Alec
Self-orientalizing, meandering travel brochure framed by the thinnest veneer of a self-help message
I don't have all of the book mentally present, because my Spotify audio hours were used up last month before I could finish it in one go, but it's just a masturbatory tour de farce of Japanese cultural anecdotes that frames mundane human phenomena out as profound because they are being done by Japanese people.
Does Japan have a unique cultural history? Sure, absolutely. The confluence of feudalism, animism in the form of Shinto, Buddhism, Confucianism and the material limitations of living on a moderately sized archipelago have created some unique traditions and social emphases, but "ikigai" is not one of them. Finding personal meaning and its opposite – alienation – are one of the most universal human experiences you can think of, and nothing about the ostensible prerequisites argued by this text to be highly integrated in Japanese life are novel. Yes, mindfulness enriches life satisfaction, yes, taking your interests seriously and making regular time and effort to engage with them is good for the mind. Many cultures have come to this conclusion and just as many have come up with an equivalent of ikigai – joie de vivre, carpe diem, Lebenssinn, eudaimonia, and so on.
The most unconscionable part of the book is the deafening silence on how Japanese cultural structures led to the Meiji regime and the atrocities committed during World War 2, or something more recent like the Fukushima disaster. If you want to analyse how Japanese culture influences the experience of modernity and postmodernity in that country, so be it, but then don't duck out of the uncomfortable parts. The contemporary abominable work culture in the country also only gets a passing mention.
Self-orientalizing, meandering travel brochure framed by the thinnest veneer of a self-help message
I don't have all of the book mentally present, because my Spotify audio hours were used up last month before I could finish it in one go, but it's just a masturbatory tour de farce of Japanese cultural anecdotes that frames mundane human phenomena out as profound because they are being done by Japanese people.
Does Japan have a unique cultural history? Sure, absolutely. The confluence of feudalism, animism in the form of Shinto, Buddhism, Confucianism and the material limitations of living on a moderately sized archipelago have created some unique traditions and social emphases, but "ikigai" is not one of them. Finding personal meaning and its opposite – alienation – are one of the most universal human experiences you can think of, and nothing about the ostensible prerequisites argued by this text to be highly integrated in Japanese life are novel. Yes, mindfulness enriches life satisfaction, yes, taking your interests seriously and making regular time and effort to engage with them is good for the mind. Many cultures have come to this conclusion and just as many have come up with an equivalent of ikigai – joie de vivre, carpe diem, Lebenssinn, eudaimonia, and so on.
The most unconscionable part of the book is the deafening silence on how Japanese cultural structures led to the Meiji regime and the atrocities committed during World War 2, or something more recent like the Fukushima disaster. If you want to analyse how Japanese culture influences the experience of modernity and postmodernity in that country, so be it, but then don't duck out of the uncomfortable parts. The contemporary abominable work culture in the country also only gets a passing mention.