Moral Panics In Japan

[Mulboyne]

Earl Kinmonth has written about "moral panics" in Japan on the NBR Forums. I don't think he is trying to suggest that Japan is the only country which suffers these outbreaks: Britain certainly does.

The NBR forums don't like having their debates reposted in other forums so follow the links for more. In summary, Kinmonth looks at the NEET phenomenom and reports that it has been massively overestimated. It appears that a Waseda university professor introduced the NEET concept from Britain but expanded it's definition which made the problem look especially acute in Japan. This professor has subsequently authored bestselling books and sits on government panels to address the problem.

Kinmonth also wrote this in response to Jeff Kingston highlighting Michael Zielenziger's "Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation". (Zielenziger wrote the article which kicks off the FG hikikomori thread). Kinmonth attacks the tendency of some foreign journalists to latch on to these moral panics and blow them out of proportion.

[jingai]

I have one: bosozoku and youth delinquency.

[Adhesive]

[floatr][/floatr]Caught this interview on NPR today, thought you FG's would enjoy it.

Michael Zielenziger in regards to his book Shutting out the Sun, on hikikomori and other Japanese phenomena:

Michael Zielenziger: Contemporary Japanese Society

[Mulboyne]

Jeff Kingston gives Zielenziger's book short shrift in his Japan Times review.

..."Shutting out the Sun" leaves readers in the dark about Japan and its future. Not far into this deeply flawed and monochromatic portrayal of contemporary Japan, we read that Japan, "lacks the same values, norms, and modes of thinking most inhabitants of advanced and prosperous nations today associate with modernity"...This relentlessly despairing assessment focuses on the various pathologies of contemporary Japan but dismisses, marginalizes or overlooks the sweeping transformations, innovations, dynamism and cascade of reforms that don't fit the narrative...One winces as Zielenziger serves up the usual cliches and stereotypes. Here, yet again, we encounter a monolithic Japan, a society of miserable conformists where diversity is stifled in a book brimming with sweeping generalizations...more...

[Mulboyne]

Zielenziger interview on NPR:

Retreating Youth Become Japan's 'Lost Generation'

[Captain Japan]