2009 was an eventful year for Japan, and some even say a watershed year. The LDP was finally ousted after (essentially) 54 years in power. The 裁判員制度 (the jury system) took effect and the people began to reluctantly acknowledge their duty as citizens.  The government tried to combat recession by handing out 12,000~20,000 yen to the people with 定額給付金 (a government cash handout), and by using the ubiquitous point card concept as an incentive to buy eco-friendly products through エコポイント (the Eco Point system), all of which was very big in hype but not so effective in improving economic conditions. In the media, a host of magazines went under (most notably no less than 4 opinion magazines), the newspapers struggled to stay afloat, and the television stations pretty much failed in their attempts to transition to the internet. The 日本漢字能力検定協会 (Kanken, the people administering the Japanese Kanji Aptitude Test) deemed 「新」(shin, the kanji for “new”) to be the kanji of the year, that is, the kanji best reflecting the times.

Many people say that a paradigm shift is underway, that 10 years into the 21st century we’re finally beginning to part ways with the antiquated ways of the 20th. On a global scale, I don’t disagree with that. Even in Japan, the landscape has definitely changed, but what about the people? The stereotypical image of the Japanese is that they are quiet, respectful, and are so reserved concerning their own opinions that it is sometimes in doubt as to whether or not they even have one. If you divided the world into active and passive people, the Japanese surely fall into the latter. Are the events of 2009 evidence that this is no longer the case? Has the Japanese public changed? 

The Japanese public

Unfortunately, the Japanese public (and consequently Japan as a country) is changing much too slowly to keep up with the rest of the world and I’d even go so far as to say is in danger of being left behind. Yes, it was the Japanese public in the 2009 general election that finally threw the LDP out of power, but it wasn’t so much the result of a smarter, more politically astute public finally standing up for its own interests than it was just another result of trends, fads, and empty groupthink. Self-help books have been selling like hotcakes, warning the reader of the changing times and stress the importance of survival tools such as 論理思考力 (critical thinking skills)、地頭力(creative thinking skills)、問題解決力(problem-solving skills)、but the original purpose of promoting personal development has turned into a self-help book fad where everybody seems content to just go through the motions without understanding or applying the methods within.

That’s not to say that there aren’t any critics voicing  their opinions, or that the general public isn’t feeling frustrated or even enraged with the current state of affairs. Too often, however, the musings of the former remain commentative rather than instigative, and the fervor of the latter quickly degenerates into populism for populism’s sake. The public is so quick to jump on the bandwagon that curiosity and inquiry never have time to take root; nobody ever takes the time to ask “why?” As I see it the main factors contributing to this mindset can all be traced to post-war conditions in Japan and the road it took to national recovery up until the bubble burst in 1989, something I hope to cover more extensively in a future post. Skepticism (懐疑論) as a movement does exist in Japan but is at best still in infancy and at worst stillborn, with no substantial following to speak of and practically no intersection with the day-to-day life of the average Japanese.  At this rate, though Japan may keep up with change in a superficial sense, the hearts and minds of it’s people will still be, as is often said, 10 years behind their Western counterparts.

The place of science in Japanese society

Japan does have its share of great public intellectuals, but one thing I’ve noticed is that even when critical thinking is expressed through the media, it is usually limited to politics, economics, and broad social issues, and  hardly ever in the arena of science and medicine. Science is considered a completely separate issue from these more “mainstream” interests, which is best exhibited by the fact that in Japan, everybody is either 文系 or 理系 (into the humanities, or into the natural sciences). Though this may be unavoidable from an academic standpoint, it fosters a pigeonholing attitude that sees cultural literacy and scientific literacy to be mutually exclusive.  Ironic considering that for most of my lifetime whenever the conversation turned to education people always had praise for Japan and how well Japanese students scored on science and math aptitude tests, but then again, the education system conveyor belt was completely outdated by the end of the 1980′s and ゆとり教育 (yutori education) has only whittled away what little legitimacy it had left. Ironic when Tokyo’s image is as this futuristic, technology obsessed neon paradise, but then again, being tech savvy does not necessarily mean you’re scientifically literate.

So, while leading thinkers do talk about the importance of critical thought in modern society, it is often limited in scope (that is, it is only advocated as it pertains to the subject presented by the speaker) and not a presentation of skepticism or the scientific method as a way of looking at the world around us. Furthermore, the popularization of science still has a long way to go in Japanese society, as the 文系・理系 (humanities-sciences) false dichotomy needs to be broken down and science elevated to a position more valuable than mere trivia. 

The lack of skepticism in mass media in general and Japanese culture lost in translation

While Japanese media is especially lacking in skepticism (this is partly a due to the way the Japanese press works), the news that comes out of, or is brought up in foreign media about Japan is just as lacking, and insight on the cultural and historical underpinnings are almost never addressed. Most often than not I find that news on Japan (or on most Asian countries, for that matter) only makes it to the mainstream elsewhere when it fits the stereotypical “backwardness” or “wackiness” so often used to characterize Japan.  

Granted, I recognize that this image is not simply a product of foreign bias (not to mention Japan itself does nothing to correct skewed views that others may hold abroad) and I am in no way trying to downplay the fact that Japan, Japanese culture in general, and Tokyo specifically can often be fantastic or eccentric. After all, it’s a country where a nearly 1,500 year old imperial family coexists with a modern (in the general sense of the word) government.  It’s a country where many businessmen spend their evening commute home reading comics. It’s a country where a former PM that apparently isn’t too learned in his kanji finds it prudent to profess his love of manga as an appeal to the masses. It’s a country where a couple getting married will begin the ceremony in traditional Japanese attire while all their relatives sit around them in Western dress. And it’s a country where books on blood type become the year’s number one bestsellers.

Note: This post originally started as I was writing the description of what this blog is about. As I was writing it became more of a commentary on skepticism in Japan, so I decided to post it as a blog entry. It is by no means complete, and I plan to expand and expatiate in future entries as I gain more knowledge and insight on the issue. Also, I will use an edited version of this in my blog description (about).

A couple of weeks ago the Fukuoka headquarters of a religious group called 新健康協会 (Shinkenko Kyokai, rough translation: New Health Society) was raided by the police following the arrest of parents on suspicion of medical neglect which led to the death of their 7-month-old son in October of last year. The child was found underweight and covered in blood, with wounds and pieces of 和紙 (a type of Japanese paper such as that used in origami) all over his body. Investigations show that he died from blood poisoning caused by the spread of an infection due to atopic dermatitis, a kind of eczema. While being questioned in custody the parents reportedly said “we thought putting our hands over him would heal him.”

Shinkenko Kyokai began in 1955 as an offshoot of 世界救世教 (Sekai Kyuseikyo, or the Church of World Messianity), a new religion founded in 1935 by Mokichi Okada. Both groups have as their core belief the concept of 浄霊 (Johrei), which in this case refers to the act of using one’s hands to channel “divine light” into the body of another in order to heal and cleanse that person of “toxins” (within the group Mokichi Okada is called 明主様, or literally, “Lord of Light.”). These toxins come from a number of things, but mainly–you guessed it–medicine. A member of the group is quoted in 1/28/10 issue of 週刊新潮 (Shukan Shincho, one of Japan’s most widely distributed weeklies) as saying that they believe “hospitals are evil, and medicine is poison.” The 和紙 found on the body is called 御霊紙 (spirit paper) and is supposedly a high-level 浄霊.

According to the article in 週刊新潮、3 similar incidents occurred between 1997 and 1999: a 3-month-old infant that died of tuberculosis, a 15-year-old that died of pyelonephritis after leaving his kidney failure untreated for 5 years, and a 6-month-old infant that was suffering from severe atopic dermatitis that could have died if it weren’t for the intervention of doctors. 

Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that this will result in any action to prevent this kind of thing from happening again, and I’m willing to bet that it won’t so much as phase the 浄霊 believers the world over. Although the 新健康協会 website has apparently been taken down, most of the reporting on this was in local newspapers, and not much else has come up on this story since the police raid, so I’d say the Japanese public is still greatly indifferent to the possible dangers of CAM (complementary and alternative medicine). The typical response is something like “What’s the harm? You should let people do whatever makes them happy,” and with the LOHAS craze that’s been spreading here in Japan in recent years some go so far as to say that they’d rather go to a doctor that looks at their “entire body and spirit as a whole” and fails to give them a cure than go to a “normal” doctor that coldly prescribes medicine that will cure them. Setting the logical fallacies in their arguments aside, incidents like these show exactly why the “what’s the harm?” attitude is so naive. 

Medical negligence is a crime, yes, but that’s more an after-the-fact measure than a preventive one. Too often the Japanese media fail to discern the urgency and the significance of these issues, and when they do bring them up it’s usually done in a way that disingenuously portrays CAM to be a viable alternative to modern medicine. It’s not an alternative, it’s the opposite, in that the opposite of something that works is something that doesn’t work. In this blog I hope to take a skeptical look at these issues (while broadening and deepening my knowledge of them at the same time).  

As reported in English:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100115b2.html

As reported in Japanese:

http://www.nishinippon.co.jp/nnp/item/146110
http://www.nishinippon.co.jp/nnp/item/146268