Dogs and demons

As someone living long-term in Japan, this was, hands-down, the most depressing book I've read all year. Kerr's argument is that Japan is in the midst of "cultural malaise," with no real end in sight. The book is an impassioned laundry list of the (mainly structural) problems facing modern Japan.

Kerr raises the following as the foremost issues at the heart of Japan's perceived decline:
- pointless pork-barrel construction projects
- garish, misguided architectural design that ignores local flavor
- an educational system that focuses on mindless obedience and rote memorization
- an economy on the brink of collapse, plagued by creative accounting and fraud
- infantile pop culture (the cult of "kawaii" and the prominence of anime and manga)
- a monolithic bureaucratic juggernaut unconcerned with public need
- skepticism and resistance of internationalism

The list goes on, and it paints a very bleak picture. (I regret reading the bulk of this book on a gloomy, rainy Sunday.)

While the issues Kerr cites are--to some extent--visible to this longtime resident, his argument is far from ironclad. He presents a civilization circling the drain, while frequently using the United States as a counterpoint. However, since this book's publication in 2002, America has undergone a dramatic decline while Japan has more or less muddled through.

Kerr is careful to cite specifics to support his arguments, but he has a tendency to resort to a pretty broad brush when drawing conclusions. The Japanese educational system has some pretty glaring flaws, for example, but my experience with public education in the US certainly didn't leave me with any fond memories of freedom and acceptance of diversity.

The biggest turnoff about this book comes from Kerr citing the Edo period (1603-1868) as some sort of ideal for modern Japan to aspire to. Kerr must not be a student of history. The Edo period brought stability, popular culture, and the initial rise of a middle class, yes, but it's arguable that most of the positive aspects of Edo society developed despite the government, not because of it. It's simply bizarre to me that Kerr can spend much of a book bemoaning self-perpetuating bureaucracy, the rejection of internationalization, social "ossification," and mindless obedience to authority, only to get misty-eyed about a military dictatorship with an inflexible class system.

In the end I'm forced to conclude that, like many disillusioned foreigners, Kerr yearns for a Japan that never really existed. The problems he cites with Japan's society and government are certainly present (all the things that get me down about this country), but he offers no satisfying solutions, and his platonic ideal for Japan (Edo feudalism!) is only appealing when viewed through rose-tinted welding goggles.