June 13, 2015 //
Neurotic Beauty: An Outsider Looks At Japan
is a fine addition to a long list of books that attempt to explain
Japan, what one observer has called the “most foreign of foreign
countries.” Berman succeeds in his explanation mostly by avoiding the
polarized industry of such explainers. To put
Neurotic Beauty in context, let me explain.
The Explainer Industry
Almost all books “about Japan” (I’m leaving out the 600 page volumes
on the geisha or the photo essays on whatever new trend is coming out of
Harajuku) fall into one of two categories.
The predominant narrative declares Japan a near-perfect place, an
epicenter of pure Zen that has whatever the author thinks his home
country lacks. The minority opinion is that Japan has come over the hill
and because of its poor treatment of women workers, warlike past or
economic hollowness or whatever, is doomed to be a footnote when the
history of modern civilization is written. Perhaps some sort of
Switzerland with much better food.
Berman asks: Why can’t both be true? Why can’t Japan be a place with a
once beautiful, encompassing culture of craftsmanship, that lost its
way in the modern world and, if it can find again what it really is
about at its core, become the first post-capitalist country?
A Cultural History of Japan, with an Angle
The book’s argument begins with a look at what Berman sees as Japan’s
cultural soul, craftsmanship. He details the relationship early
potters, sword makers and others had with their work, a desire to do
more than simply make something — a desire to create themselves as human
beings through a quest for perfection in their work.
Inklings of this tradition still exist in modern Japan, as anyone who has seen the documentary
Jiro Dreams of Sushi
can attest to. The sushi master requires his apprentices to practice
for years before they can prepare food for customers, and the very few
who stay on through the process get great joy
from the process, more so than the results.
Japan Went Insane
As the Tokugawa (for simplicity’s sake, the samurai) era was coming
to a close, Japan went insane, and abandoned all that, according to
Berman. Fearful of being turned into a colony of the west, as was
happening in China, the Japanese embarked on the Meiji Restoration.
Science and engineering became the sole point of education, aimed in
large part at building up a powerful military. Those forces, in
imitation of the colonial west, would be turned on Japan’s Asian
neighbors. Japan made itself almost literally overnight into as
rapacious an imperialist nation as it possibly could.
And at that point, Berman draws a straight line through Nanjing,
Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading right to the surrender
that ended WWII. But instead of finding its way back to something of
itself, Japan simply dropped capitalism in its imperial guise and picked
it up in its hyper-consumerism guise. The so-called economic miracle of
the 1960’s put appliances into homes and money into the hands of a
booming middle class, but did nothing to fill the soul. The lost
decades, and the current spiritual malaise in Japan as exemplified by
the hikikomori and otaku cultures, were as inevitable as the spring
rains which tear the cherry blossoms from the trees.
A Post-Capitalist Society
If you are at this point seeing some parallels to modern America,
that is clearly intentional on Berman’s part (one of his earlier works
is titled
Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire
).
Japan has been trying to “fill the hole” in its spiritual center for
nearly a thousand years, first with Chinese learning (including Chinese
Buddhism), then with a martial culture, then with imperialism, and, most
lately, with consumerism. None stick; they are all too unfulfilling and
incomplete.
The key difference between Japan and the U.S., however, is that
because it has a legitimate soul to potentially return to (from the day
the first Native American was murdered, America has been all about
appetite), Japan holds on to a chance that it may become the first
post-capitalist society, one where
living becomes more important than owning. This is a theme which will be not unfamiliar to readers of Berman’s last book,
Spinning Straw Into Gold: Straight Talk for Troubled Times
. In Japan, there is something to fall back on.
It is a tall order, and Berman remains unsure what path Japan will
take. Should it make the correct choice, however, the trope “only in
Japan” could come to represent something more than Hello Kitty junk,
bullet trains and cosplay.
Agree or disagree,
Neurotic Beauty is a compelling, scholarly, narrative well-worth the time of readers seeking a better understanding of Japan.
I make no secret of my respect for Morris Berman’s body of work; read more here.
- See more at: http://wemeantwell.com/#sthash.Se3YOzNe.dpuf
June 13, 2015 //
Neurotic Beauty: An Outsider Looks At Japan
is a fine addition to a long list of books that attempt to explain
Japan, what one observer has called the “most foreign of foreign
countries.” Berman succeeds in his explanation mostly by avoiding the
polarized industry of such explainers. To put
Neurotic Beauty in context, let me explain.
The Explainer Industry
Almost all books “about Japan” (I’m leaving out the 600 page volumes
on the geisha or the photo essays on whatever new trend is coming out of
Harajuku) fall into one of two categories.
The predominant narrative declares Japan a near-perfect place, an
epicenter of pure Zen that has whatever the author thinks his home
country lacks. The minority opinion is that Japan has come over the hill
and because of its poor treatment of women workers, warlike past or
economic hollowness or whatever, is doomed to be a footnote when the
history of modern civilization is written. Perhaps some sort of
Switzerland with much better food.
Berman asks: Why can’t both be true? Why can’t Japan be a place with a
once beautiful, encompassing culture of craftsmanship, that lost its
way in the modern world and, if it can find again what it really is
about at its core, become the first post-capitalist country?
A Cultural History of Japan, with an Angle
The book’s argument begins with a look at what Berman sees as Japan’s
cultural soul, craftsmanship. He details the relationship early
potters, sword makers and others had with their work, a desire to do
more than simply make something — a desire to create themselves as human
beings through a quest for perfection in their work.
Inklings of this tradition still exist in modern Japan, as anyone who has seen the documentary
Jiro Dreams of Sushi
can attest to. The sushi master requires his apprentices to practice
for years before they can prepare food for customers, and the very few
who stay on through the process get great joy
from the process, more so than the results.
Japan Went Insane
As the Tokugawa (for simplicity’s sake, the samurai) era was coming
to a close, Japan went insane, and abandoned all that, according to
Berman. Fearful of being turned into a colony of the west, as was
happening in China, the Japanese embarked on the Meiji Restoration.
Science and engineering became the sole point of education, aimed in
large part at building up a powerful military. Those forces, in
imitation of the colonial west, would be turned on Japan’s Asian
neighbors. Japan made itself almost literally overnight into as
rapacious an imperialist nation as it possibly could.
And at that point, Berman draws a straight line through Nanjing,
Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading right to the surrender
that ended WWII. But instead of finding its way back to something of
itself, Japan simply dropped capitalism in its imperial guise and picked
it up in its hyper-consumerism guise. The so-called economic miracle of
the 1960’s put appliances into homes and money into the hands of a
booming middle class, but did nothing to fill the soul. The lost
decades, and the current spiritual malaise in Japan as exemplified by
the hikikomori and otaku cultures, were as inevitable as the spring
rains which tear the cherry blossoms from the trees.
A Post-Capitalist Society
If you are at this point seeing some parallels to modern America,
that is clearly intentional on Berman’s part (one of his earlier works
is titled
Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire).
Japan has been trying to “fill the hole” in its spiritual center for
nearly a thousand years, first with Chinese learning (including Chinese
Buddhism), then with a martial culture, then with imperialism, and, most
lately, with consumerism. None stick; they are all too unfulfilling and
incomplete.
The key difference between Japan and the U.S., however, is that
because it has a legitimate soul to potentially return to (from the day
the first Native American was murdered, America has been all about
appetite), Japan holds on to a chance that it may become the first
post-capitalist society, one where
living becomes more important than owning. This is a theme which will be not unfamiliar to readers of Berman’s last book,
Spinning Straw Into Gold: Straight Talk for Troubled Times. In Japan, there is something to fall back on.
It is a tall order, and Berman remains unsure what path Japan will
take. Should it make the correct choice, however, the trope “only in
Japan” could come to represent something more than Hello Kitty junk,
bullet trains and cosplay.
Agree or disagree,
Neurotic Beauty is a compelling, scholarly, narrative well-worth the time of readers seeking a better understanding of Japan.
I make no secret of my respect for Morris Berman’s body of work; read more here.
- See more at: http://wemeantwell.com/#sthash.Se3YOzNe.dpuf
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posted by rangeragainstwar at 12:33 PM
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