> Japan is an amazing well oiled peaceful machine that just requires A LOT of paper work to get going.
One has to wonder if that paperwork is an essential cause of such a peaceful state. It might well be channeling (male) energies that could otherwise end up unsettling society.
When even criminal cartels are highly-formalized, one has to wonder if the acceptance of ritualistic forms of bureaucracy is a key to the "dynamic stillness" of Japanese culture.
Are you arguing paperwork is placating men who would have otherwise been criminals and revolutionaries? That's certainly a take but it'll need a lot of convincing to believe it.
The bureaucratic ideals tend to flourish in cultural systems that value order, as the Japanese one clearly does. If it's accepted that the collective is superior to the individual, as Meiji-era culture drilled deeply into every level of society, the next best question becomes how to organise such collective - enter bureaucracy. If one accepts he has to partake in bureaucracy for the good of the collective, one might eventually get to value the rituals in themselves, and the structure and order they provide, and feel a sense of belonging. Coupled with substantial guarantees of social solidity (job for life, always-increasing wealth levels...), this setup removes a lot of anger and criticism from the system, making it even more stable, in a virtuous cycle.
Obviously nothing is permanent, and various economic crisis have significantly dented this model, but I reckon it still does a lot to placate the kind of unrest that we give for granted in the West - where bureaucracy is reviled by the individualistic "animal spirits" we exhalt since the times of Homer.
> this setup removes a lot of anger and criticism from the system
It could also have the opposite effect, if citizens uphold their end of the bargain and the government doesn't; this is why I think there is more to this wrt competency on the government side.
Okay, I'll admit I had the same reflexive skepticism to your initial comment as the person you're replying to. . . and your very well-reasoned, detailed response is emblematic of the reasons I keep coming back to HN.
Japan was a very aggressive empire not even two generations ago, yet OP claiming that "Meiji-era culture values" are responsible for its current peaceful attitude passes for "well-reasoned"? What a load of IYI crap.
Just as a counterexample: Germany is also known for its love for bureaucracy, its tendency to submit to authority and for the constant, loud, bite-less protesting. No amount of bureaucracy has helped to "channel (male) energies" elsewhere.
I think it goes lost that my original comment said "an" essential cause, not "the" cause. Obviously social systems are complex creatures, and isolating a factor does not mean excluding all the other ones.
> Japan was a very aggressive empire not even two generations ago
Aggressive externally but peaceful internally, which is really what we're talking about. Probably as a reaction to centuries of brutal internal warfare, since Meiji internal cohesion has been emphasized above most other things, and it has held in a way that we've not yet seen in Europe on a comparable scale.
> Germany
Interesting mention, because German practices and values were among the most significant ones "imported" under Meiji; Germany had recently made a massive social and technological leap forward, precisely the sort of thing the Japanese wanted to make (and did make), and Germans were extremely self-assured. However, Germany lies on a cultural bedrock of fundamental individualism, like the rest of Europe, and various factions were soon clashing in the streets in the name of various ideologies, with the result we all know. I think a lot of Germans would find your "bite-less protesting" as a mischaracterization: German movements have been very, very bitey, before and after the various recent conflicts, producing (and exporting) terrorists and disruptors pretty regularly.
> Obviously social systems are complex creatures, and isolating a factor does not mean excluding all the other ones.
Yet here you are, defending the idea that we would be better off by leaning heavier into bureaucracy and collective compliance as a way to "internal" peace.
> Germany lies on a cultural bedrock of fundamental individualism (...) a lot of Germans would find your "bite-less protesting" as a mischaracterization.
Great. Now try to explain Switzerland. They are not exactly known for a "love of bureaucracy" or "the (national) collective taking precedence over the individual", yet they managed to get peace (internal and external) through centuries.
Do you see my point? You are trying to attribute to "bureaucracy" something that can be attributed to a bunch of other things. It is a bad generalization and a basic fundamental attribution error. This is what smells of IYI crap.
> defending the idea that we would be better off by leaning heavier into bureaucracy
I think you're projecting a lot, trying to put words in my mouth and being unnecessarily aggressive.
I've been very careful not to make any judgement of superiority of this or that system throughout this thread. I pointed out several times that the Japanese experience is very unique, and in many ways probably and fundamentally unaccessible to us in the West. "We" cannot be "better off" doing this or that because "we" are not Japan; they seem to have found a formula that works for them, and it's interesting to note how the various elements interconnect in such formula. One of those elements is the somewhat-ritualized bureaucracy, and my point is that it seems to contribute significantly to the success of that model in those circumstances. Obviously I'm not advocating mindlessly trying to replicate that elsewhere, nor am I stating that bureacracy is a necessary condition for social peace - this is just a strawman you are erecting for your own personal reasons.
> Great. Now try to explain Switzerland.
Did you even read my posts above? Scale is important when comparing such systems, and I was very careful to caveat my statements on this throughout, because I knew somebody would eventually bring up Denmark, Norway, or, well, Switzerland.
The Swiss Federation contains barely 9m people, with 211 p/sqm; Japan has 125m, with 333 p/sqm. Obviously we are talking about different orders of magnitude. It's not terribly difficult to get a block assembly to agree on something (still not easy!), but getting the whole city to agree on anything is a different ballgame.
I remember past conversations with you where you claimed that EU's bureaucracy should get credit for changes that would've happened naturally on the market. Here as well you are arguing that bureaucracy is the reason to Japan's "peace", when there are plenty of possible alternative answers.
Just as an example, you could have at least try to attribute Japanese/Scandinavian/Swiss "peace" to the relative homogeneity of their populations and their cultural oikophilia (which gets often mistaken for xenophobia). It would be a much simpler explanation for the commonalities among different people, independently of scale and independently of any silly distinction between "external" and "internal" aggressiveness.
But instead of just considering Occam's razor, you start with a conclusion and then you try to build a narrative that gives some kind of support to it.
> One has to wonder if that paperwork is an essential cause of such a peaceful state. It might well be channeling (male) energies that could otherwise end up unsettling society.
Don't know where I should start. These two sentences do not make any sense. France and the Soviet Union are/were highly bureaucratic states, they do not seem to be revolutionary-free or that successful. And that "male energy crap" doesn't really mean or exist anywhere beyond these "alpha-chad" forums.
Peace happens when a majority of people accept the status quo. This is usually coupled with a ruler (or a government) that has laws that are compatible with the social expectations of said population.
Japan is not a particular exception. During its history (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Japan), it had its fair share of violence, revolts and internal conflicts. It also had periods of peace, like the one they are experiencing it right now.
> When even criminal cartels are highly-formalized, one has to wonder if the acceptance of ritualistic forms of bureaucracy is a key to the "dynamic stillness" of Japanese culture.
I think that if anything was to destabilize Japan it would be its inability to reform its bureaucracy. That being said, I don't think it's as bad as people think it is. You shouldn't look at bureaucracy as only government papers but the whole process of operating there. Japan is still a very efficient country and they do lots of things efficiently. Would you rather spend 30 minutes filling paper work and have fast public transport; or fill no paperwork and spend 1.5x250 hours on traffic jams?
To be short, the evolution of Japan during Meiji and the remarkable social cohesion that it has produced since, in my opinion, simply cannot be compared with the European experiences you mention. One of them does not even exist anymore, so it has clearly failed (and lasting barely half the time "modern" Japan has existed). The other is much less rigidly formal than the Japanese version, and has much wider social differences and inequalities as outcomes.
> that "male energy crap" doesn't really mean or exist anywhere beyond
Call it what you want, the reality is that violent action and unrest is a very male thing (and typically performed in summer, but that's another story). Look at videos of riots pretty much anywhere and you'll quickly see the overwhelming majority of actors (both among rioters and authorities) is invariably male.
History shows us we can have social systems where all women are effectively treated as slaves, lasting centuries; the other way around, eh, not so much. Surely there is a reason for that. (This does not mean society should indulge anyone's "appetite for destruction"; I'm just pointing out that shit-stirrers tend to be men, so if you can keep men busy, chances are that you can also keep the peace for longer.)
> Would you rather spend 30 minutes filling paper work and have fast public transport
Oh, absolutely - I never implied that bureaucracy has to be inefficient. Efficient bureaucracy can be tremendously effective, but typically it is efficient only when its cogs "believe" in the intrinsic value of having an efficient bureaucracy. My point was that such belief seems much stronger in modern Japan than in most other countries.
Japan's well oiled and peaceful machine comes from a thousand little things that everyone cooperates on. Only areas with large numbers of foreigners have trash cans in public (and still have litter issues). When you walk into a grocery store during a downpour, you do your best to dry off and leave your wet umbrella at the fire. If young people are whispering too loudly, someone will ask them to quiet down and they will listen. Mutual trust and respect that comes with a tightly knit and homogenous society.
I don’t mean to bust your bubble, but I live in a town in Japan with basically no foreigners, but there’s plenty of litter and it’s gotten substantially worse since COVID started and the few foreigners that were here all left.
Beaches are also getting dirtier and dirtier with people having parties and just throwing plastic bottles, alcohol cans, food packets, etc wherever they please. Quiet places far from town I used to visit 2 years ago turned into absolute dumps this past year.
Takayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Fuji, Tokyo, and Nagoya were most definitely full of tourists.
Kyoto and Takayama in particular were probably half tourists by population 2 years ago. Those towns are virtually ghost towns now that Chinese tourists are gone.
Visiting places with no foreign tourism and driven just by local industry, like Toyohashi or Yokkaichi or small islands, and you'll see considerably less cleanup efforts. Even going through Tokyo at 4 AM looks very different from Tokyo at 8 AM after some cleanup is done.
They must be, because you're a white liberal living in rural Japan and you know everything about the country. Those major cleanup efforts in small village like Bizen and Miyoshi are definitely just to impress the tourists. Crazy to learn that Nagoya is actually a tourism city, too. You're definitely not a jackass.
I don't think its the paperwork necessarily. In my opinion it entirely boils down to individualism. Japan is peaceful because in general everyone values societal harmony. If you are going to step out of line, there better be a good reason for it. In the US, the individual reigns supreme, and society is exists only so far as it makes things better for you individually. Even many of the more collectively minded political movements in the US seem to by hyper-focused on individualism, comparatively.
There are tradeoffs. Japan tends to have more entrenched bureaucracy, more stringent cultural norms, etc. But it is also far more safe, harmonious, and, in my opinion, pleasant, than the US.
One has to wonder if that paperwork is an essential cause of such a peaceful state. It might well be channeling (male) energies that could otherwise end up unsettling society.
When even criminal cartels are highly-formalized, one has to wonder if the acceptance of ritualistic forms of bureaucracy is a key to the "dynamic stillness" of Japanese culture.