Does Japan fear a philosophy of "enjoying life"?

An article titled "The Pursuit of Real Leisure" in the Japan Times today by SCOTT NORTH Professor of Sociology, Osaka University leads to the question above.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20120717hs.html#.UATEtnD6J7c

(From the article" "Today Japanese, like many other denizens of industrial societies, live to work. Nearly everything is a job to be done and our jobs define us. Japanese universities are filled with "intellectual workers." We value only that which requires struggle and hard work.

In this functional perspective, leisure is useful only insofar as it enables workers to work more. Moreover, much of what Japan calls rest is overpriced imitation of Western leisure, such as overseas travel, or sports, such as skiing and golf. The rest is mere entertainment, in which the machinery of amusement and media of mass distraction train the populace to be inattentive consumers.

Real leisure, on the other hand, is free, conscious activity that takes our lives as its object. In Pieper's vision, leisure enables appreciation and contemplation of the divine; it is stillness and quiet in which we can see truths and apprehend the mysteries of existence."

Why are Japanese unable to feel that they are "working to enjoy life", rather than resting to work? Why do people seem to feel they are "living to work" rather than "working to live"?

The article is one part of a series of opinions regarding the issue of overwork in Japan. I think most Japanese will agree that Japanese companies tend to believe that taking long vacations or leave or leaving on time at 5pm in order to enjoy life would violate the company culture and make it difficult for employees who try to pursue "leisure" to stay in the company.

Why is that? Despite changes in the labor law, apparently the situation has not changed very much. As the graph below shows, workers in the EU have a much better situation in this regard.

Personally, I think the core cause of the lack of time off in Japan may be a fear that a prioritization of leisure over work would lead to a loss of profitability or prosperity. Those who enjoy life too much will be doomed to poverty or a loss of competitiveness. It would be interesting to see a survey about such fears, with data broken down into different generations.

And so...is such a fear justified? Obviously, there must be a balance between a stress-filled culture of overwork and an excessive pursuit of leisure, and Japan has yet to find it. I would say that efforts still need to be made, especially by the top management, to give workers more time off to enjoy life--perhaps the company leaders need to start a shift in their mentality with some coaching about leisure for themselves. Perhaps the bureaucrats in Japan's ministry of labor need the same.

As a teacher, I also hope to see improvement in the work life balance for Japan's public school teachers. I have heard the time burden for work is excessive in many schools. Is it difficult to impart a love of life and a philosophy of "work to live" to our students when we are not practicing it ourselves, right?

It will be interesting to see what the fellows in my professional training session have to say about this.

From today's NYT in the article:
April 1, 2012, 11:13 pm

The Politics of Going to College

By THOMAS B. EDSALL

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/the-politics-of-going-to-college/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120402

(Explanation of the graph above excerpted from the article) "...M.I.T. economists Daron Acemoglu and David Autor, shows what has happened to the wages of men with various levels of education working full time (high school dropout, high school graduate, some college, college graduate, greater than college)."

Columbia professor Edsal summarizes the exchanges between Obama and Republican hopefuls Romney and Santorum regarding an expansion of federal support for less advantaged students to be able to go to college, and cautions (reasonably in my opinion) that the Republican party take a hard look at the illogical and self-contradictory statements its candidates are making on this issue.

Some of things Santorum has said such as the quote below are just shockingly ignorant. Scary.

Santorum: “President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob,” Santorum told a Tea Party meeting in Troy, Mich., on Feb. 25. “I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image.”

??

It is true that not everyone needs to college. Some people can have very meaningful lives and develop themselves a lot by starting a career after high school (or after dropping out) and learning on the job or in technical schools, and learning in their personal lives. On the other hand, some may go to college and squander their opportunity (like many college kids in Japan--but very rarely at my university, fortunately). However, the issue is not increasing the absolute number of college goers or college graduates, but increasing the fairness of opportunity that each individual student has for going to a higher education program if they choose so and if they plan to put in the work that is needed to benefit from the opportunity.

Expanding opportunity for students who want to go to college and make efforts to get sufficient funding but can't (assuming there are such students) is not "snob" ism. To me, it seems to be a simple support of equal opportunity, which should be strengthened if the US wants to continue to be a active and prosperous society where the best ideas and best efforts are rewarded regardless of family economic status.

I included the graph above because it shows how the value of a college degree has increased over the past few decades in terms of financial compensation, and how the gap between college educated workers and high school grads is increasing. This gap is wider than I had thought. I assume this gap is widening because employers of companies with competitive jobs believe (and have found from experience) that those who go to college actually offer something that their employers have found of value, that those students would not have had if they had not gone. This graph in itself is not a case for increasing federal support for college tuition, but it explains the motivation that students and their families will have to try to get to college and further their education.

I think it is quite reasonable that our taxes be used to level the playing field on a federal level, assuming, of course, that the playing field is skewed. And my sense is that it is.

Our Fantasy Nation by Nick Kristof, NYT, very well said

Op-Ed Columnist
Our Fantasy Nation?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: June 4, 2011


With Tea Party conservatives and many Republicans balking at raising the debt ceiling, let me offer them an example of a nation that lives up to their ideals.

It has among the lowest tax burdens of any major country: fewer than 2 percent of the people pay any taxes. Government is limited, so that burdensome regulations never kill jobs.

This society embraces traditional religious values and a conservative sensibility. Nobody minds school prayer, same-sex marriage isn’t imaginable, and criminals are never coddled.

The budget priority is a strong military, the nation’s most respected institution. When generals decide on a policy for, say, Afghanistan, politicians defer to them. Citizens are deeply patriotic, and nobody burns flags.

So what is this Republican Eden, this Utopia? Why, it’s Pakistan.

Now obviously Sarah Palin and John Boehner don’t intend to turn Washington into Islamabad-on-the-Potomac. And they are right that long-term budget issues do need to be addressed. But when many Republicans insist on “starving the beast” of government, cutting taxes, regulations and social services — slashing everything but the military — well, those are steps toward Pakistan.

The United States is, of course, in no danger of actually becoming Pakistan, any more than we’re going to become Sweden at the other extreme. But as America has become more unequal, as we cut off government lifelines to the neediest Americans, as half of states plan to cut spending on higher education this year, let’s be clear about our direction — and about the turnaround that a Republican budget victory would represent.

The long trajectory of history has been for governments to take on more responsibilities, and for citizens to pay more taxes. Now we’re at a turning point, with Republicans arguing that we need to reverse course.

I spend a fair amount of time reporting in developing countries, from Congo to Colombia. They’re typically characterized by minimal taxes, high levels of inequality, free-wheeling businesses and high military expenditures. Any of that ring a bell?

In Latin American, African or Asian countries, I sometimes see shiny tanks and fighter aircraft — but schools that have trouble paying teachers. Sound familiar? And the upshot is societies that are quasi-feudal, stratified by social class, held back by a limited sense of common purpose.

Maybe that’s why the growing inequality in America pains me so. The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans already have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent, based on Federal Reserve data. Yet two-thirds of the proposed Republican budget cuts would harm low- and moderate-income families, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

For a country that prides itself on social mobility, where higher education has been a traditional escalator to a better life, cutbacks in access to college are a scandal. G. Jeremiah Ryan, the president of Bergen Community College in New Jersey, tells me that when the college was set up in 1965, two-thirds of the cost of running it was supposed to be covered by state and local governments, and one-third by students. The reality today, Dr. Ryan says, is that students bear 78 percent of the cost.

In fairness to Pakistan and Congo, wealthy people in such countries manage to live surprisingly comfortably. Instead of financing education with taxes, these feudal elites send their children to elite private schools. Instead of financing a reliable police force, they hire bodyguards. Instead of supporting a modern health care system for their nation, they fly to hospitals in London.

You can tell the extreme cases by the hum of diesel generators at night. Instead of paying taxes for a reliable electrical grid, each wealthy family installs its own powerful generator to run the lights and air-conditioning. It’s noisy and stinks, but at least you don’t have to pay for the poor.

I’ve always made fun of these countries, but now I see echoes of that pattern of privatization of public services in America. Police budgets are being cut, but the wealthy take refuge in gated communities with private security guards. Their children are spared the impact of budget cuts at public schools and state universities because they attend private institutions.

Mass transit is underfinanced; after all, Mercedes-Benzes and private jets are much more practical, no? And maybe the most striking push for reversal of historical trends is the Republican plan to dismantle Medicare as a universal health care program for the elderly.

There’s even an echo of the electrical generator problem. More and more affluent homes in the suburbs are buying electrical generators to use when the power fails.

So in this season’s political debates, let’s remember that we’re arguing not only over debt ceilings and budgets, but about larger questions of our vision for our country. Do we really aspire to take a step in the direction of a low-tax laissez-faire Eden ...like Pakistan?

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