イタリアの思索家マキャベリは「人口の5％を押さえ込んでおけば王は安泰だ。95％の人々は衣食住さえ与えておけば、社会に騒乱を起こさない」といった。つまり、人々を扇動するような人は、5％しか居ないというわけだ。
　日本でも事情は同じだが、調和主義のせいで3％を押さえ込んでおけば、社会騒乱は起こらないかもしれない。それほど日本の調和主義の圧力は強いと思う。調和主義の中で人々はイワシの大群のように、一つの方向に行くことを要請されているからだ。

PART THREE:
Outcome of Harmonism (3)

By Shun Daichi

2. Everyone Becomes Mediocre(1)
One result of Harmonism is that everyone becomes afraid to be different from others. We also worry a lot about how we look in the eyes of others, because it is "wrong" if you looked different in the society of Harmonism.

This may be part of the reason all the Japanese look alike. This also does make the Japanese a mediocre people. Our education system is well known for producing not geniuses but a mass of mediocre people who become a good work force but not a good initiator or creator.

This worked well for Japan, for we have an army of worker ants, mighty in their discipline, efficiency and strength.

Because of the relentless emphasis on education, during the summer vacation, many 12-year-old boys and girls have to study seven hours a day in a "Jyuku" private institutions to supplement the schoolwork.

It appears that we don't want geniuses because those people cannot be understood by ordinary people and might disturb harmony in our society.

Of course we have many bright people in every walk of life but those people always take low postures and never dare to break the harmony in society.

There are very few who break the harmony and still survive in Japan. One of them may be movie producer Akira Kurosawa. He acted like a dictator, and his nickname was "Emperor Kurosawa".

He produced great movies but was not accepted by the movie industry, the critics and press. He is not the kind of person to compromise with others, which astonished most Japanese.

He once tried to kill himself and Japanese companies did not support him financially.

Many talented Japanese have to go abroad to let their talent blossom, because of the "anti-maverick society" of Harmonism.

Fashion designer Issei Miyake was noticed not in Japan but in France. Many of the best brains among the Japanese scholars live in America, and many of them have received international recognition for their work while they were outside Japan.

If those people had stayed inside Japan then most likely their talent would have been wasted by Harmonism.

We adopted Samurai norm as our social norm after the Meiji Restoration. At the time of Meiji Restoration, more than 85% of Japanese were farmers, however, Samurai norm was considered as the best and adopted by everyone. Samurai had both Civil-Warism and Harmonism in their belief.

Samurai bereaves in royalty, honesty and devotion to the boss. They have sincere and serious attitude. They do not care for money but keep up their pride very high. This attitude is still highly valued in our society.

A kid like my son Maana also suffers a lot, because in the society of Harmonism being different means being "wrong."

Everyone has to be the same in Harmonism, at least in "tatemae." The difference between Maana and the other Japanese kids were the way they were brought up.

(To be continued)