Dear All,

Many thanks indeed to Peter for initiating this fascinating and important
discussion. I did some work a couple of years ago looking at the way in
which ideas of 'sustainability' are presented in the Japanese school
curriculum (for primary and junior secondary). This was by way of a
preparatory 'country study' for a 2017 UNESCO report I co-authored on 'The
State of Education for Peace, Sustainable Development and Global
Citizenship in Asia' <https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000260568>

I broadly agree with the (rather depressing) comments that have been made
about the lack of attention to climate change in the education system
generally, and the factors militating against much discussion of this issue
in formal classrooms (at any level). I'm disappointed to see accusations of
'racism' flung at people for making this point. Of course, we should always
generalize with caution - but, generally speaking, it is fair to say that
open and critical discussion of the climate crisis is strikingly absent
from mainstream public discourse in Japan. And that certainly goes for the
school curriculum, too.

But one irony is that there is nonetheless probably still a prevailing
assumption here that Japan is a 'leader' in terms of environmental
consciousness. This is partly related to self-stereotyping notions of
Japanese culture as emphasizing the 'oneness' of man and nature - in
contrast to a 'Western' tradition seen as postulating an essential divide
between the human and natural worlds, with the modern West portrayed as
'exploiting' nature in a spirit of 'instrumentalism' and 'individualism'.
(Interestingly, China's Communist regime seeks to popularize a similar
dichotomy, with its current propaganda around 'ecological civilization' and
traditional 'Chinese values'. For a discussion of 'sustainability' in
relation to a supposed East-West cultural divide, see this exchange on the
'NORRAG' site: first this
<https://www.norrag.org/facing-the-climate-change-catastrophe-education-as-solution-or-cause-by-iveta-silova-hikaru-komatsu-and-jeremy-rappleye/>,
then this
<https://www.norrag.org/education-and-climate-change-is-blaming-western-modernity-the-answer-by-edward-vickers/>
.)

Kyoto, the Mecca of this brand of Japanese cultural/ethical exceptionalism,
is of course the city that brought us the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. It was then
at Japanese instigation that UNESCO launched the 'Decade of Education for
Sustainable Development' (2004-2014). But none of this has translated into
concerted efforts to raise public awareness of the challenge posed by the
climate crisis.

At a more 'micro' level, my own university is building its 'brand' around a
research agenda focusing on 'carbon neutral' technologies, energy
efficiency, etc. However, this seems aimed primarily at securing positional
advantage for the institution in the competition for attention from the
Ministry in Tokyo, or from the apparatchiks of the global 'rankings' bodies
internationally. There are hardly any solar panels on campus, and no
effective policy to encourage sustainable transport to and from the campus.
And when we recently shifted our entire campus from a location near the
city centre to a pristine, forested mountainside outside (uprooting /
dislocating trees, boars, bears, etc. in the process), voices of protest
were muted - amongst faculty, students and the local community.

Rather than reaching for explanations of all this in Japan's supposedly
'non-axial' culture, etc., I am inclined to agree with those who stress
politics: the entrenched institutions of 'illiberal democracy' (from skewed
electoral arrangements to the controlled media); the hyper-competitive
labour market, still rigidly structured around seniority, which forces
youngsters to focus on securing jobs immediately on graduation from
college... All of this strongly disincentives dissent from the established
way of doing things. Culture is certainly relevant - including classroom
culture, which, as others have pointed out, typically (but certainly not
universally) discourages open-ended, critical debate, while fostering a
somewhat suffocating 'group' ethos. But culture does not exist as some
immutable essence apart from politics (though that is often how it is seen
here - as elsewhere). Stereotypes about 'our' identity and essential
cultural attributes are continually reinforced by powerful vested interests