Pt 1: Marx should’ve travled more. Religion isn’t alone.

Everyone knows the line by Marx: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” Unfortunately, I guess he never thought that there were other ways to have an opium of the people. Let’s find out what it is.

Japan is not a very religious country. A small percentage of the population is Christian and smaller percentage is Muslim. The masses are non-practicing shinto/buddists. Shouldn’t Japan be a bastion of reason and enlightenment? To some extent, it is. Creationism has no merit here, evolution is generally accepted, global warming is considered to be something that is actually happening, etc etc.

However, if you look at other things, the situation isn’t a paradise on earth. Corruption is rampant; to say that the government and big companies are in bed together is putting it lightly. They’re fucking constantly, the blinds are up, the window is open, and they’re being kinda loud about it. But they don’t live in the same house. When the neighbour (yes, I used the British spelling. Want to make something of it?) asks the government the next day about the wonderful coital noises that he heard, the government denies it. The neighbour doesn’t even find if odd that what was said and what was witnessed/heard was completely different. The conversation ends and both go their merry ways.

You’d think that since the corruption is so easily traceable that citizens would have done something about it by now, but they haven’t. Why? The Japanese opium. But what is the opium?

It’s a couple factors that come together to give us this situation. All of the factors are not something light and fluffy and, therefore, this will not all be written at once.

Two-faced. What do you think of when you hear this? You probably have a negative connotation of the word. That’s you; Japan is different. Japan has a word to describe each face: honne (true feelings) and tatemae (facade, or that what you must say/do in society). Honne and tatemae can be great for some things, but for others it can be downright atrocious.

Tatemae helps things run smoothly on a daily basis. You can hate the guy you’re doing business with, but you never show it. You can be bored but not show it. You can get a shitty English lesson from a foreigner, but smile through the whole thing. It’s been purported to be a reason that crime is so low in Japan. … I hope you get the picture of what tatemae is. So how is it bad?

There are many reasons. (Personal) things such as not screaming when a chikan is getting touchy feely or, not so personal, listening to the government when they’re fucking lying to you and you know they are. This is the big one. The government, as well as many companies, do shit like this all the time. Any number you get about finances when you’re reading/dealing with the government or a company in Japan… don’t believe it. You’ll probably have to double the number to get the truth. Annoying? Yes. Dangerous? For some unknown reason some people see no problem with this, which blows my mind.

Tatemae isn’t just for finance. Politicians will give a contract to someone that they were going to give it to no matter what, but will still pretend that they were going to at least try to make it fair. When they’re called on it, they lie. The public then either eats it up or silently worries. Nothing is done because everything must look prim and proper on the outside, the inside be damned.

The revolution will not be televised. The populace doesn’t want to make it appear like there’s a problem.