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By Root 1232 0

gigantic office towers and fanciful museums of today are apparently projects that even small and poorly developed nations can easily do. As the twenty-first century dawns, the construction of huge monuments is no longer a proof of advanced civilization. In other advanced industrial nations, the advent of a new skyscraper these days rarely brings more than a yawn-if not outright opposition. But Japan seems stuck in a pre-industrial mode in which such monuments still invariably astound and amaze. It's Japan's old competitive streak in action, but not updated to a newer model of development. Therefore Japan must keep building more and bigger and higher and grander in order to impress its citizens that it has «arrived,» or, in the words of Nakaoki Yutaka, the governor of Toyama Prefecture, «so that people can feel they have become rich.» Monuments prove to people that they live in a successful modern state. But of course the real test of a successful modern state is the degree to which it rises above such trifling.

Why is it that monument building has triumphed to such an extreme in modern times, while Japan's strong tradition of «pure poverty» has been swept away like a straw in a gale? It's a case of breakdown and imbalance-and this inability to keep a balance lies at the core of Japan's modern cultural trauma.

A clue to the problem may be found in what I call the theory of Opposite Virtues. Nations, like people in this respect, may pride themselves most highly on the quality they most lack. Hence «fair play» is a golden virtue in Great Britain, the country that attacked and subjugated half the globe. «Equality» was the banner of Soviet Russia, where commissars owned lavish dachas on the Black Sea and the proletariat lived no better than serfs. The United States prides itself on its high «moral standard,» while perpetuating racial and moral double standards. And then there is l'amour in France, a nation of cold-blooded rationalists. Or Canadians priding themselves most on being so distinctively «Canadian.»

In Japan we must look at the time-honored ideal of Wa, «peace.» Wa means security, stability, everything in its proper place, «knowing what is enough.» Yet a persistent irony of Japanese history since 1868 is that for all the emphasis on peace and harmony, they are exactly the virtues that Japan did not pursue. At the end of the nineteenth century, rather than settling back to enjoy its new prosperity, Japan embarked on a campaign to conquer and colonize its neighbors. By the 1930s, it had already acquired a tremendous empire in East Asia; this inability to stop led to its suicidal attack on the U.S. base at Pearl Harbor, as a result of which it lost everything. Something similar is happening again. Perhaps Japan values Wa so highly for the very reason that it has such a strong tendency toward imbalance and uncontrollable extremes.

Prewar history and Japan's present rush toward environmental and fiscal disaster indicate a fatal flaw in Japan's social structure. The emphasis on shared responsibility and obedience leads to a situation in which nobody is in charge, with the result that once it is set on a certain course, Japan will not stop. There is no pilot, nobody who can throw the engines into reverse once the ship of state is under way; and so it moves faster and faster until it crashes onto the rocks.

The rhythm is predictable. In studying traditional arts in Japan, one encounters the classic pattern of jo, ha, kyu, zanshin, which appears everywhere, from the wiping of the scoop in the tea ceremony to the dramatic finale of a Kabuki dance. Jo means "introduction," the initial start of a movement. Ha means «break» – when the movement breaks into medium speed. Kyu means «rush,» the sprint at the end. These all lead to a full stop, known as zanshin, «leaving behind the heart,» after which another cycle begins. A simple English translation of this sequence would be «slow, faster, fastest, stop.» In the context of twentieth-century history, one might translate it as «slow, faster, fastest, crash.» Japan never rests at