A few days ago, it occurred to me to ask why Japan got as interested as it did in science and technology after World War II. My thoughts about that, after not having done that much reading about it, are:
-Is it because the idea that a human leader can be a deity in any way was proven entirely false by Japan's defeat in World War II, which created a desire throughout the culture for lives built on unequivocal reality in whatever form it could be had? That was my first thought when I started thinking about it; I thought it was interesting because the United States continues to have an obsession with appearances and charisma rather than with more reliable criteria for leadership. In the United States, it is never certain that the people who deserve respect will be those who get it. The United States has yet to suffer a crippling, military loss by a foreign invader, has yet to be forced to structure its political or economic systems according to another country's directions. The idea that your hairdo and clothing are not necessarily significant factors in whether you can make good decisions about more important things has yet to be laughed out of American thought. We are a frivolous people too much of the time, and the idea that celebrity is not equivalent to divinity has yet to be decimated. The time when we will pay for believing it gets nearer all the time. I hope that we don't have to lose all of our freedoms before we realize that we're not that smart; I don't think that an outside invader would decide that we just aren't democratic enough.
-When you get atomic bombs dropped on you, you want to do better than anyone else at math and science for the remainder of humanity's time on the planet.
While I was reading about Japan today, I read this article:
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-20/japan-dumbs-down-its-universities-at-the-wrong-time
I wouldn't have published a page about Japan today if I hadn't read that article. I think the article discusses something really disturbing that just happened.
Copyright, with noted exceptions, L. Kochman, October 3, 2015 @ 4:29 p.m.
