2nd Online Session

Why is Japanese politics similar to Rashomon?

羅生門

“Nothing is true but everything is true”

This is what I got from the film ‘Rashomon’. Frankly, it was my first time to hear about ‘Rashomon’ which is very famous and known for award from Venice Film Festival. Somehow I was ashamed that I did not know this film as an university student whose major is Japanese studies.

At the first time, I assumed that it is all about politics or somehow it is related with Japanese politics since we had to find the similarities between Japanese politics and this film. However, different from my initial thought it was story of rape and murder that is seemed to be apart from politics rather related with religion or humanity.

Since it is our second online session, I assume that everyone knows synopsis of this film. There are four main characters which are bandit, samurai, samurai’s wife and woodcutter. From the one case of murder, they all declare differently. When we listen what they explain one by one, their claims seem to be right but when we collect all their claims, it does not matched. They all said only in their own situation and interpret or explain the case favorable to themselves. Then they insisted that they are right and others are lying.

At that point, some questions appeared in my mind,
Who is telling the truth? Which one is the real?

But the film did not say anything, furthermore, it is asking me that is there any objective truth in the world.

Take a look this picture,

Let’s set the sun as a ‘objective truth’ and leaves that hide sun are the ‘individual’s subjectivity’.
We cannot see the whole sun which represents ‘objective truth’ but see part of the sun which is hided by ‘subjective leaves’.

Well..

We can adapt it in Japanese politics. Japanese politicians or parties all see one sun and pursuit same thing which is Japan’s improvement and revival but they see it in different ways because of leaves that hide the sun. Someone assert that conservatism is the only way for Japan but another may insists that conservatism never work in the contemporary period. These different perspectives make Japanese politics. They all say in their situation and consider their opinion as the only truth. I think that it is found not only in Japanese politics but also every countries in the world.

I found another similarity between them. I thought Japan is just like one of the characters in the film in the way of its political standing in the world. For example, Japan rationalized their fault in World War and colonization. Japan did not apologize about it rather insisted that they did their best in the situation. Japan interpreted it only in their perspective rather they think in others’ perspective.

Today, Japan and other countries fight for the truth and their own goal for countries.
When we think in others’ perspectives, we can easily understand them. It is same in politics. If we try to see the truth in the objective perspective, everything can be truth.

If you are interested, you can check the trailer of ‘Rashomon’ here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WElLqEDP1Jc

1st Online Session

Why do we need to compare politics?

‘Making comparisons is a natural human activity’.
This sentence is from the book of ‘Todd Landman’ and I agree with it. Comparison, like eating chicken burger or cheese burger, wearing jeans or skirt and studying or meeting boyfriend, makes everyday life. We always compare two or more things and choose one that gives you better result. Even people compare themselves with others no matter if they recognize or not. I also see myself comparing to others in terms of fashion, group of friends, school grads and so on. If we see it in wider view, it will extend to states. States compare about economic status, cultural differences and finally politics. I think that it is natural behavior of human.

So, do we need to compare politics of different countries?
If we need, why?
Why do we have to compare them?

Simply, I answer to this question that we need to compare to know similarities and differences in order to develop our own politics of country. We can see ourselves by comparison. In this book, the author provides four objectives of comparison with concrete explanation. They are contextual description, classification, hypothesis-testing and prediction. They look pretty complex and difficult but actually it is very simple and easy to understand. In my understanding, we can predict or expect that how policies or government systems work in a particular situation without ‘doing it’ by comparing politics of different countries. The countries also can learn or adapt from others by comparison. Of course, all countries have different background and condition thus, we can not follow or do just same things even though they made a great outcome in other countries. However, at least we can predict the outcome from under particular policies or system by comparing many countries. From the comparing few countries, we can see the future based on past and present and find out our own problems. For example, Japan, Philippines and South Korea have similar condition so we can learn from what others did and prevent repeating same mistakes that others made. By comparing many countries, we can generalize theories or statements. Lastly, we can describe something by comparing single country.

Why study Japanese politics?

To answer this question, I need to go back when I chose this major, International Studies major in Japanese Studies. As I mentioned during the first class of JAGOPOL, I want to study about Japan and learn from it because Japan is one of the most influential country in the world. Japanese politics is a part of that I want to learn since it has lots of similarities with my country, Korea and Philippines too. Since Japan is high developed country and has similar condition with ours, we need to study its politics and adapt to it our own country to develop and avoid unnecessary failure that Japan experienced. The process of developing to democracy, policies making and even corruption, we have similar system and problems so it is meaningful to study it. We also need to be aware its position or status in global politics. We cannot disregard its role in the world regarding past and present since Japan is related with WWI and WWII. Shinzo Abe’s statement about the Comfort Women and War Criminals is one of the good examples. Nowadays, Japan moves to forward and starts to re-build. Whether we like or not, Japan and Japanese politics affect to us in many ways and we need to learn and be familiar to it order to ‘catch up’ Japan. I think that I am lucky because I am from Korea, living in the Philippines and studying about Japan. It is a good chance for me to learn more and wider using comparison method.