Interesting~ In terms of "packaging", your post made me think of clean energy efforts to soften a country's global image, deflecting away from other worrisome discourse. To your point on shifts in the existential, it made me think of Japan. While harmony 和 typically impresses foreigners, locals know that it's these hierarchical social obligations that hindrances progress in many ways.
In a way, "waking up" in the Japan context means shifting away from the traditional, perhaps somewhat opposite from China. And instead of gradual, could it be that these shifts can only be helped by sudden shocks to bring to surface the deeper, simmering undercurrents.
It's true in the sense that countries engage with "packaging" in one way or another, such that some other aspects of what's really happening in a society are often overlooked or unnoticed.
I think compared to today's China, Japan is much more integrated into the global system, whether in terms of the hard, infrastructural aspects such as the legal and the financial systems, or its soft power in terms of being aligned with universal values. I guess Japan has been doing well in terms of balancing its traditions and keeping up with global trends. Of course, there must be some tricky and worrisome social issues, and that's probably why adapting to changes is inevitable.
The US appears to be experiencing a transformation away from representative democracy to something close to totalitarianism or authoritarian democracy or perhaps a theocracy based on white Christian nationalism. Or something else — who can say at this point? But I’ve come to regard Substack with it’s myriad voices as similar to samizdat,an underground home of truthful independent thinking that helps counter the lies, confusion, dysfunctional bureaucracy, etc. which can generate feelings of powerless and despair. The subject may be macroeconomic realities or reframing political changes to reveal unstated consequences or slowing down and noticing the cup of tea you made yourself (hello, Kyoto!) but they are all, to my ears at least, voices of resistance.
Hi Max, Complex issues are highly contextualized, so yea - we need diverse shades of countercultures, each revolutionary in each in its own way! I've been through the external advocacy side, it takes time. Slowing down to speed up, this too, takes time but it's downright the most honest and enduring kind.
As you talk about the US, I'm worried about Japan. Given upcoming elections, anti-immigrant sentiments are certainly on the rise, are populist undercurrents creeping into the wider landscape? The irony as I'm off to collect my renewed residence card today. A cup of tea afterwards, perhaps.
Interesting~ In terms of "packaging", your post made me think of clean energy efforts to soften a country's global image, deflecting away from other worrisome discourse. To your point on shifts in the existential, it made me think of Japan. While harmony 和 typically impresses foreigners, locals know that it's these hierarchical social obligations that hindrances progress in many ways.
In a way, "waking up" in the Japan context means shifting away from the traditional, perhaps somewhat opposite from China. And instead of gradual, could it be that these shifts can only be helped by sudden shocks to bring to surface the deeper, simmering undercurrents.
It's true in the sense that countries engage with "packaging" in one way or another, such that some other aspects of what's really happening in a society are often overlooked or unnoticed.
I think compared to today's China, Japan is much more integrated into the global system, whether in terms of the hard, infrastructural aspects such as the legal and the financial systems, or its soft power in terms of being aligned with universal values. I guess Japan has been doing well in terms of balancing its traditions and keeping up with global trends. Of course, there must be some tricky and worrisome social issues, and that's probably why adapting to changes is inevitable.
The US appears to be experiencing a transformation away from representative democracy to something close to totalitarianism or authoritarian democracy or perhaps a theocracy based on white Christian nationalism. Or something else — who can say at this point? But I’ve come to regard Substack with it’s myriad voices as similar to samizdat,an underground home of truthful independent thinking that helps counter the lies, confusion, dysfunctional bureaucracy, etc. which can generate feelings of powerless and despair. The subject may be macroeconomic realities or reframing political changes to reveal unstated consequences or slowing down and noticing the cup of tea you made yourself (hello, Kyoto!) but they are all, to my ears at least, voices of resistance.
Hi Max, Complex issues are highly contextualized, so yea - we need diverse shades of countercultures, each revolutionary in each in its own way! I've been through the external advocacy side, it takes time. Slowing down to speed up, this too, takes time but it's downright the most honest and enduring kind.
As you talk about the US, I'm worried about Japan. Given upcoming elections, anti-immigrant sentiments are certainly on the rise, are populist undercurrents creeping into the wider landscape? The irony as I'm off to collect my renewed residence card today. A cup of tea afterwards, perhaps.