The Great Deception

Mechanics and Structure of Deception

Although the above list of problem areas is hardly complete, hopefully it has captured some of the more important sources of confusion which must have arisen during the immediate postwar and subsequent periods and provided ample motivation for deception and myth making on the part of Japanese leadership and the public at large. Before going into the details of the myths which constitute the great deception, let us look more closely at some of the mechanisms by which they must have been created.

We have already discussed in brief the important role of the propaganda machine re-established by the Japanese government under the direction of GHQ. In addition we have mentioned the importance of daily interaction between a frightened and confused Japanese public and its unwanted guest and benevolent enemy -- the United States. In addition to these let us also consider the Japanese public school system, Japanese universities, Japanese households, the Japanese work place, and a small, but active number of independent foreign missionaries, entrepreneurs, journalists, and researchers.

Public Education

Let us consider first the Japanese public education system, which has earned a reputation for being one of the best in the world, but which fails in several important aspects acknowledged by many Japanese.

The postwar public school system as we know it today is a continuation of prewar institutions and educational reforms introduced under the Nakasone administration in the 1970s. Let us look first the prewar legacy. What we find is an academy-like atmosphere in which Japanese school children learn appreciation for other students, individual discipline, the importance of social ritual, a keen sense of group identity, and respect for authority -- this in addition to their basic knowledge skills. What they apparently do not learn is creativity, self-expression, independence of thought, and problem solving beyond the confines of carefully constructed puzzles with fixed outcomes. Such an educational climate is fertile ground for propaganda. Questions which are raised by students for which instructors do not have ready answers are either ignored, or labeled troublesome and passed over.

With the introduction of the Nakasone reforms competition among students intensified. Because long term success now depended upon students' ability to compete in rigorous examinations which test individual ability students' attention was redirected away from the group. These reforms stood in direct contradiction to the academy-like atmosphere of the prewar educational system with its emphasis on other awareness and group solidarity. As a result competitive tensions which undermine group spirit were introduced on the one hand, and contradictory educational goals which create confusion among both teachers and students have led to serious social problems.
Unfortunately the Nakasone reforms have not led to neither greater independence of thought nor better self-expression among students. By the time students reach the university they have become relatively passive creatures who seek favor with their teachers, stand aloof in silence, or struggle to keep pace with everyone else. Though many students have minds of their own which they develop outside of the classroom, much of this thought is either asocial in nature or abstracts completely from reality. Still other students are filled with good insights about themselves and their immediate surroundings, but they are lacking in scope with regard to the world and society at large. Under such a system, not only is one able to maintain the deceptions of the past, but one can create new ones as needed. Of course, now that the Japanese press is considerably freer, and a large number of private schools have come into being, myth building by the Japanese intellectual community is not nearly as easy, as it once was.

Ignoring the problem of deception, the Japanese system has many positive qualities from which the world has much to learn, but this is not the subject of this book -- albeit, only indirectly.

A Long Way to the Top

Another important Japanese institution which contributes to the implementation and maintenance of deception is the Japanese work place. Since employees often work for the same company or government institution for their entire lives, they become an integral part of a specific firm or bureaucratic culture. Moreover allegiance to their work environment is often demonstrated by spending long hours of overtime with one's boss and co-workers in the office, on the shop floor, or in a restaurant. This loyalty to one's place of work is especially common among male workers and tends to isolate them not only from their families, but also from society at large including the political arena. Thus, workers' interests tend to be narrow, and their ideas about the world limited in scope. When the Japanese worker finally does escape his work place, he is often at a loss about what he should do, or is looking for diversion rather than a new set of problems related to family, society, the environment, or the world. As a result he is susceptible to and desirous of simple explanations about these things which do not require a large amount of thought or inquiry on his part. Of course, as in corporate and bureaucratic cultures the world over, Japanese workers tend to share their views about the world with their bosses and coworkers. Because everyone spends most of his life in the same company with the same group of people, their collective perception of society at large is also highly constrained, and the individual worker's outlook further diminished. Moreover, because Japanese tend to do business only with people whom they know, their contacts with strangers outside of their own company is limited and their clients viewpoints likely similar to their own. Although top managerial staff tend to have a much broader outlook, because they participate in executive clubs and industrial associations whose members represent a wide variety of viewpoints, what these managers bring back to their offices tends to become that of their employees. If the consensus building, for which Japanese are so well known, is truly at work, then that which workers likely hear most from their bosses is likely the result of management consensus, and not the discussion which led to it. Thus, a small group of Japanese elite hold considerable sway over the opinions of a very large number of Japanese workers.

La Petite Bourgeosie du Japon

One of the things which must surprise many Japanese when they travel to the United States or other parts of the more industrially advanced world is the number of large stores in which consumers do much of their shopping. Although Japan has its share of shopping malls and large stores, the number of little shops, which cater to local community needs, is much larger than other industrially advanced nations. This is due to large store laws, which limit the space available to merchants and thus permit little store owners to remain competitive. Although large wholesale suppliers often exploit the allegiance of these small retailers, these latter tend to be more independently minded then salaried industrial and commercial employees. This is probably due to the fact that they run their own shops and cater directly to the Japanese public. Notwithstanding, politically they are constrained in very much the same way as salaried workers. This is because Japanese democracy is run by political parties whose organizational hierarchies favor the opinions of older politicians closely tied to the Japanese bureaucracy and corporate elite.

Politicians and Journalists

Unlike in other Western democracies, where politicians have large well-informed staff to guide their national representatives through legislative turmoil, Japanese staffs tend to be small and politicians poorly informed about the issues. By depending on well-informed bureaucrats to do their work for them, the bills which Japanese politicians introduce into the Diet are often less a reflection of public needs than they are bureaucratic responses to them. Because these politicians tend to be poorly informed about the issues the public debate in which they engage is often shallow or popular in nature.

Thus, Japanese politics tends to be little more than publicly staged popularity contests, which have much more to do with party image building and pork barreling than actual issues which are generally handled outside of public view in bureaucratic ministries. Often the Japanese press corps appears to be much better informed about important issues than their political counterparts, but much of the public debate appearing in the public media occurs only after the legislation has been drafted, introduced into the Diet and rubber stamped by highly placed senior politicians, who are not expecting strong opposition from younger Diet members. Certainly, the notion of life-time employment is not limited to large Japanese corporations and government ministries. Consequently, if you want to rise in the Japanese political world you must toe the established line from above.

As a result small store owners, like farmers, school teachers, civic groups, and just about anyone who depends upon the government to protect them, lean on those parties and politicians who can best represent their specific needs and interests to the national bureaucracy ­ the true power holders in Japanese government. As a result public debate rarely extends beyond that found in the mass media, few citizens participate in the democratic process, and public awareness about most issues is shallow. These aspects of Japanese politics make it easy to manipulate public opinion by those who have a mind to do so.

Guardians of the Peace

Still another characteristic of Japanese society which makes it particularly vulnerable to mass-scale deception is Japan's method of law enforcement.

Not only is the legal right to use force the sole domain of the police, but Japanese courts of law are largely inaccessible to all but the powerful and rich. In short, private citizens are not only denied the right to use physical force in self-defense, but the settlement of violent disputes is more likely to occur in a police office than a public court of law. Moreover, if the police suspect that a citizen has employed violence, no search warrant is apparently required for either entry or arrest. Neither are police officers required to wear name or number tags when they are on duty. Thus, private citizens have no way to identify poorly behaved officers who they retain through public taxex to protect them.

Once again, I do not want to pass judgment on the correctness of the Japanese system of justice; simply I want Japanese and foreigners to see Japan for what is -- not how it has been made to appear. Certainly there are benefits to a system which punishes both sides to a dispute. For example, two citizens unable to get along with each other are much less likely to enter into fisticuffs, if each knows he will be held liable for his own violent action, no matter who delivers the first blow. Even for the best of Christians, which very few Japanese are , "turning one's cheek" requires an enormous amount of patience and endurance. As a result conflict avoidance is the best social strategy for the average Japanese citizen. Accordingly, there are few ostentatious displays of violence in Japan, and Japanese crime statistics appear much lower than the world average. Many have argued that the violence is hidden. Although this is likely true for the average citizen in his daily affairs this is a terrific boon.

Although Japanese pride themselves in their ability to be patient, they are also aware of the difficulty of being so when they are physically threatened. As a result, difficult matters which have the potential to end in violence are either not dealt with directly or handled through third parties.
Because the police tend to become involved only after violent acts have occurred, and because Japanese courts are generally inaccessible to private citizens, unless they are wealthy or have strong political ties, many civil matters are left unattended or handled through one's employer.. This is because third parties must be both capable and impartial, if their judgment is to be honored. Such people are rarely found outside of the work place or home. Although there are community heads which can serve as third parties, they are often politically involved and thus unlikely to serve as good impartial judges. Even in such places as a restaurant or bar, where owners could often serve as impartial arbiters, these two are constrained in the same manner as other private citizens and may not exercise force should the need arise. Thus, one may conclude that difficult matters, be they of a civil or political nature, are either avoided, or left to those in authority.

Now you may ask what all of this has to do with mass deception and propaganda? In the West public debate often juxtaposes opposing sides to an issue in an effort to help citizens come to clear and informed decisions at the voting booth. In the West this same formalized discussion technique is also performed in countless informal situations as a means to clarify issues, make decisions, and focus discussions. Because this combative dialogue is not generally encouraged in Japanese society, many issues are left unresolved in the individual's mind, or only become settled when a higher authority intervenes and takes a stand, which by Western standards would be considered arbitrary, but by Japanese standards accepted as fact.

Although Japanese are often exposed to many sides of an issue, because they are rarely forced into a position of taking clear stands, much of what they believe is either vague or poorly thought out. Thus, Japanese behavior and thought often relies on well-established customs and traditions, carefully prescribed directives from above, or the simple miming of that which everyone else is doing so as not to be the protruding nail which must be pounded down. In general Japanese excel in detailed procedure, controlled experiments, and fantasy. The former appeal to the Japanese sense of discipline and logical rigor in carefully described areas of thought and behavior; the latter reflects the Japanese need for escape from the former. Neither of these proclivities is well-suited to good social science and well-formulated individual opinions about broad encompassing public issues. As a result Japanese depend on so-called experts who look for explanations which cater to established ways of thinking and are unlikely to meet with resistance from their colleagues.
If someone comes up with a new idea which many like, then others will build upon it until it becomes a well-established body of theory in its own right. The original idea need not be well- founded, it has only to appear as good science and appeal to popular opinion. It is this kind of knowledge which appears to be the basis for nihonjin-ron. Because direct challenges to such popularly accepted notions would be antagonistic or troublesome, unfounded formulations about the way things really often become a source of truth for those looking for answers but not in a position to find them on their own .

Protective Umbrella

Still another factor contributing to Japan's lack of social and political awareness is the continued presence of US troops in Japan. So long as Japanese continue to view themselves as an occupied nation, their attention will continue to be drawn toward the United States and away from their own nation as a vital player in world politics.

Economically speaking Japan is a powerful nation which exercises important influence on world politics. The flags of foreign nations hang regularly from the lamp posts in Nagatachô and Kasumigaseki announcing the presence of still another foreign leader visiting Japan in search of loans and grants-in-aid . Through these encounters the Japanese government must gather important information about the goings-on of other nations whose national governments maintain close political with the United States and Japan's other crucial trading and diplomatic partners. Moreover, through its financial assistance to these nations the Japanese government is able to secure firm commitments from their governments which it can later use in international forums to influence voting in its favor. Most of this activity is never viewed by the Japanese people until it reaches a point of crisis, whereupon it is covered in the international press. Nevertheless, a disinterested public with little participation in its national government is more likely to sit by and watch how its government responds, rather than actively seek to influence its policy toward these countries. What Japanese father or mother need be concerned that his or her only son risks being dragged into conflict in a distant land never to return?

Ironically, the Constitution of Japan, a legal document to which the Japanese government has even dedicated a national holiday, clearly states that Japan should not maintain a standing army. Nevertheless, in terms of the actual amount spent every year in its upkeep, Japan's armed forces rank second in the world. Where were the Japanese people while their constitution was being reinterpreted by its national lawyers?

When the people of Okinawa makes it clear that the US military presence has become a burden on their communities and natural environment, and the Japanese voting public barely blinks an eye, what should this tell us about Japan's national priorities? Many Japanese would like to see Japan become a sovereign nation capable of determining its own political destiny. Judging from the behavior of most Japanese few wish to be bothered. Notwithstandinng, a large round of applause could be heard throughout Japan when the national government said "No" to US demands for numerical controls as a means to monitor the outcome of trade negotiations between the two countries. On the surface it would appear that most Japanese citizens are more concerned with their relative economic status with the US, than they are with the welfare of their own citizens. Even this rings hollow though, when one considers that the same political party which has just dragged Japan through its longest economic slow down in postwar history still remains in power.
The Japanese economy represents some 70% of the entire economy of Asia, but where was Japan when it became clear that the only way to effectively bring an end to the crisis was to increase imports from those countries suddenly swamped with debt and could no longer repay? In a completely different vein, many Japanese would like to see their nation occupy a permanent seat on the United Nations' Security Council, but what Japanese parents are prepared to expose their children to the hazards of war which such a move would likely require?

What can one conclude from all of this? That either Japanese simply do not care, or they have been duped into believing that they are powerless and unable to bring about change even when it becomes necessary. It took almost eight years of near economic stagnation before Japan's financial leaders finally agreed that something was seriously wrong with the structure of Japan's financial industry and began implementing reforms. Japanese resistance to change in the face of an ever changing world suggests the absence of an effective political apparatus to effectuate change when it is clearly needed. Is this a problem of apathy, a sense of powerless, or simply an inability to put it all together? If it is the latter, than might it not have something to do with the inability to separate truth from fiction?

The Privilege of Information

Although we stand today at the threshhold of the Information Age, some of us are likely better to enter into it than others.

When a Japanese boy complains to his father on kodomo-no-hi that he his young and dull-witted and fed up with doing homework, the reason for his not being allowed to watch TV that day may be clear to his father, but not to the boy . Have I done something wrong? Does my father not like the programs I watch? Does he have a headache and needs to rest? Did my sister complain to him that I refused to help her with her homework, because I was to busy with my own? In the end the reasons are too numerous to mention, but the condition which led to the complaint remains unchanged ­ no TV.

Although the son may view his father's refusal as sufficient cause for rebellion, such is unlikely to occur, because the son knows that this would only make matters worse. More important to the discussion at hand, however, is the father's inability to provide his son with an adequate explanation for his not permitting his son to watch television. Although it is clear to the father that the boy must study, if he is to succeed in life, is not his standard for success the same which has jeopardized his own relationship to his son? In fact, if the father were to admit his inability to provide an adequate explanation, others including his own son might perceive him as weak. After all, is the father not simply doing, what he believes all other "successful" fathers to be doing with their sons.

Now extrapolate this same phenomena throughout Japanese society. Whether it is the student at school, the worker on the shop floor, the "sarariman" in his office, the patient at a private clinic, or the housewife visiting her local municipal office, the response is similar ­ this is the way things are done, and the sooner you get used to it, the better . Neither the teacher, the boss, the government official, nor anyone else in a position of authority feels obligated in Japan to offer information which threatens to compromise his authority, even if that information would improve understanding on all sides and eventually lead to a correction of the current problem. Moreover, it makes little difference to a Japanese whether the person in charge holds a public office or is privately employed; neither the person in charge, nor the person subject to that person's authority expects an explanation from the person in authority.

If an adequate explanation can be obtained elsewhere than it may or may not be sought, depending on how badly the denied person needs to know. In general the adequate explanation is likely to be "Don't bother pursuing the matter further, you are not going to change the way things are done anyway, so why bother to find out" . The all to obvious outcome of such an attitude is that figures of authority are rarely held accountable for their actions by those over whom they wield authority.
Just like the Japanese who hesitates to speak with a stranger for fear of entering into a discussion which he may not be able to exit easily, so too does the Japanese refrain from challenging the authority of those who wield power over him. One does not antagonize those who might someday arbitrate a dispute between oneself and another. Just like the boy who wonder's why his father told him that he could not watch TV on a national holiday set aside for children, so too does the student wonder why his teacher does not answer his question, the worker why his boss refuses his request, the patient why his doctor does not fully explain to him about the medicine he is taking, and the housewife why a particular government official demurs when she asks to have a copy of a document regarding her own family. In the end Japanese ask a lot of questions to themselves for which they receive no answers, or for which the only answers they receive are from other people -- people, with more experience who themselves are only in a position to speculate about the true causes. In such a world no one can know little about anything with certainty which one has not directly experienced himself or can be logically thought out within the limited range of one's own lifetime experience. One is so dependent on those in authority for what little one does know, one can be told just about anything, and finishes by believing, just so long as everyone else is told the same. Because many of the stories which are told are often barely credible a lot of gossip, speculation, and scandal are created, but no real debate occurs, because everyone is guessing and only those in authority have the facts. One has only to watch the Japanese evening news to see the outcome.

In the end the average Japanese withdraws from public discussions about social, government, and market issues and concentrates only on those direct experiences which he can share with his peers and his friends, read about in fantasy filled novels, or study in a book to pass a test written by the same people who only answer those questions for which they have pat answers.

Sensei

Without being overly repetitive let us now turn to Japanese academia, one of Japan's, and for that matter the world's, most conservative social institutions. These are the people who fill the void created between the figures of authority and those subject to that authority discussed above -- the one's who claim to know the world which is otherwise not revealed by those in authority. Who are these people, and who were they 50 years ago?

Since he is spends less time supervising others and has more time to pursue his own interests, the Japanese academician differs from other Japanese figures of authority. This is to say neither that there is no one who watches over him, nor that he has no one to supervise. Indeed, his success is often determined by his ability to produce written material which does not contradict those who have made his entry into the world of academia possible, and to cultivate a group of young followers who will support his positions as they mature, and are themselves brought into the academic fold.

Unlike his academic counterparts in many parts of the Western world the Japanese academician likely teaches at the same university where he was a student. This is because hiring graduates from other institutions invites opinion which may contradict one's own. Also, in order to avert disagreement among one's superiors and colleagues and still maintain a certain degree of independence each faculty member finds his own niche of thought different from that of others of his own institution. In effect each institution thereby creates its own little interpretation of the universe, which can only be challenged from the outside, but rarely is because of the relative absence of nation-wide independently refereed journals. Surely Japanese academicians attend conferences and participate on government committees related to their individual fields of interest, but what they do with the information which they receive at these gatherings is likely never challenged unless someone from another institution reads that particular institution's journals. In such a system objectivity can be achieved, but the objectification process is slow and awkward, thus insuring the relative sovereignty of each academician.

With a relative absence of nationwide journals, whose entries are subject to carefully selected review committees constituted by the nation's top experts, Japanese faculty are apt to be careless in their research and lack rigor in their application of scientific methodology. Japanese faculty, like university faculty around the world, are under extreme pressure to publish. Since Japanese faculty are not subject to strict nationwide peer review, the quality of that which they publish is likely to be highly opinionated, lacking in scientific rigor, and based on data drawn from dubious sources. After all, who is there to challenge their methods of analysis, data sources, and conclusions, but their own students, who will likely be unwilling for fear of reproach.

In such a climate of scholarship the press can easily intrude by selecting those author's whose opinions serve their own political and sensational ends, and other author's will follow, because they see an opportunity to increase their own popularity beyond the security of their own institutional confines. In the end, whoever writes in an easily digestible manner which does not contradict mainstream thinking, appears charismatic on radio and/or television, and has good connections, gets read and watches his ideas spread. Whether what he writes is well-founded in fact or methodology is not really important; he only needs to write well and agree with the popular mind.

Surface Communication

Going to the same sentô several times a week and exchanging aisatsu with your neighbors; watching the same people pass under your window day after day; living next to one's neighbors for many years with only an occasional exchange of greetings or even silence; chatting with business associates about national and cultural differences at an izakaya in a language which both sides to the conversation only half understand; sitting in for hours a kissaten listening to others discuss private matter of which you know little or nothing; riding for hours at a time in stuffy and stuffed trains from a company dormitory to one's place of work with a pair of headphones over your ears; playing loud music to the chagrin of fellow neighborhood residents in order to drown your woes and escape your fears; making purchases at a store counter to the tune of o azukari itashimashita and choudai shimasu , riding in mixed company to the top of Tôkyôtawaa and saying "Ahhhhh"; having your picture taken with your girlfriend in front of Kamakura's daibutsu or next to Goofy at Tôkyô Disneyland; listening to light Western opera at the Nissei Theâtre in Yurakuchô with barely a sign of emotion; talking to "gaijin" in one of Tôkyô's downtown red-light districts while drinking Guinness beer and discussing the nature of leprechauns; watching a Nô play while your lower members fall asleep from the boredom of your own body weight; listening to a Japanese or English interpretation of a Kabuki play while a fantastical white horse suspended from the ceiling rises above your head, "busting kanji " for hours at a time in a local public library so as to be able to translate abstruse government documents and ancient Chinese writings; or hopping from one ethnic restaurant to the next with friends whom one has known since childhood, if one is indeed one of those few lucky Japanese, who has not been geographically displaced several times during his employment, simply does not result in the kind of public dialogue required to pierce the veil of popularly held myths.

If the above were only a playfully exaggerated description of young, single, employed Japanese, I could rest at ease, but I strongly fear this is not the case. Moreover, it appears that it also resembles the level of communication between many Japanese and their foreign counterparts living in Japan, as well.

Although the number of non-Japanese residents who can speak Japanese has increased rapidly, there are few who can read a Japanese novel comfortably. Among those who can speak Japanese well, many of them have spent much of their lives with Japanese who have good command of English and are firmly entrenched in the same artificial international community to which foreigners, who were not born and raised in Japan, belong. Though much has been written about Japan in other languages (primarily English), since the close of the war the number of foreigners with sufficient experience to say that they truly know Japan remains incredibly small for a nation with such vast economic power. Moreover, of the written works which do exist many of them appear to go unread or build upon the distortions of others who wrote at a time when little was known about Japan or Japanese was the primary language of finding out and foreign knowledge of Japanese severely limited. As a result, much of what is known has been gleaned from a small number of carefully selected observers, each with his own set of unique professional biases and built-in national prejudices . Those who do have substantial direct Japanese experience often know Japan only through participation in a highly artificial international community dominated by English speaking Japanese and other English speaking foreigners. A community which appears to have been built to protect Japan from Western imposition in the postwar period on the one hand and facilitate economic reconstruction on the other.

Now you may be asking yourself what any of this has to do with the structure and maintenance of myth building? In the first place public discussion among Japanese is poor and public issues, which are not discussed publicly, are likely to be poorly understood, and in the second, discussion between Japanese and foreigners is severely constrained both by the limited nature of their encounters and by the knowledge base upon which those discussions are founded. Let us consider the first of these two points.

National myths are neither constructed nor disappear over night; rather, they build slowly over time until they become deeply embedded in the Weltanschauung (national psyche or ethos) of a nation's peoples. As such they are difficult to uproot even when they no longer serve a useful purpose, or in some cases have become damaging to a nation's forward progress. Japanese who depend upon the mass media to keep themselves informed about public issues, and who discuss these issues only among those with whom they are well befriended, are likely to be unaware of many issues of a public nature which affect them directly. This is because the information which the mass media provides the public is often shallow in nature so as to reach a broad audience, and because one's friends' experiences are likely to be just as severely limited as one's own. It is one thing for the public media to reveal the ignominious behavior of crooked politicians and ethical malpractice of certain business leaders and government bureaucrats, it is quite another for them to tell the general public that an important part of their belief system is out of whack. Moreover, there are many issues of a public nature which never appear on television or in the radio and national newspapers, because they are not sensational in nature, or they are not judged by the media to be important enough to discuss. One must not forget that the mass media of any nation is a product of its own national myths, and are not likely to perceive them any better than the public at large, unless of course they have significant overseas exposure. This brings us to the second point.

The presence of foreigners in any country is both a boon and a bane. On the one hand, they bring with them a set of beliefs and values which often conflict with those of their host culture. On the other, they, better than most native residents, are able to pierce the myths of their host nation. Because national myths are deeply embedded, they are often not an active part of our awareness; or alternatively, they make such an important part of it, that we would never stop to question their existence. When a foreigner comes to a host country he is confronted with many things which contradict his own biased set of values and beliefs. As a result, he is particularly alert to the logical inconsistencies of his host nation's manner of thought and behavior. The foreigner serves as a mirror to one's own culture, and allows us to see ourselves better. This reflection can only be accurate, however, if both sides of the dialogue are adequately exposed to one another. Although the quiet observance of another's behavior can often be very revealing, without inquiry as to the motivation for that behavior, one can never truly come to understand the conceptual framework which has induced it. When answers to such inquiries must pass through third parties, who may or may not have observed the behavior, the personal biases of these conceptual go-betweens are likely to lead to misperception on all sides. Such misperception is likely to lead to even greater distortion and thus further obfuscate the underlying myths, and the deception upon which they were built.