Ichigen koji (93)
Posted by ampontan on Friday, March 2, 2012
一言居士
- A person who has something to say about everything
During the Edo period (1603-1868), when a townsman started a fight with a samurai, people would listen first to the townman’s side of the story. If they learned that the samurai was at fault, the samurai would take responsibility by committing seppuku (ritual suicide). Thus, there was a certain relationship of trust between the general public and the samurai.
In today’s Japan, however, the politicians and the bureaucrats, who correspond to the samurai of the Edo period, take no responsibility at all, even when they are political failures. The relationship between the policymakers and the people has collapsed. We don’t know who took responsibility for the events of 3/11 (last year’s Tohoku disaster). Therefore, can we not say that the system of governance was much more advanced during the Edo period?
- Nakano Mitsutoshi, professor emeritus at Kyushu University
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This entry was posted on Friday, March 2, 2012 at 6:00 am and is filed under History, Politics, Quotations, Social trends, Traditions. Tagged: Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Claude said
It’s refreshing when the Japanese question their own, publicly. I look forward to the day when they grab their balls and gather en masse in political protest and demand some real change in Japan. I suspect the country will have to be brought to its knees. You’d think an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crises rally the masses, but they appear as passive as always. I can’t imagine what it’ll take, complete economic failure?
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C: Thanks for the note.
Actually, the Japanese public is shaking things up, which I review in the post down the page titled This Could be the Start of Something Big. Expect more on that this week specifically, and in the future in general.
- A.