Today I came home with a little more energy than the previous days, so I suspect that by the time Friday hits I’ll be back to even. The human body, how does it work?
The big news around here yesterday was that the prime minister of Japan resigned, along with the shady guy in the background that was actually the prime minister. We’ve had four prime ministers in the last four years, so this is nothing new.
There are a lot of reasons why this guy quit, and most are quite complex and require a lot of background that I don’t feel like typing out at 5:30 in the morning. These important issues not withstanding, it seems like the major reason the latest PM didn’t work out was that he was indecisive.
Indecisive as a normal everyday Japanese person is perfectly OK. Most restaurants in Japan recognize this and focus on course meals so that there are less decisions. Nobody asks what kind of dressing you want on your salad, how you want your meat and what style of potatoes you’ll have. Too many decisions.
In business meetings, there usually aren’t any strong opinions; they have been worn down over time like rocks on a beach, and by the time it comes to a decision in a meeting, there is little dissent and mostly just formality.
But in a politician, this kind of non-aggressive behavior can’t stand. Here is a guy facing a ton of problems, and sometimes somebody just needs to say, “Sorry, I know that everyone won’t be happy, but I’m in charge and this is what we’re going to do.”
Instead Mr. Hatoyama spent eight months going back and forth on these issues, and in the end did very little. So the wheels turn, and somebody else will take a shot.
I was talking about this with a student, and when we talked about weak leaders he mentioned that it was a similar situation back before World War II when a succession of weak leaders led people to start to say, “How about those militant politicians – they seem pretty aggressive…”
And you know how that worked out.
As a non-voting member of the community I can do little but observe and make snarky comments, but it is interesting to see how people react to events like these. Whether you care about politics or not (and I tend to fall in the latter category), they affect everyone, and shouldn’t be ignored.
