Japan’s civility is proverbial. Every visitor has a tale to tell – of a lost wallet turned in instead of stolen; of an elusive destination attained under the guidance of a perfect stranger; of safety, cleanliness, good manners beyond anything elsewhere. At international sports meets, Japanese fans clean up after themselves. So? Most others don’t, and Japan wins international plaudits.
All the same – “Japan is the most malicious society in the world,” says Shukan Gendai (Aug 12-19). Relentless, remorseless internet bashing is exhibit A. It’s a lynch mob out there. Famous among victims is the late pro wrestler and reality TV actress Hana Kimura.
2020: a bad year for all of us, year one of COVID-19, stress and panic taking their toll. People were not themselves – or perhaps were more themselves than ever. The Fuji TV show “Terrace House” featured six young people, Kimura among them, sharing cramped housing and coping as best they could – not well, sometimes. When one of the roommates, in a March 2020 episode, carelessly tossed Kimura’s wrestling garb into the washing machine and shrank it, she gave him a tongue-lashing that, had it been physical, would have raised welts.
The cyber-abuse that followed was apparently more than Kimura could bear. Her death in May – she was 22 – was ruled a suicide in December, and court cases proceed against alleged perpetrators of the crudest verbal violence.
Actress-singer Ryoko Hirosue got off lightly in comparison but not unscathed after being caught in an extra-marital dalliance. Who cares? Everyone. At least a swollen multitude felt compelled to show they do, or pretend they do, and the storm gathered, causing her talent agency to suspend her, her product endorsement clients to cut her, and Hirosue herself to issue an apology that can only be described as abject: “My thoughtless behavior has caused trouble and worry to many people," she said in an Instagram post. "I let my fans down. Everyone, I'm really, really sorry.”
Malice is one of those subversive emotions we prefer not to acknowledge in ourselves. There’s the archetypal tale of a magician who will grant a petitioner one wish, on condition the petitioner’s enemy will benefit twofold. “Good,” says the petitioner, “blind me in one eye.” The tale is not Japanese – Shukan Gendai says it’s Jewish, other sources say Arab; it matters little, the point is it’s universal.
Is Japanese malice exceptionally virulent, and Japanese civility merely a veil spread tactfully or deceitfully over it? If so, is there anything in Japanese society that breeds malice?
There is, says the magazine – and something else, it adds, in Japanese genes.
The social germ, it explains, is a village mentality that persists somehow despite the massive urbanization, industrialization and post-industrialization of modern times. In village society, the highest value is order, the greatest crime the disturbance of order, and the severest punishment, short of death, ostracism. Premodern law imposed collective responsibility and collective punishment. You were accountable not only for your own conduct but for your neighbors’. You had to watch them as they had to watch you; you concealed from them what they concealed from you; a threat to order, real or imagined, called forth fury, which by its nature is self-righteous and also, be it admitted, fun; it feels good; the Irish neurologist Simon McCarthy-Jones, cited by Shukan Gendai, calls it a “justice addiction” and compares it to a cocaine rush.
The mob – the frustrated masses unleashed – was a driving force in history. The French Revolution began (and arguably ended) with mob violence. The lynch mob is a closer parallel to online bashing. It’s judge, jury, prosecution and executioner in one. Twenty-first-century technology has perpetrated a grim revival.
The genetic factor, Shukan Gendai explains, is a gene known as serotonin transporter SS – “the anxiety gene.” Japanese are said to be rich in it. It’s not a transporter of the “happiness hormone” serotonin but an inhibitor of it – to be rich in serotonin transporter SS is to be poor in serotonin and rich, consequently, in anxiety, if anxiety is an asset, as it may be to the artist, say – but those who lack the vent of art must seek release elsewhere, and find it, all too often, in cyber-lynching.
Michael Hoffman is the author of “Arimasen.”
© Japan Today
25 Comments
Login to comment
Moonraker
I don't really think these traits are much different to conservatives everywhere. Though Edo-period Japan was particularly good, for an agricultural society, at exploiting many innate conservative features, such as marked willingness to punish transgressors and intolerance of difference, for the sake of centralised control. Anxiety and sensitivity to threat is a feature of conservatives. The amygdala processes such threat. It would be interesting to know if it is particularly sensitive in Japanese too.
Algernon LaCroix
The lack of insight in this response is breathtaking. You're aware for the groupthink inherent in leftist behaviour as well, right? You know, collectivist screeching and shaming of anyone who doesn't outright support LGBT+, BLM, etc. The predominantly left-originating demonisation of people who questioned pretty much anything to do with COVID, not to mention the repression under all those leftist regimes like the USSR, Eastern Bloc, China, Cuba and many more. They rely/relied on informers and loyal adherents to keep everyone in line.
So what I'm saying is that this is a human trait, a tribal thing, not one that can be blamed on "conservatives" by sneering lefties.
Strangerland
You act as if this isn't present on the right - nationalist groups, the anit-climate change brigade, the Trumpets.
Algernon LaCroix
Did you even read the whole post?
Let me help you, as clearly you' didn't read far as the second paragraph:
Sure, it happens on the right. But Moonraker was ignoring that it happens on the left so I was helpfully pointing it out.
Strangerland
It sure does, much more than on the left.
Remember, domestic terrorism is by far a problem with the right more than the left.
Algernon LaCroix
Depends which country you're talking about, and depends what gets classed as domestic terrorism. One could argue that getting mobbed by far-left extremists at universities and being prevented by them for exercising free speech is domestic terrorism. Same with going berserk in the streets and smashing things up, looting businesses because they don't get their own way is terrorism because it prevents people from going about their daily lives by putting fear into them that they could be injured or killed for going into certain areas. It all depends on how you frame it.
Algernon LaCroix
So you think it's OK for left-wing extremists to stop people from speaking on university campuses and elsewhere because they don't like what they have to say, and use violence as one of their tactics? I don't like what socialists have to say, but I'l won't prevent them from their right to free speech. And it gives them an opportunity to prove how ridiculous their ideas are.
And who, pray tell, were they?
Strangerland, you're a living embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Not 10% as smart as you think you are, and easily led.
Strangerland
I don't agree with extremism. Do I agree with the right to protest? Yes. Is that canceling freedom of speech? Nope.
Anways, was I incorrect when I said Yeah, people of Intelligence like you and I know that would be a pretty low-intelligence argument? It does seem that now you're saying that the argument that people protesting on campuses is domestic terrorism is a valid one. Is that the agenda you're pushing?
Heh, the irony of you saying that to me...
Algernon LaCroix
It is when they enact violence or threaten it unless universities/businesses/local councils etc. prevent people from speaking by forcing them to cancel events. I'd condemn it if right-wing groups did it as well to leftists, but unlike you I have some moral consistency.
wallace
Shūkan Gendai (週刊現代, Modern Weekly) is a general-interest weekly magazine published by Kodansha in Tokyo, Japan.
Jimizo
This is key.
One of the problems we have is that belonging to a group often sees people believe a set of ideas which are often not related.
For example, you'll find those who believe climate change is a hoax will also very often get upset over the 'woke' thing. There is no reason why A should lead tto B as far as I can see here ( input from anyone who can see connections would be welcomed ).
One possible cause of this are 'commentators', often failed entertainers, selling packages to the easily led. These people are so unhelpful and often disingenuous.
They encourage people not to judge issues on their own merits. This is sad.
Moonraker
Talk about screeching... Did you actually read what I wrote? Looks like you self-identify as conservative, saw the word conservative and the red mist appeared. Yes, I am aware. Didn't say anywhere I agreed with any of it. And people who may not agree with you doesn't mean they are leftists. I can critique the left very well, thanks. I don't actually even associate your deplatformers and so on with the left actually. But it is popular among certain politically-challenged to do so because the only opposition to conservatives must be on the left, right??. There is a more nuanced world.
Algernon LaCroix
I'm a right-leaning small-L libertarian, so fairly close to what you'd probably call conservative but not the same thing. I don't have to be a "conservative" to defend them. Or criticise them, for that matter. Heck, I'm happy to defend people who're generally considered lefties, like Brett Weinstein, Michael Schellenberger, Brendan O'Neill and so on.
I read a lot of your posts , and you rarely if ever show any signs of critiquing the left. Of course that doesn't mean you don't but I have seen little sign of it. In this particular post, you were clearly singling out people on the right and I called you out on it. Live with it, or include more nuance in your post.
opheliajadefeldt
I use the internet a lot and make soooo many comments on many sites, but one thing i will never, ever, do is critisize or lambast any person who disagrees with me or whose views are so different from mine. Why? Because it is their right to do so, and even if they are very rude I will not retaliate, but another reason is that I do not care what they say about me. The only time I say something to a very rude, or crude, commenter is to point out to them that their comments mean very little or nothing if all they can do is be rude. I hope that by doing this it makes them think twice before doing so again, and if it does its a winner.
Moonraker
I cannot define my political allegiance so easily. Like the original article says, village attitudes of Japan or anywhere else cause a problem in complex societies where more nuance is required. You may see these attitudes as tribal or innate, and maybe they are to some extent (but maybe the village was also not well served by hunter-gatherer attitudes), but that will not be the whole story. Some political structures, such as Tokugawa Japan and various conservative (all the way through fascist) hierarchies, take advantage of them. Make people more scared (Tokugawa shogunate also used Christianity as a bogeyman) and they tend to conformity, obedience and seek masters to remove their fears. I think we can at least agree on that. But some have a greater initial propensity to fearfulness and anxiety based on - as this article is primarily about - genetic factors and it is known that the amygdala mediates fear responses. Of course, people have to be given some cover story for the fear induced in them too so they don't think it is those who are making off with the power and loot who are responsible and that is the role of ideologies. I see insane ideologies designed to prop up power structures everywhere, from capitalism to socialist vanguards, from religions to nationalism. I have no doubts too that much of the "lefty" justice crap is an ego-based ideological bid for some power but, compared to the real power and impetus in the world, it is miniscule. But exaggerating its importance provides a good way of dividing the people so they don't see beneficiaries of rentier capitalism. As a libertarian you may agree with that too.
thaonephil
Hana Kimura death was a tragedy that should have been prevented, but her family and the public reacted very strongly and some small change happened because of it, now at least people can be punished for their cruelty in social media and that can make some stop their attacks.
The new laws also had some extra benefits since now it is easier for victims to sue internet services when they do not apply their own rules and let other users systematically harass them, and the best part is that this not only applies to social media. Sites that end up collecting toxic users like the comment section of this site sooner or later will have to face the consequences of this. Once personal attacks, threats, insults and harassment become as common as it is here it is only a matter of time until someone gets a nice sum by complaining about it with a lawyer, since nobody gets banned here and harassing posts are all in the profile of the abusers this is going to be quite easy to prove.
zulander
Bit rich to claim “internet bashing” if caught in an extramarital affair.
Its a shameful thing to do, so dont whine if you get caught.
timeon
why would anybody have to right to know and criticize somebody else's private life? Just because that somebody is good at acting/singing/playing baseball or whatever? An extramarital affair is their private business, we do not know details (and we don't have to) to judge what is shameful or not.
Algernon LaCroix
Moonraker, thanks for responding with plenty of nuance. All good, mate.
kohakuebisu
The article should state that the argument on Terrace House Hana Kimura was vilified for was staged. Apparently the producers wanted her to actually hit her roommate but she refused to do it. What she did do was still enough to get bullied to the point where she couldn't take it any more. The important point here is that the bullying of her might have eased off a bit if the producers had come out and admitted the show was fake.
As for the cultural point about the Japanese character, my own observation would be that there is quite a lot of, let's call it "petty nastiness" out there, from both men and women. As a topical example, the final at the Koshien baseball tournament has just been played out by two teams whose players do not have buzzcuts. Some viewers have had a problem with this, claiming it is not "Koshien-rashii".
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/64d7d21168d6d304de7908abbbaf5f412f0e655e
commanteer
It seems we are regressing into the worst parts of tribal village mentality. Some random person being rude to some other random person used to be considered part of urban living. Now, when everyone records every little slight, a random person can become globally infamous and vilified overnight. It's too much. At least when this happened in villages, it was confined to the village. The internet has enabled the digital mob.
I try to confine my comments to things I would say if the person was in front of me. To do otherwise is to join the mob.
Redemption
Stay off social media the validation game for your own mental health. Nothing to be gained by getting thumbs up or down from posters or bots.
TrafferAz
I thought the amended cyberbullying law was going to resolve all this hate filled speech on the internet in Japan? Stupid law. I'm allowed to say that right? That I have to check myself before pressing enter on my keyboard I find ridiculous. I'm perfectly capable of policing my own thoughts and speech. And it would be nice if I did cross a line, I could receive that feedback from others who read my post. But a fine and worse up to one year in jail? Nuts! Thankfully this will likely be another bill that's on the books, but won't be enforced in Japan. Woe to the person they decide to throw the book at though.
NotThe One
The internet allows for passive aggressive cowards to thrive by ganging up on people without any repercussions, usually. Something not to different from everyday life in Japan. Japan society loves peer pressure but hates personal confrontation or accountability unless it is going in one direction.
From my previous post:
It makes sense that Japanese people would love social media platforms like Twitter because of its convenience, anonymity potential, and ability to reach a larger group of people!