[lit-ideas] Re: What's happening in Japan
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 2 May 2005 09:51:11 -0400
> [Original Message]
> From: John McCreery <mccreery@xxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 5/2/2005 8:42:24 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: What's happening in Japan
>
>
> To the nation's aged political and business elite, survivors of the =20
> "burning generations" whose passion and dedication fueled Japan's =20
> post-WWII economic miracle, this situation is both frightening and =20
> appalling. Unfortunately, they do what frightened people often do, =20
> regress to the "solutions" of their youth=81\demanding a renewal of =20
> discipline, a return to the postwar society in which men were men and =20=
>
> women were women and women had more children and stayed home to =20
> educate them while their husbands went off to work as dedicated =20
> corporate warriors.
>
A.A. Clearly the Japanese have no concept of family beyond baby making.
From my relatively limited understanding of Japanese culture, I'm picking
up that today's Japanese "youth" tend more and more to live at home with
their parents. If one defines adulthood by the process of leaving the
family nest, then many of today's Japanese adults are still children,
living in the original family home. Some of the same phenomenon is also
going on in the U.S. In the U.S. the desire to stay in the family home
well into the 20's is apparently driven by our overall declining standard
of living. Buying a home is prohibitive for first time home buyers, for
example, and two incomes are all but mandatory. A little aside related to
this, and probably not news to most people on this list, is that life
expectancy in the U.S. has reversed itself. People born today have a lower
life expectancy than Americans born in the 50's and 60's, even when
sophisticated medical intervention is factored in. The lowered life
expectancy is driven by the high obesity rates at earlier ages. Americans
are also marrying later. At the moment we're riding on our baby boomlet of
the 70's and 80's and our high illegal immigration rates and their tendency
toward large families.
Regarding families, most of the world's concept of family doesn't rise much
beyond baby making and iron fisted control by males. I would argue that
there is a wisdom in not bringing children into the world that one isn't
committed to. It's hard for me to see how cracking the whip and forcing
unwanted children into the world will serve Japan or any country in any
positive long term sense.
Andy Amago
> I could go on forever, but this should be enough to think about for =20
> the moment. I am happy to try to answer further questions.
>
> John McCreery
>
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