Message from mshadonix

[Anonymous]

After reading the Articles about the Consumer Revolution in Postwar Japan, and about the attempts to transform the consumption concepts of the Japanese families through the change of eating, clothing and housing habits, and reading about all of the advertising and "aggressive" marketing that goes along with the changing of traditionally "Frugal" habits into "consumer" habits, it seemed like I was looking into a mirror and watching one society turn into a reflection of our society.
I feel a bit conflicted, because I see some of the bad things that a "consumer" oriented society has brought to the Japanese society during the 1960's. Some of which included changing from an extended family unit into the nuclear families in which two-income couples became more common. A change from Frugality as a virtue, to the ideal of getting more and more "stuff."
The readings also showed us that progress does come at a price. The pollution caused by chemical fertilizer run-off consumed by the fish and then humans, caused mercury poisoning for many. Again, it was like looking in a mirror, especially when reading about how the companies tried to cover it up. I never used to think about things like "carbon footprints,” but our Governments' approach to the rebuilding of Japan really lead to their increase in these “bad" things that came along with modernizing a society along capitalistic lines.
However, the more I thought about these "bad" elements, I began to think about how far Japan has come along to help the world to reduce this "carbon footprint" with energy saving appliances, factories and cars. And how their development of medical and computer technologies have helped to save lives all over the world. I can see both sides of the consumer revolution issue in Japan, and I also see that the struggles they encountered in the 1960's were necessary in order to get to where they are today.
I think there will be a lot of lively discussions tomorrow about this topic.