The taxi-drivers wear white gloves and refuse tips. The taxis —all of them air-conditioned—are clean and new. This is a very different culture indeed. Politeness, as well as cleanliness, seems a religion. Everything is very well organized, with a more-than-Prussian efficiency. But it is made agreeable by great politeness. Not just politeness, but actual consideration and concern. All this cheerfully.
How then to account for the extreme cruelty to enemies during the war? (And the sado-masochism so very prominent in Japanese pornography?) So much consideration, solidarity, and conformity are demanded that aggressiveness, hostility, and cruelty must be repressed. Cruelty thus finds an outlet against those declared to be beyond the pale. And against the self—the suicide rate is high in Japan, whereas in the United States the homicide rate is. I find psychoanalytic speculation irresistible. But I won’t pretend that I know enough about Japan to do more than convey impressions and speculations.
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