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Musings Report 2024-28 7-13-24 Every Society Needs a Pressure Relief Valve
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Every Society Needs a Pressure Relief Valve
Every society needs a pressure relief valve for those who don't fit into society's approved slots or those who can no longer sustain "normal life." This need for pressure relief valves increases as "normal life" becomes more stressful and precarious, and as the status quo works tirelessly to deny that "normal life" has become a pressure cooker with no conventional escape.
The pressure relief valve can be officially or unofficially enabled, or it can be frowned upon / verboten. It can be positive or negative, both for the individual and society.
The more extreme the pressure, the more extreme the responses of those who can no longer take it.
When "normal life" is devoid of human connection, stripped of purpose and meaning, alienating and coarsening, with a bleak future of servitude and conformity, then we resign ourselves to it and try to fill the void with frenzied activity: manic travel, manic dining out, manic gambling, manic posting on social media, manic gaming, manic consumerism, manic bingeing, etc.
If these fail--and in some sense, they all fail--then we seek to escape, to withdraw, to move decisively away from the source of stress / pain of our current "normal life."
Tragically, taking one's life is one escape from "normal life."
In countries where legal and illegal drugs are easily available such as the U.S., then alcohol / drugs is one way to dull the pain of "normal life."
Not only is this destructive, it is not a complete escape. So there has to be some other real-world pressure relief valve, sanctioned, informally sanctioned, or unsanctioned by authorities.
Two methods of escape embedded in human nature have been assigned names in Japan; Johatsu (evaporated people) and Hikikomori (extreme social withdrawal). They've been named because they're common, and uniquely embedded in Japanese culture and society.
Longtime readers know of my lifelong associations with Japan: I studied the language, geography, history and literature academically, have visited Japan, have Japanese friends, stood amidst the ruins of my wife's grandmother's house in Niigata prefecture, a home she left as a teenage "picture bride" to join a husband she'd never met in Hawaii, informally "studied" the culture through its many classic films (Kurosawa's 1970 film Dodes'ka-den is a must-see) and watched Japanese TV programs, which are generally only available in two U.S. markets: Hawaii and Los Angeles.
You can learn a lot about a culture by watching its TV programs. For example, current Japanese police procedurals (mysteries) often feature the detectives questioning people living in homeless encampments to see if they happened to witness the crime in question. Wait, homeless encampments in Japan? Well, yes.
This article sheds light on the erosion of community in Japan:
Life at the heart of Japan’s lonely deaths epidemic: 'I would be lying if I said I wasn't worried'; They are an important reminder of what happens when community ties give way to social isolation.
Johatsu--suddenly vanishing into thin air to start a new life somewhere else, with zero connection to your previous life--is a global phenomenon embedded in human nature: when things become impossible, move on. But it has a special role in Japan as an informally accepted pressure relief valve.
Officially, 100,000 individuals are reported missing every year in Japan, and all but 11,000 are found. Those 11,000 did not wander off; they planned their evaporation, and may have hired "night movers" to aid their vanishing.
A substantial but unknown number of people vanish into thin air without being reported as missing. One of the authorities interviewed in this video estimated that over time, the total number of Johatsu may be as high as 1 million. Vanishing without a trace (47 minutes)
Hikikomori refers to the spectrum of social withdrawal, from complete withdrawal into the confines of a bedroom at home, never leaving the room or house, to those who go to work and go shopping but return home without any social contact.
Hikikomori is not an abstraction to me. There is a hikikomori two doors down from our house. We've seen the curtains move in his room when we visit with his mother and sister, and after five years, he allowed me to glimpse him when he was home alone and I stopped by to share some fresh vegetables from our gardens. I think he saw and heard my wife and I often enough over the years that he felt OK coming to the door.
Extreme social isolation serves the same purpose of vanishing from the pressures of everyday life.
A shrinking life: Why some Asian youth withdraw from the world.
Two comments of the 14,481 comments on the Johatsu video capture the essence of this hermetically sealed pressure cooker of social pressure.
"I’m a young Japanese girl and I can attest that it’s really hard to live here. The constant pressure of my parents, peers, and yourself as well. It’s the standards that you have to achieve. Sometimes, I want to escape to Europe or USA and live a new life, to start a new 'me' that no one knows. Then l realize a lot of people are like me, still trying to live normal everyday life. What is the meaning of life? Our existence? No one have the answer but ourselves."
"When you disappear, everyone looks for you. But when you're alive, you are invisible."
Moving anonymously in a densely populated digital society is a challenge, and Japan has in effect legally authorized Johatsu as an approved escape valve by instituting extremely rigorous privacy laws: you are allowed to register anonymously with the local police (who are required by law to keep track of every resident in every household in their jurisdiction--something we discovered while visiting Japan and the local police stopped by to find out who we were).
Moving anonymously in Japan is for many women a matter of safety or even life / death. I was surprised (and horrified) by the statistic that up to 30% of Japanese women suffer from domestic abuse, though only 3% dare report it. Though we're presented with a narrative that Japan is a "safe country," that is not actually true. Random street crime may be rare, but domestic abuse, sexual harassment and bullying at school or work are extremely common.
That the authorities support the sudden abandonment of one's everyday life speaks volumes about Japan's pressure-cooker society, rampant domestic abuse and the need to provide a safe pressure relief valve for those trapped in untenable lives.
Sexual harassment and bullying at school or work are often cited by hikikomori as the trigger for their withdrawal from society.
The pain of withdrawal is intense: the loneliness and sense of being worthless are extremely painful, so painful that many are tempted to consider suicide. That individuals feel the social abuse and pressure is so terrible that they choose the suffering of isolation, loneliness and a sense of being worthless says something profound about modern societies--not just Japan's, but every society characterized by domestic violence, drug abuse, addiction, vanishing into thin air and extreme social withdrawal.
If modern economies and societies are truly as secure and wonderful as so many claim--look at the apps on your phone--wow!--then why are so many trying to fill the emptiness of our way of life with manic travel, manic dining out, manic gambling, manic posting on social media, manic gaming, manic consumerism, manic bingeing? Why are so many burning out and withdrawing because they no longer have the strength to do all the work and "shadow work" required to keep the pressure cooker from blowing? Why do so many escape into addictions, or vanish into thin air, or completely withdraw from a social order that is devoid of sociability?
Why do modern societies need such destructive, drastic pressure relief valves?
The conventional response is to avoid the question altogether via denial and magical thinking. But this isn't an answer. As Freud observed, "Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways."
Highlights of the Blog
How Will We Distribute the Pain Ahead? 7/12/24
Here's Our Big Problem: The Ratchet Only Moves Us Closer to the Cliff 7/10/24
No Reform or Leader Is Going to Save the Status Quo--We're On Our Own 7/8/24
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Our Groff variety lychee trees yielded an unprecedented early harvest--we distributed 125 pounds of fruit to family, friends and neighbors. Another entire harvest of fruit is still on the tree, still green; we anticipate a late harvest in August. Climate change is affecting crops and yields in all sorts of peculiar, unpredictable ways.
What's on the Book Shelf
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (2024, Jonathon Haidt)
To Save Everything, Click Here (2014, Evgeny Morozov)
Exploration of "Solutionism," the claim that technology can solve all problems.
Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age (2011, Douglas Rushkoff)
The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (1944, Karl Polanyi)
From Left Field
NOTE TO NEW READERS: This list is not comprised of articles I agree with or that I judge to be correct or of the highest quality. It is representative of the content I find interesting as reflections of the current zeitgeist. The list is intended to be perused with an open, critical, occasionally amused mind.
Many links are behind paywalls. Most paywalled sites allow a few free articles per month if you register. It's the New Normal.
When the Doctor Says Your Disease Is Just Stress: Chronic disease symptoms are often dismissed by physicians — and patients themselves. But that comes from a complex relationship between sickness and stress itself.
How ‘Rural Studies’ Is Thinking About the Heartland: What’s the matter with America’s rural voters? Many scholars believe that the question itself is the problem.
Life at the heart of Japan’s lonely deaths epidemic: ‘I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried’; They are an important reminder of what happens when community ties give way to social isolation.
How your FedEx driver is helping cops spy on You (via Cheryl A.)
‘Babylon Berlin’ Stars Talk Season 4: Fascism, Crime and Dancing in 1930s Germany
The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture
I Took Ozempic, Then I Got Pancreatitis
Popular weight loss drugs linked to rare but severe stomach problems, study finds.
Ozempic, Wegovy Users More Likely to Develop 'Stomach Paralysis'
New Study Reveals Ozempic, Wegovy Linked To 'Potentially Blinding Eye Condition'
As obesity rates rise in the U.S. and worldwide, new weight-loss drugs surge in popularity.
'It needs to stay in the loop': German reuse schemes turn shopping upside down.
"Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly." Franz Kafka
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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