Subject: Re: Tokyo runs out of bottled water
Sorry for a rather long reply. Helps me to let some steam off in this rather annoying situation I find myself in here.Herd mentality and tipping point is the key to everything.Is 'Snake Plissken' possible? Well, hard to tell. The whole Japan situation is very difficult for me to gauge. Since there is very little open debate here, a kind of conspiracy of silence, I desperately try on my own to figure out what's up. Here in Kyoto the earthquake, tsunami and reactor situation is a non-topic. Kind of impolite to raise the issue. Why? Hard to tell, if you are an outsider. Part of it is simply this fatalistic acceptance business. Nothing can be done about it, so why mention it. Herd-behaviour breeding what appears to be stoicism. To ask questions or raise the issue would be stepping out of the self-reinforcing herd mentality that there will be no problem as long as everyone ignores it. So, my insistence on 'what's going on?' is kind of disruptive, only distracts from what we all are supposed to do: function well in our daily chores.Applied to Tokyo I would say that the situation is calm, so far. People do not panic. They go on with their daily business as if nothing had happned. But do not mix this up with English stoicism (The Blitz mentality). In the Blitz, I suppose, people as citizens and individuals knew what they were fighting for. They saw themselves represented by their government in a fight against an an enemy of individualism and freedom, at the heart of their civilised live. The Japanese, however do not know whether keeping calm makes sense for them as individuals, and they do not want to know. They keep calm because everyone else keeps calm.Underlying is, I think, their rather different sense of society: in Britain state power is checked by individual freedom, rights and political and economic competition, an open society. The Japanese are not really interested in all this individualism-society stuff, they just love to be an organised collective, directed by unquestioned authority. Startreck's 'The Borg' (well, the friendly version). Organisation is everything. From their social engineering, organisational point of view, individual self-determination is suboptimal, creates instability and frictions, or even gridlock. Japanese society, rather than seeing collectivist herd mentality as a problem, embraces it by running the whole society a big machine, in which everyone links in with everyone else as a smooth, well-oiled clog-wheel. A nation of engineers, bureaucrats and craftsmen, not citizens. They do what everyone else does: They do their utmost to function well, to the bitter end if needed, no matter what the need, the cause or the consequences. They do it, because everyone else does it. They expect everyone else to do it and everyone else expect them to do it. Self-fulfilling reinforcing common purpose. If no one is disruptive, they will succeed, in whatever they are asked to do, and they will enjoy a sense of satisfaction, regardless of purpose or outcome.There are some nice lines about Japanese torture and cameras in the 'Dr Strangelove ' movie, capturing this mentality.Mandrake, a British Wing Commander, talks to General Jack Ripper, a US officer, about having been a POW of the Japanese in WWII:Ripper:
Did they torture you?
Mandrake:
Ah... yes, they did. I was tortured by the Japanese, Jack, if you must know. Not a pretty story.
Ripper:
Well what happened?
Mandrake:
Oh... well... I don't know, Jack. Difficult to think of under these conditions. But, well, what happened was they got me on the old Rangoon HNRR railway. I was laying train mines for the bloody Japanese puff puffs.
Ripper:
No, I mean when they tortured you, did you talk?
Mandrake:
Ah, oh no, I ah... I don't think they wanted me to talk, really. I don't think they wanted me to say anything. It was just their way of having... a bit of fun, the swines. Strange thing is they make such bloody good cameras.
That is exactly what I mean: it does not much matter what they do, not even to them. But they do it together and with dedication, regardless of the costs for themselves or those outside the collective. The dream job is for them a secure collective with a set purpose. Most young graduates these days want become civil service bureaucrats.The results of this mentality are amazing: supermarket staff risks their lives during the earthquake to prevent bottles from falling off the shelves rather than taking cover, simply because they are supermarket staff. Tepco officials functioned smoothly as functionaries of Tepco, even if this meant falsifying records and running poor safety standards, as they were doing their best obeying instructions as members of the company collective.When they were told that they are judged to having done wrong, they become tragic heroes who apologise in tears. It was not up to them to judge by themselves, everyone understands.As you can imagine, whistle-blowers are the true criminals in such a society.Now, how could this organised herd tip over into panic? What happens if the collective machine sputtered for some reason? The whole self-reinforcing herd mentality-functionality nexus could comedown. It might simply tip over into a big social bank run.But I doubt it will happen in Tokyo. Take the mineral water story: my wife thinks the empty shelves were due more to supply bottlenecks in a situation were people obeyed the instructions not to give tap- water to infants, rather than panic.I tend to agree. Let's assume a situation of more severe radioactive food, air and water contamination in Tokyo, dangerous for everyone. Clearly the risk exists that the organised herd breaks down, tipping over to become a bank-run-style herd .However, deeply ingrained in Japanese herd behaviour is the realisation that for any herd behaviour to give sense of purpose, it needs direction, which must come from outside, logically. Therefore Japanese herd-mentality combines with an absolute sense for obedience to authority, again, at all costs. Japanese people expect nothing from their authorities except for direction. Tell us what to do, so that we collectively find purpose in obeying and over-fulfilling. Better to obey even an authority which you 'individually' might judge to bad or wrong, than disturbing its function to give the herd sense of purpose.Uttering doubts might set a precedent for socially disruptive behaviour, threatening everything.. The authorities respond in kind: they discharge bureaucratically regulated directions. The purpose does not much matter, but everything is being instructed down to the fine detail in endless forms to be filled in. So the herd can relax and find satisfaction in these forms. Direction has been established, and they are living up to it. So, authoritarianism, bureaucracy, organisation and herd-mentality go hand in hand here.It could break down if the authorities screwed up and failed to instruct clearly and decisively. The undirected herd might tip over. But as long as they direct firmly and in great detail, the herd will obey and organise gratefully. For example, in a crisis situation in Tokyo, authorities could instruct the herd to get a rationing distribution system of scarce bottled water running via neighbourhood committees along a bureaucratically organised hierarchy of needs, starting with infants. Everyone would willingly pick up the offer to get organised, rather than thinking of running. Then they could, for example, instruct an evacuation of, let's say, small children up to 5 years old, with the families staying behind. Mothers would get in line and fill in the forms, giving away their children, volunteers would face radiation exposure to make sure that little ones get safely on buses on what will be empty streets, whereas fathers would get up at 3am and walk through radioactively polluted Tokyo to their meaningless jobs in offices were no one calls, rather than coming along to say farewell. The worse it gets, the more task could be devised for the herd to get organised.Thus, as long as the authorities do not loose the organisational capacity to direct, everything will be fine. The disaster will never show up as a disaster, it will be an organisational miracle. The people of Tokyo will die orderly together if well instructed, quietly, accepting, organised, and satisfied with their lives. What bliss. Once it is all over, the country will quickly go back to normal, as if nothing has ever happened, organisation will shift from organised dying back to organised living. Social cohesion was maintained, everyone functioned well. No need for social change or restructuring, only sentimental pride in the collective's embrace of self-sacrifice.From an investor's point of view this is all not necessarily good news.We might end up with a country severely damaged by this disaster, with its key region, greater Tokyo, polluted, but everyone going on as before. That would be the end of Japan as a serious place for doing business. Others, China esp.,are waiting to take over.As to social breakdown, I am looking forward to their ultimate fiscal meltdown. Will mean inflation. Since there is no such thing as well organised inflation, that promises to be interesting. However, we know how the herd responds to chaos: they want authority, at all costs. They got that in the 1930s.On a brighter note, have a look at this very reassuring info leaflet from the Japanese nuclear safety authority. All very cute, no need to panic!
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