Unrelated but theres one thing that i absolutely despise about japan
(For reference, I hate america and americans and isntreals 99999% more)
Persona 5 is a game about being a rebel and being yourself even if the greater society will hate and punish you for it. The character that most embodies this, Ryuji Sakomoto, the actual stereotypical ‘high school delinquent’ is always shown as the least popular and sometimes outright HATED by the japanese playerbase even though i’d argue he’s one of the best examples of the themes of the game?
Not saying that the other members of the phantom thieves havent suffered or arent rebels, but like? C’mon.
The only thing worse than Japanese persona 5 fans is american persona fans in general.
Figuring out that the JP base likely hates Ryuji because he’s the most openly rebellious was really something. Japan is in such dire, dire, dire need for an extensive cultural revolution.
Japan is a fascinating case. They are actually nazi. Like, the nazis were nationalist and capitalist. Japan has nationalist and socialist elements. It it wasn’t for the US gladio shit they did they could have gone to real intresting places.
They have socialist elements because they were modernized from a period of feudal social relations to neoliberal ones. They skipped a liberalization phase. So they still maintain some ideas of social interrelationship and a resulting responsibility and solidarity derived from there. It is not socialism. It is, in my option, elements of socialism extant in their society.
Japan famously has one of the larger comjnsit parties from non-comunist nations. Because that fits well with some of their extant societal notions.
If we didn’t pay the yakuza to enforce a neoliberal one party state there they might have evolved into something intresting.
Look at their pre accord period, they posted gater societal well being than we did in our boom periods if I am remembering the numbers correctly. Obviously it is not the dominant social form there now, but they have more applicable elements than we in our social structure.
A lot of their modernization was well before neoliberalism (and also becoming neoliberal is not skipping liberalization anyway).
Obviously they did have a real and meaningful communist movement at one point that was suppressed by fascists, criminals, etc., but that notably did not mean Japan was socialist in an overall sense at the time and certainly does not mean so now.
The JCP is basically worth supporting, but it also notably has never taken power and at its apex electorally has only received 13% of the vote (which is not an attack on their efforts, of course, they have a tremendously uphill battle that they’ve fought for a century), and since they’re demsocs I think that’s indisputably a fair standard to measure them by. They have influenced positive change, but they really haven’t made Japan reflect the title “‘National’ Socialist,” as you said.
Look at their pre accord period, they posted gater societal well being than we did in our boom periods if I am remembering the numbers correctly.
Social democracy is not socialism. No amount of scraps are equivalent to a seat at the table.
That is a fair critique. I am not saying they are there. I am saying they have positive elements we lack and that is cool and we should appreciate. We have fewer of those as a people than they do so there is probably something to learn there
Unrelated but theres one thing that i absolutely despise about japan
(For reference, I hate america and americans and isntreals 99999% more)
Persona 5 is a game about being a rebel and being yourself even if the greater society will hate and punish you for it. The character that most embodies this, Ryuji Sakomoto, the actual stereotypical ‘high school delinquent’ is always shown as the least popular and sometimes outright HATED by the japanese playerbase even though i’d argue he’s one of the best examples of the themes of the game?
Not saying that the other members of the phantom thieves havent suffered or arent rebels, but like? C’mon.
The only thing worse than Japanese persona 5 fans is american persona fans in general.
Figuring out that the JP base likely hates Ryuji because he’s the most openly rebellious was really something. Japan is in such dire, dire, dire need for an extensive cultural revolution.
Japan is a fascinating case. They are actually nazi. Like, the nazis were nationalist and capitalist. Japan has nationalist and socialist elements. It it wasn’t for the US gladio shit they did they could have gone to real intresting places.
Japan isn’t not-capitalist because they have nice public trains or whatever, and it is a very capitalist country.
They have socialist elements because they were modernized from a period of feudal social relations to neoliberal ones. They skipped a liberalization phase. So they still maintain some ideas of social interrelationship and a resulting responsibility and solidarity derived from there. It is not socialism. It is, in my option, elements of socialism extant in their society.
Japan famously has one of the larger comjnsit parties from non-comunist nations. Because that fits well with some of their extant societal notions.
If we didn’t pay the yakuza to enforce a neoliberal one party state there they might have evolved into something intresting.
Look at their pre accord period, they posted gater societal well being than we did in our boom periods if I am remembering the numbers correctly. Obviously it is not the dominant social form there now, but they have more applicable elements than we in our social structure.
A lot of their modernization was well before neoliberalism (and also becoming neoliberal is not skipping liberalization anyway).
Obviously they did have a real and meaningful communist movement at one point that was suppressed by fascists, criminals, etc., but that notably did not mean Japan was socialist in an overall sense at the time and certainly does not mean so now.
The JCP is basically worth supporting, but it also notably has never taken power and at its apex electorally has only received 13% of the vote (which is not an attack on their efforts, of course, they have a tremendously uphill battle that they’ve fought for a century), and since they’re demsocs I think that’s indisputably a fair standard to measure them by. They have influenced positive change, but they really haven’t made Japan reflect the title “‘National’ Socialist,” as you said.
Social democracy is not socialism. No amount of scraps are equivalent to a seat at the table.
That is a fair critique. I am not saying they are there. I am saying they have positive elements we lack and that is cool and we should appreciate. We have fewer of those as a people than they do so there is probably something to learn there