Rising Sun Sets on the Age of Aquarius

Norman Mailer's Sumo-style slam against New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani -- in a Rolling Stone interview, he called her a "one-woman kamikaze," a "token," and a "two-fer" -- leaves me nostalgic. Not for the Prisoner of Sex's Jong-gongings of yesteryear, but for the not-so-long-ago days when the inscrutable Japanese were poised to threaten America's very way of life. Just over a decade ago, it was still a rite of passage for every high-thinking Boomer journalist to devote 500+ pages to How the Rising Sun Is Kicking Our Ass, and the national knees got wobbly just thinking about the Emperor's children buying up Sony Columbia Pictures, the Rockefeller Center, and (shudder) the Seattle Mariners.

The Nipponophobia was bogus then, as Reason enjoyed explaining, but there was a certain entertainment value in watching polite commentators struggle to find elegant packaging for their spasms of national anxiety, economic ignorance and ethno-centrism. With that once-thriving publishing niche now down the rabbit hole (or grafted onto newer foreign menaces), all we have left are the very occasional anti-Jap flashbacks from the Greatest Generation. Whose real complaint may be that Japan, after all that noise, is just another country.

Comments

[joe]

Anyone remember the movie "Rising Sun?" God what piece of crap that was. Nasty Japanese corporate types commit and cover the sexual murder of the blondest white woman you've ever seen. Tough American guys fight their way through corruption.

Then, at the end, because there are Japanses people in the movie, everyone starts kicking each other. I saw the movie in a theater in Washington DC, and I've never been so grateful for the people talking over the dialogue.

[James B.]

Also amusing was the way that writers of thrillers, who no longer had the Soviet Union to kick around, quickly identified Japan as the enemy of all that is good and right. Clancy (Debt of Honor), Cussler (Dragon), Crichton (Rising Sun) and the rest didn't even miss a beat.

[free form]

Anybody remember "Gung Ho?" God, what a piece of crap that was...

heh, heh...

[Swede]

Anybody remember Norman Mailer? God, what a peice of crap HE was...

[Some Veblenite]

You cannot have economic growth in a feudal state past a single generation.

--Thorstein Veblen (vaguely remembered quote).
Imperial Germany and The Industrial Revolution.

[Lowdog]

joe - yeah, the movie sucked. Especially the fact that Wesley Snipes played the role of LAPD liason with the Japanese consulate. Hello? Did the people who made the movie even read the fucking book? Crichton went to great lengths explaining how hard it was to get that position, and that there was no way in hell a black man would get it.

Sorry, don't know much about Mailer...

[tros]

Anyone remember the movie "Rising Sun?" God what piece of crap that was. Nasty Japanese corporate types commit and cover the sexual murder of the blondest white woman you've ever seen. Tough American guys fight their way through corruption.

I never saw the movie. I've made it a point not to buy into any anti-Japanese sentiment for the sole reason that Crichton wrote about it. I'm sure it's just like the rest of his stuff. The movie sucks, and I read the book in practically one sitting.

[quaker120]

Yeah, I remember those heady days. Nice that we'll get to live them all over again in the next few years--but with China as the Great Yellow Menace.

[Stevo Darkly]

Here's everything I know about Norman Mailer:

1) He's a big-shot writer of some kind.

2) Several years ago, he was interviewed by the now-defunct science (sort of) magazine Omni for his views on exploring and settling space. Norm didn't think it was a good idea. Specifically, he thought colonizing Mars was a bad idea, because he understood the planet was incredibly hot, and human beings would have a hard time living there. I puzzled over that, until I realized he meant Venus. Then I thought: If he doesn't know the difference between Venus and Mars, why in hell is he being interviewed for an article on the pros and cons of space colonization, as if he were some kind of expert? Why didn't someone at Omni seek clarification, correction, or deletion of his mistake before they embarrassed him and the magazine by printing it? Maybe I'm just projecting my own space-geekiness, but don't most high-schoolers at lest know that Venus is hot and Mars is cold? Did Mailer's ego prevent him from realizing he was being asked to fart out opinions, for print, on a topic he knew nothing about?

This began, or at least accelerated, my loss of respect for (a) celebrities giving their opinions on Big Important Issues, not because they know what they're talking about, but because they are celebrities, and (b) Omni magazine. I wasn't very impressed with (c) Mailer, either.

[ChicagoTom]

Stevo,

Mars must be hot....its the "Red" planet. Red is for hot, no? Or is it that Mars is communist?

[Jason Ligon]

I enjoy the contrast between the foreign phobia of the 80s and the version we have today. Japan was going to make us all unemployed in part because they did everything better than we did. The argument was basically that their lack of unions made them wage slaves who could bury us under mountains of efficient production. The cost of Japanese labor was extraordinarily high because of the job-for-life commitments of major employers. In the 80s, the cost of labor wasn't to be feared, it was more that we just couldn't compete.

Nowadays we are going to be doomed by low cost labor. Otherwise, it is the same story.

You'd almost think the AFL-CIO was writing all of the dialogue.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Mailer wasn't talking about Venus, he was talking about Israel.

[Todd Fletcher]

Yep, China is the new Japan. Krugman says so.

[MikeP]

As quaker120 and Jason Ligon say, Nipponophobia has not left us: it has merely transmorgraphied into Sinophobia.

Every freaking argument we hear about China in the 00's was made about Japan in the 80's. "Japan invests in technology. We have a terrible trade deficit. Japan is buying our real estate and companies. The United States must have a national economic policy to defend ourselves!"

It is really depressing. People (by people I suppose I mean journalists) can't imagine a universe where the United States is not number one in everything. "300 million new high tech workers in the last decade in China, India, and Eastern Europe. Doom for America! Silicon Valley's 1 million high tech jobs are in trouble! The United States must have a national economic policy to defend ourselves!"

The parochial feudalism and economic illiteracy of this mindset resists description....

[ChicagoTom]

Did Japan invest as much in US Treasury Notes in the '80s as China has today? Would that make a difference in their potential impact on our economy?

(Is Japan in the 80s and China today really a apples to apples comparison ?)

Just asking

[joe]

And Shawn Connery couldn't lift his foot above his knee, so during the fight scenes, they'd quickly cut from Snipes delivering a sharp head kick, back to a Japanese guy in a suit falling away from Connery, while the old fella "landed" back on two feet.

[Dogzilla]

If China keeps improving their standard of living to reach the level of, say, Japan or Taiwan, they will eclipse the US many times over in economic power and if they wish, military power...It's the demographic 1.3 billion-pound gorilla. I say more power to them. Maybe then they will have to be the World Police, lone mega-power responsibility, blah blah blah. The question is, will conservatives still "love America" when were not the biggest, baddest country on the Bloc?

[Herman]

If/when we see the advent of Team Zhongguo: World Police, they'll need to practice that outside of Asia force projection thing. They're trying, but it probably isn't something you can do in a few short years. Studying rusty Russian and British aircraft carriers is only a start.

I would guess American conservatives will spend a lot of time emulating they British conservatives they seem to love so much: telling even more boring stories about the rough but good old days of Pax Americana, crying about the cuurent generation not having men of vision like Reagan and W, and most of all needling the Chinese for not learning the lessons of American Imperial History.

[Don Mynack]

Dogzilla, smoke another bowl for me brother, cause there ain't no way that's ever happening.

[Todd Fletcher]

China just barely surpasses Italy in GNP. That's the same wealth shared between 30 million vs 1 billion people. They have a really really really long way to go.

[joe]

Jason Ligon, aren't those two contradictory statements about Japanese labor practices? "The argument was basically that their lack of unions made them wage slaves who could bury us under mountains of efficient production. The cost of Japanese labor was extraordinarily high because of the job-for-life commitments of major employers."

[MikeP]

Did Japan invest as much in US Treasury Notes in the '80s as China has today?

Well, since Japan's current holdings of treasury securities is three times that of China, I would guess the answer to that would be "yes".

Now, in terms of growth, China's 15% in the last 9 months is quite a bit more than Japan's.

But, if you want real worry, look at the United Kingdom. They've doubled their holdings in the last 9 months and have passed the dreaded "Caribbean Banking Centers" to become the number three foreign holder.

Hmmm. Of the top three foreign holders -- Japan, China, Britain -- which one has had actual designs to conquer the United States, even going to war -- twice! -- to occupy and make America part of their expanding economic empire?

It's frightening. Pretty soon there will be giant neon airships in the sky bellowing commercials in an English accent.

[Giant Floating Jumbotron]

"I'm disrespectful to dirt! Can you see I am serious! For lucky best wash, use Mr. Sparkle!"

[Jimbo]

Joe, you need to watch Charles Bronson's "Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects" for rock-bottom anti-Japanese depravity (not to mention child prostitution, pimp rape, "john" rape...) This movie made "Death Wish II-IVIX" look like the Care Bears. It's still not as mind-sullying as "The Evil That Men Do" though. The man had a long career.

[Will Allen]

It is a testament to the journalism profession's lack of accountability for the blather spewed out that James Fallows is still seen as someone worth paying attention to. His articles on Japan which appeared in The Atlantic were laughable then, and merely embarrassing now. Or, rather, would be embarrassing, if the profession had any shame.

[Michael Keferl]

I read Dogs and Demons by Alex Kerr (referenced in the blog post) and it's a terrible piece of trash. It demonstrates pretty well the situation here regarding corruption, but is full of ridiculous assumptions. Don't pay it too much mind. Even though I live in Japan I certainly don't know everything, but take it from me on this one...

[R C Dean]

They have a really really really long way to go.

And they lack the tools to get there, unless they become the first totalitarian dictatorship without the rule of law or property rights in history to do so. If you think the Chinese are operating with anything other than the rankest kind of crony capitalism, and that only in a few provinces on the coast, then you've been reading way too much Krugman.

The only China catches up with us, economically and technologicaly, as far as I can tell, is to become more like us in some pretty fundamental ways. And I hope they do.

[Jason Ligon]

joe:

"Jason Ligon, aren't those two contradictory statements about Japanese labor practices? "The argument was basically that their lack of unions made them wage slaves who could bury us under mountains of efficient production. The cost of Japanese labor was extraordinarily high because of the job-for-life commitments of major employers."

"Wage slaves" was a poor choice of words in the sense that it normally conveys low wages. What I meant was that the perception was that Japanese employees would work slavishly for thier companies in terms of hours, in direct contrast to AFL-CIO demands for more breaks and the like. The truth was that overall compensation for Japanese employees was extraordinarily high, but that high compensation came at a cost of looong hours.

The old gripe was "they work too hard". The new gripe is "they don't get paid enough money."

[danny bloom]

La Kakutani

Oops, he did it again. Jewish-American novelist Norman Mailer, a
grumpy old man at 82, took a swipe at Japanese-American literary
critic Michiko Kakutani in a magazine interview recently. [PHOTOS OF
BOTH HERE: http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/323790p-276748c.html%5D
Kakutani, 50 and the daughter of a retired Yale maths professor who
came up with the "fixed point theorem," is a Yale graduate and has
been a book reviewer for the New York Times for over 25 years, even
winning a Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1998. In the interview,
Mailer, whose books have often been dismissed by Kakutani, used
several racist and politically incorrect terms, calling the Times
reporter a "one-woman kamikaze" and an "Asiatic, a feminist," who was
a "token" minority hire at the popular newspaper. This led the Asian
American Journalist Association
[http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000972112]
to issue a protest letter over Mailer's "racist" comments. So who is
Michiko Kakutani? Click here [http://kakutani101.blogspot.com] and read
an informal, gossipy blogsite about her.