

as students have historically been one of the main drivers of protest

activity (the since-collapsed labor movement and leftist political parties

being the others), students no longer have much time to even consider

taking part in protests, and insofar as income inequality, structural labor

immobility, the dual structure of the labor system have raised the stakes

of landing a job right out the gate of college, students have become

increasingly conservative and risk-averse in their life choices.

Sorry for the long post, and thanks for the fascinating discussion. There

is more to say, but I'll stop here for now!

Nick

Nick Kapur, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Japanese History

Rutgers University, Camden

429 Cooper Street, Room 102

Camden, New Jersey 08102-1521

[image: image.jpeg]

<https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674984424>

<http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674984424>

On Mon, Sep 30, 2019 at 4:30 AM SSJ-Forum Moderator <

ssjmod@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp> wrote:

From: Brigitte Steger <bs382@cam.ac.uk>

Date: 2019/09/30

Dear Peter,

thanks for initiating such a timely discussion, and thanks for all those

who contributed their insights.

I don't have an answer, but want to add a few observations.

Last autumn, I conducted interviews on gomi bunbetsu, and also on how to

avoid plastic waste, traveling from Iwate and Fukushima to several

places in Kansai and Kyushu. Also visited waste facilities, local

government meetings etc. There are huge regional differences.

One preliminary finding is that waste reduction and waste sorting (as

well as environmental protection or indeed cleaning after an event) is

very much a question of what I would call 'good citizenship'. Perhaps

this does not go well with a school strike in a country in which 100%

class attendance is important. And the association of tōkō kyohi is not

really a school strike as political action.

I also observed quite a gender difference in environmental awareness, at

least among adults. Women - who are also in charge of sorting waste -

were generally much more aware and concerned with environmental issues.

- As is well known, postwar political activism on consumer protection,

family health and environmental issues has been mostly carried by

housewives. Their struggle has been legitimized by a moral imperative to

protect children (their own). This has empowered them to speak up

against the government and corporate authorities, but at the same time

limited their influence to domestic matters. Robin LeBlanc's Bicycle

citizen, but also Morioka Rika's article 'Mother courage' (in Gill,

Steger and Slater 2013: Japan copes with calamity) on mothers in the

Fukukushima are insightful in this respect.

Perhaps children are used to rely on their mothers to fight for a

healthy environment rather than fighting for themselves.

Brigitte

Dr Brigitte Steger

Senior Lecturer in Modern Japanese Studies

Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

University of Cambridge

Fellow and Director of Studies at Downing College

bs382@cam.ac.uk <mailto:bs382@cam.ac.uk>

On 29 Sep 2019, at 07:53, SSJ-Forum Moderator

<ssjmod@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp <mailto:ssjmod@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp>> wrote:

From: Sakari Mesimäki <sakari.mesimaki@gmail.com

<mailto:sakari.mesimaki@gmail.com>>

Date: 2019/09/27

Dear All,

I spent the summer months in Tokyo doing field work and interviews

for my master's thesis about how a community of young people are

trying to change what it means to talk about "politics" and "social

problems". I think my preliminary findings may provide some modest

insight as to why there is so little engagement with green politics -

or politics at all - among at least younger Japanese.

Many of my interlocutors shared Dr. Cabell's view of the influence of

education. Young people do not have a chance to discuss politics at

school, or at home, or anywhere else for that matter. They simply

memorize the facts of the political system.

Some interlocutors, who are taking an interest in politics and trying

to overcome the "taboo" on talking about it, are actually finding that

they don't quite know *how* to talk about politics! What if I disagree

with my friend? How should I handle such conflict? During the summer's

upper house elections there was a considerable "let's all talk about

politics" discourse, but also an apparent difficulty to understand

what it actually means, in practice, to "talk about politics" when you

have never done so before. I myself attended a political discussion

workshop arranged during the election period where the first rule was

that you are not allowed to express support for any particular

candidate or party!

There are a host of negative associations attached to discussion or

interest in politics or social issues. It's essentially something for

"ishikitakai" and "majime" dorks. If the political activity has any

ideological or activist flavor to it, it is also considered dangerous

and disruptive - not something for good citizens to take part in.

Interlocutors also told me of apparently popularly shared stereotypes

of the kind of person with strong political beliefs: aggressively

judgmental and incapable of cooperation.

My research focus is on a community of mostly middle-class creative

professionals who are attempting to reintegrate politics into popular

culture such as fashion and music to change the negative connotations

attached to politics into something more positive, such as "cool" and

"oshare". One example of such efforts is NEUT Magazine

(http://neutmagazine.com/) which has made this their explicit mission.

An interesting part of their brand and editorial approach is that it

is built around the idea of "neutrality". This simultaneously works to

make politics and social problems seem less divisive and approachable,

but also sustains the virtue of avoiding confrontation and conflict

which, arguably, is partly at the root of the allergy to participating

in politics in the first place. To exaggerate slightly, the most

legitimate and risk-free position continues to be not having any

position at all.

Although environmental activism was not my specific focus, I

interviewed one of the Japanese Fridays For Future activists for a

short article in Metropolis magazine

(https://metropolisjapan.com/fridays-for-future-tokyo/). He spoke a

lot about their struggle with negative stereotypes, and how they are

trying to get around these, such as by calling their action a "march"

rather than a "strike" and cultivating a positive, smiling public image