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Authors: George Mikes
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Vietnam war; others rebel against the older generation, though not
in the German manner. Their reproach is not ‘Oh, how could you do it?’,
the stricture of German youth; they feel that because the older generation
bailed, it is useless and has therefore nothing to teach them. The older
generation, in turn, refuses to listen to immature youth. It has never been the
forte of the elders of Japanese society to listen to their juniors. Today they
would not understand them even if they listened. ‘They never had it so good’ —
as a well-known Japanese saying has it — so what do they want? Many students
want to get rid of the present government; of the Americans; of the
establishment. A considerable number want university reform, and indeed the
system is not only silly and outmoded but also corrupt. Too many factions want
too many, often contradictory, things and these, in the view of many
professors, cancel one another out and turn student demands into nonsense.
Others point out in despair that many of these demands have nothing to do with
them. University authorities could, possibly, reform the system of entries; but
how could they end the Vietnam war?
‘They only want to destroy and
they have no idea what to put in the place of the destroyed institutions.’ I
have heard those words from professors scores of times.
Sometimes I replied: ‘But don’t you
agree, Professor, that if someone is genuinely convinced that something is evil
he will try to destroy it? He will regard the destruction of evil as a positive
step forward. Don’t you see that in such circumstances he will regard
destruction as constructive?’
Constructive destruction? They looked
at me as if I were either a dangerous anarchist agitator or an equally
dangerous madman.
Japanese students — or a small but
important section of them — are in revolt against a system, against society,
and above all, against a future which they regard as bleak and distasteful.
Their aim ? They aim at
themselves. They want to release themselves from the tyranny of the established
order; they seek humanity in a changing, electronic society travelling, as it
were, in space and eager to reach the repulsive barrenness of the moon. They
seek beauty and goodness in a world where people are not evil, perhaps not even
indifferent to these notions, but too busy to care about them. They seek
freedom: not necessarily political freedom of any specific kind, just simple,
human freedom. Freedom from the organizations which are already sharpening
their claws, ready to catch them for life; freedom from eternal discipline;
freedom from the rat-race; freedom from the oppression of the old ones. Japan is even more of a gerontocracy than most societies. Old men assume that there is
special merit in age — which is a general fallacy; the reaction of much-tried
youth is the belief that there is special merit in youth — which is equally
mistaken.
It is the riot-police who personify
the defenders of the hated bastions of power so the rebels put on their helmets
and fight the riot police. They don’t fight for the security of jobs; for
better conditions; for a materially more hopeful future: they fight against these. They will have the best jobs for the asking, anyway. Once they step on
the escalator, they will rise and rise fast and automatically, to great
heights, so long as they conform. But they revolt precisely against the grey,
eventless, rigid, conformist life which is in store for them on the escalator.
They also know that no great exertions are required from them at the
university. They will never fail: their failure, as I have pointed out, would
be the failure of the selectors and that would never do. But they want to fail or, at least, to be able to fail; they want to be tested; they want to
prove themselves. They want responsibility — the bogey of modern Japanese
society — because without responsibility a man can achieve nothing; without
responsibility a man remains
in the German manner. Their reproach is not ‘Oh, how could you do it?’,
the stricture of German youth; they feel that because the older generation
bailed, it is useless and has therefore nothing to teach them. The older
generation, in turn, refuses to listen to immature youth. It has never been the
forte of the elders of Japanese society to listen to their juniors. Today they
would not understand them even if they listened. ‘They never had it so good’ —
as a well-known Japanese saying has it — so what do they want? Many students
want to get rid of the present government; of the Americans; of the
establishment. A considerable number want university reform, and indeed the
system is not only silly and outmoded but also corrupt. Too many factions want
too many, often contradictory, things and these, in the view of many
professors, cancel one another out and turn student demands into nonsense.
Others point out in despair that many of these demands have nothing to do with
them. University authorities could, possibly, reform the system of entries; but
how could they end the Vietnam war?
‘They only want to destroy and
they have no idea what to put in the place of the destroyed institutions.’ I
have heard those words from professors scores of times.
Sometimes I replied: ‘But don’t you
agree, Professor, that if someone is genuinely convinced that something is evil
he will try to destroy it? He will regard the destruction of evil as a positive
step forward. Don’t you see that in such circumstances he will regard
destruction as constructive?’
Constructive destruction? They looked
at me as if I were either a dangerous anarchist agitator or an equally
dangerous madman.
Japanese students — or a small but
important section of them — are in revolt against a system, against society,
and above all, against a future which they regard as bleak and distasteful.
Their aim ? They aim at
themselves. They want to release themselves from the tyranny of the established
order; they seek humanity in a changing, electronic society travelling, as it
were, in space and eager to reach the repulsive barrenness of the moon. They
seek beauty and goodness in a world where people are not evil, perhaps not even
indifferent to these notions, but too busy to care about them. They seek
freedom: not necessarily political freedom of any specific kind, just simple,
human freedom. Freedom from the organizations which are already sharpening
their claws, ready to catch them for life; freedom from eternal discipline;
freedom from the rat-race; freedom from the oppression of the old ones. Japan is even more of a gerontocracy than most societies. Old men assume that there is
special merit in age — which is a general fallacy; the reaction of much-tried
youth is the belief that there is special merit in youth — which is equally
mistaken.
It is the riot-police who personify
the defenders of the hated bastions of power so the rebels put on their helmets
and fight the riot police. They don’t fight for the security of jobs; for
better conditions; for a materially more hopeful future: they fight against these. They will have the best jobs for the asking, anyway. Once they step on
the escalator, they will rise and rise fast and automatically, to great
heights, so long as they conform. But they revolt precisely against the grey,
eventless, rigid, conformist life which is in store for them on the escalator.
They also know that no great exertions are required from them at the
university. They will never fail: their failure, as I have pointed out, would
be the failure of the selectors and that would never do. But they want to fail or, at least, to be able to fail; they want to be tested; they want to
prove themselves. They want responsibility — the bogey of modern Japanese
society — because without responsibility a man can achieve nothing; without
responsibility a man remains
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