Envision, if you will, a fertilized egg. It hardly matters what kind of egg it is, for no matter which animal has produced it where or what size it happens to be, most eggs are the same in their essential form and function. They are evolutionary adaptations to the simple fact that life is most delicate and in need of protection from the external environment in its very beginnings. If it does not remain entirely nestled within its parent organism throughout its gestation, the egg will have a hard shell to protect the life within from the harsh dangers about.
This affords that life the safety and security to organize and grow to the point that it is strong enough to break out of the shell, proving that it is therefore no longer in need of it. It is crucial at that point- and only at that point, that it does so.
At any time before that, any attempt to break the shell from the outside would put the life it contains at mortal risk. At any time after that, the shell would become overly cramped and eventually suffocate the life it was originally meant to protect. In many ways, culture is like the shell to the egg that is any given society. But in this essay, that society is none other than Japan.
The enduring eccentricities in Japanese culture are often attributed to the fact that Japan is an island nation which has been largely isolated throughout history. But it can also be correctly stated that Japan is a nation of islands, all receiving their fair number of cultural inoculations in the past.
That which occurred at the close of World War II may well be the most tragically heartbreaking visitation, but it was far from the only foreign influence until then. Japan has sustained multiple contacts with its neighbors and beyond through the ages.
Within Japan, cultural artifacts that trace back to externalities ranging from ancient Salem missionaries to Southern and Northern European traders to the aboriginal ancestry of those we now consider to be Polynesians and native Americans. As a nation known to the world as such, Japan may seem recent to the world stage. But the land of Japan has often enjoyed access to the world and has occasionally granted the world access to itself. As then, so now: Japanese culture does not avoid or resist foreign culture nearly so much as it may superficially celebrate it while fundamentally withstanding it.
At its foundation, The Great Wall of Japan is not nearly so physical as it is cultural… Not nearly so intellectual as it is psychological. The Japanese way of thinking, being and doing endures foreign influences because it continues to so effectively serve as a protective shell to the people and their sense of identity. Though not everyone does, within Japanese culture, one certainly may live a life free from many of the pressures of self-determination. It is entirely possible to grow to full adulthood or even old age with no opinions to share nor reason to share them (at least, in mixed company).
That there is a time and a place and a way regardless of the reason to do nearly everything assures that fewer decisions need to be made. All powers of discernment may be focused on answering but one question, “what should a Japanese person do in this situation?” If there is no apparent answer to that question, it is the wisdom of patience to wait until the answer is forthcoming.
So we find in Japanese culture a shell that is in itself so well organized and developed that it protects the life within from the very necessity to grow. The danger is in the prospect of an egg so proficient at being an egg that it never does hatch. For an egg that does not hatch in the fullness of time becomes less and less of a living thing and more and more food for living things to eat.
As important as security is, it must never be confused with comfort. Growth is not a response to relative comfort but sufficient discomfort. Leaving us with questions regarding the Great Wall of Japan: Will it somehow bring about in Japan a people who freely choose to grow and evolve in the absence of any apparent pressure to? Or Will the Great Wall of Japan itself make life so unbearably uncomfortable that they have no choice but to outgrow it?
Morning commuters crowd into a full train at Shinjuku station during rush hour, Shinjuku district, Tokyo, Japan
It would indeed be unwise to underestimate the staying power of Japan, its people and its culture. This ethos, so steeped in the ideal of keeping things the same, has many times shown remarkable flexibility and ingenuity in the face of the challenge to change. There is a fighting spirit in Japan that may just be starting to reveal itself to the world in meeting modern problems to such an end that the world is made better by it. The only thing that is certain is that any change that does occur must occur first and foremost to Japanese people in and of themselves.
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