When there is no different future when struggle or not struggle, and when you know that all the upward channels of life are closed, what will you do? The answer given by young Japanese people is: lie down completely, have no desires or demands, and live a life of silence.
The famous Japanese scholar Damae Kenichi said it more bluntly in his book: Japanese young people have no desires, no dreams, and no motivation, and Japan has fallen into a society of low desires.
What is low desire? To put it bluntly, it is both Buddha and depressed and useless. Don’t want to fall in love, don’t want to get married, don’t want to have children, don’t want to buy a house, don’t want to work, don’t want to make a name for themselves, and don’t want to be successful in material things. Even the normal behaviors of going out and socializing have begun to reject them.
They began to choose to stay at home and live in cocoons. Many of them lived by relying on their parents. They were not concerned about state affairs, nor were they curious about the world around them, nor did they think about what kind of person they should become. They just used silence and escape to resist the world's expectations and demands for them. To put it nicely, this is a kind of personal life of a little happiness. To put it bluntly, this is just lying flat and scattering.
In China, if a person says that I will never buy a house, a car, a marriage, or a child in my life, then the people around me will definitely regard him as an alien and even think he is crazy. But this is not the case in Japan. It is considered very normal for young people in Japan to have this idea.
The backbone of a country has begun to live a low-desire and low-consumption style. National development and scientific and technological innovation naturally begin to lag behind others. But I have no desires and no desires, what can you do to me?
In 2015, Japanese TV station once reported a "home god": he has not gone out for 27 years, and has only relied on TV and newspapers to obtain external information. No friends, no social interaction, no buying clothes or dressing up, no bathing for many years, and even simpler meals a day, relying on a 70-year-old mother to make money.
data shows that the number of Japanese otakus men currently exceeds 1.5 million, accounting for 3% of the total number of Japanese men. According to Japanese social surveys, the virginity rate in Japan is as high as 40%, and the virginity rate is also as high as 36%. The proportion of women aged 18-39 in Japan who do not get married or fall in love has exceeded 40%.
Desire is the most basic instinct possessed by all animals. The basic desires of animals are survival and reproduction. As the highest animal, human desires should be endless. Why does Japanese-style low desires, or even anti-humane situations without desires? How can there be young people with low desires in the world? What are the fatal effects of low desire on a country?
All of this can be found in Japan's development history in the past nearly a hundred years.
, from Showa men to Heisei waste, to Rei and Pseudo-nius
Today's Japan and thirty-four years ago, it is a world of difference. Japan in the Showa era, to be precise, was Japan in the 1980s and 1990s. It was not only the world's second largest economic power, but its total economic output even reached 71.9% of the United States at its peak. As early as 1988, Japan's per capita GDP of reached 25,100 US dollars, while my country's per capita GDP was 1,400 yuan during the same period.
Japan in the Showa era was not a low-desire society. At that time, young Japanese people were positive and brave, and they were not useless at all, let alone at home. The home culture could not find any shadow in Japan.
The fundamental reason is that Japan has been developing rapidly in the 30 years after 1964. The whole country is in a very excited state, young people have a bright future, and the country has hope. Especially Japan in the 1990s created a myth that shocked the world.
Japan The economy has developed rapidly after World War II , and I am more accustomed to calling it the premeditation of the United States. To put it bluntly, it is the process of "fattening the pig and then killing it and eating meat".
In 1951, Japan and the United States signed the -Japanese Security Treaty , abandoning all state powers and officially becoming the protector of the United States. Subsequently, the United States began to provide comprehensive support to Japan in terms of economy. The most worth mentioning is that the Dodge Plan - the United States provided full support to Japan. In addition to the US dollar and technology output, it provided support of US$1.6 billion in the first three years alone.
superimposed on Korean War , Japan, as the U.S. military's military base and the supply place for combat materials, made a war money, so the Japanese economy was completely activated.
More importantly, the United States also withstood the opposition and resistance from Europe and pushed Japan to participate in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, giving Japan the most-favored-nation treatment. This also prompted Japan's potential for rapid economic growth in the next 30 years. To be precise, after World War II, Japan achieved rapid economic development and became the world's second largest economic power in just 23 years.
In 1960, the Japanese government implemented the "National Income Doubling Plan", which planned to double Japan's national income within 10 years. In the end, the plan was completed in just 7 years. During this period, the average annual growth rate of GDP exceeded the United States, Britain, and West Germany. In 1970, Japan's GDP exceeded 65% of the planned figure.
By 1973, Japan basically achieved industrial modernization and became a world economic power second only to the United States and the Soviet Union. In terms of production of major industrial products such as shipbuilding, radio, and color TVs, ranks first in the world, and automobiles, electronic computers, petroleum products, etc.
In 1987, Japan's per capita GDP exceeded the 20,000 US dollars mark. At this time, Japan was a typical country with a prosperous people. Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan's benchmark rate also dropped from 9% in 1980 to 2.5% in 1987.
The result is that all Japanese are buying and buying frantically, and the prices of the real estate and stock markets are soaring. Japanese media reported that at that time, the Japanese real estate market was so crazy that it could rise by 10% if you had a bowl of ramen. At that time, the Japanese even shouted arrogantly, "You can buy the United States if you sell Tokyo, and you can buy 4 United States if you sell Japan."
In one sentence summary, the 1980s was Japan's highlight moment.
In the early morning of January 7, 1989, the 124th Emperor of Japan, Hirohito died of illness. The 55-year-old crown prince, Akihito, ascended the throne and changed the reign to Heisei from the next day. The first year of Heisei was actually the starting point of Japan's decline.
Everyone must be familiar with what happened next. Japan did not replace the United States as its citizens wished and became the world's largest economic power. On the contrary, in 1985, after the United States won over the square agreement with Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, and announced that it would withdraw all preferential conditions to Japan. After a series of vigorous operations in the United States, finally, in 1990, the bubble economy of Japan's stock and real estate markets ushered in a complete collapse, and Japan entered a decades-long financial crisis and has not recovered.
The stock market once set a record of 60% falling in one day, and housing prices fell by 30% in one day, and fell back to the level in 1986 in three months. The Japanese who bought houses and stocks in 1990 became the most tragic buyer in the world.
In the first ten years of the year, the average number of suicides in Japan exceeded 32,000 per year.
data shows that in the late Showa period, there was no unemployment rate across Japan, and full employment was achieved. In 1987, the two industries of real estate and stock market had a total of nearly 4 million job demands, but the total number of graduates in Japan that year was less than 2 million. The result is that major companies are competing for college students. In order to recruit people, many companies rack their brains to advance their salary, send red envelopes to job seekers, distribute travel and vacation gift packages, and solve the housing problems of job seekers. In order to retain job seekers, some companies will also bring male students to the red light area to experience a different life.
It can be said that Showa men born after 1935 became the backbone of the rapid development of Japanese society in the 1960s and 1990s. At that time, Japan's economy was booming and the people's mentality was generally moving forward. To this day, the very spiritual "Showa Man" is still a symbol of the Japanese spirit.
Look at today's young Japanese people in another state: the lying tribe, the people are emerging one after another, and they have become synonymous with Internet cafe refugees, fat houses, leniency members, and empty nest youth .
2. What is the cause of low desire for young people in Japan?
Why did young people in the Heisei period, especially the " loose generation " born after the 1980s, become "waste home" and "lost generation", and even in the Reiwa period, they evolved into a strong "pseudo-woman atmosphere"?
has many reasons. The root cause is Japan's decline in the 1990s - Japan's economic bubble burst, the economy stagnated or even regressed, large-scale bankruptcy of enterprises, high unemployment rate, and due to the plummeting stock market and housing prices, many Japanese households were in debt and declared bankruptcy, and the divorce rate and crime rate began to rise sharply.
Now, young people in their thirties have basically grown up in this downward cycle. Many children have witnessed their elders facing unemployment and even jumping off buildings. Many people have witnessed that their parents were collected because of debt, so no matter how the loan interest rate was lowered, young people were unwilling to take out a loan to buy a house.
In fact, it is not that easy to buy a house in Japan. Although currently, the house prices in Japan have only recovered by about 60% before the bubble, the house prices in Japan are still 17 times the average annual income of Japanese people. This means that it will take 17 years for young people in Japan to buy a house without eating or drinking. For ordinary Japanese people, it takes at least twenty or thirty years of labor to save money to buy a house. Many Japanese people think it's stupid to do this. Villas, luxury cars, and beauties are not not not love, but love but not being able to.
superimposed on the financial crisis around 1998, and many college students "unemployed after graduation". In addition, lifelong employment system was replaced by more and more "temporary workers". Many young people saw through "the result of hard work and not working hard is no different. They are just eating and waiting to die", so many people began to become sober, depressed, and even despair. This is also the fundamental reason why " 未分类" is popular among young people in Japan.
Through the data, it is not difficult to conclude that young people in Japan are indeed the originator of the lying world: 1. Among the young people aged 20-29 in Japan, the per capita savings amount is 1.84 million yen (about 110,000 yuan), which is much higher than those in other countries, and the young people's willingness to consume is extremely low; 2. The proportion of single population has reached 30%, and it is estimated that half of Japanese people will be single by 2035; 3. More than 40% of Japanese people have never had sex. To be honest, if young people with strong spirits can even give up the instinctive need of courtship and mating, there is nothing that can make them "hero"; 4. In the international metropolis like Tokyo, 85% of young people rent houses and get married, and only 5% of young people buy cars.
It is worth mentioning that the concepts of young Japanese people during this period have changed drastically, and some young people even said bluntly, "A country that wants the people to die for it should be better to perish earlier."
Furthermore, the Japanese class has been severely solidified, and young people basically have no room for growth, which is also one of the main reasons why young people generally lack the spirit of struggle.
Japan is a society where the elderly are in power, and the phenomenon of seniority in Japanese companies is extremely serious. Positions, salary and benefits are all sorted by "come early". This means that no matter how hard a young person works, it will be difficult for him to jump to the next level. In such a company, a salary increase is very difficult. After working hard for a while, many people find that the result is no different if they work hard or not. In this case, who is willing to work hard?
The reason why Japan is like this is to put it bluntly that many industries have entered a stable state. Each enterprise has a complete process to ensure quality and production, a strict superior-under-level relationship, and a complete promotion system. Everyone has to endure slowly in this system, and there is a clear upper limit. At this time, people start to turn into screws, suppress personality, emphasize "process", and no longer encourage all kinds of sudden ideas. Don’t think about getting promoted by making great achievements, just wait and get enough experience.
It is worth mentioning that Japan has extended its retirement age to 65 in 2021, and this is not the end. Japan has also issued the "Revised Employment Stabilization Law for Senior Ages", and the scope of elderly workers is fixed to the 70s.
For young people, this is simply a bolt from the blue, which means that the elderly have to stay in their posts for another 5 years. Young people are squeezed and ordered, and the years to endure need to be extended by another 5 years.
In addition, as Kenichi Omaemae said in his book, young people in Japan generally lack the spirit of struggle, which is closely related to negative population growth and aging.
According to the population dynamic survey results released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Affairs of Japan, as of January 1 this year, Japan's total population was about 123 million, a year-on-year decrease of nearly 620,000, and negative growth for 13 consecutive years. Data shows that the city with the largest decrease in population of in 2021 is Tokyo, with a decrease of 48,592 people. Compared with the birth rate, the aging situation in Japan is even more severe. The proportion of people over 65 in Japan increased to 29%, setting a record high since statistics were found in 1994. In Japan today, one person is born every 34 seconds, but one person dies every 23 seconds. At this rate, Japan's population will fall below 100 million in 2053, and by 2065, Japan's population will drop to 88.08 million. By then, more than 40% of the population was elderly.
Based on this, Singapore Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew once issued a prophecy: the most serious problem facing Japan is the population problem. Since Japan cannot solve the population problem, Japan in the future will surely become mediocre.
Some British scholars said that before the bubble burst, Japan suffered from an "incurable disease". After the bubble burst, the condition intensified, so that in the next 30 years, the entire Japan was in a slump and society was becoming paralyzed. This "incurable disease" is that Japan completely loses its ambition and enthusiasm, and everyone lives a life of seeing the head at a glance, and the whole country is dead. The most profitable industry in Japan is still the industry 20 or 30 years ago, and the most profitable enterprise is still the one that developed before the bubble burst.
This is exactly the same as Kenichi Omaemae said that "the era of losing great ambitions".
Japan has lost all the spirit of struggle, which is also the fundamental reason why Japan's economy is stagnant, consumption cannot be raised, and young people have no desires and no desires. When everyone becomes herbivorous, then the decline of the country is inevitable. In Japan's GDP composition, personal consumption accounts for 60%. Therefore, consumption is the lifeline of Japan's economy. The best proof of Japan's ultra-low altitude flight in the past 30 years.
We have said so much, don’t think that “Japan is going to be over.” It should be noted that the above is just an analysis of the current situation of most ordinary young people in Japan and the interpretation of the causes of Japan entering a low-desire society.
What we need to know is that Japan is still the most developed country in Asia and the first-tier developed country in the world. In the past 30 years, the average wage in Japan has still only increased by 28%. If inflation is included, the wages of Japanese people have even regressed in the past 30 years. Our average wages have increased by 2747% over the past 30 years, a rate of about 100 times that of Japan. But currently, the per capita salary in Japan is still 2.7 times that of ours.
, will China follow in Japan's footsteps?
You may have seen it. Now many of our young people on the Internet often talk about "lying flat" and "showing it up" to the point, which inevitably leads to a concern: Will China enter a low-desire society like Japan?
Personally think that the next 20 years is unlikely. It has to be admitted that young people in big cities in China are under a lot of pressure. Especially after 2015, the rapid development of real estate has increased significantly, and the housing prices have increased significantly, which has caused the housing price-to-income ratio in many cities to rise sharply, and the years for young people to buy houses have been extended to forty or fifty years, or even longer. That's why there has been a continuous decline in the marriage rate and fertility rate in my country in the past five years. The "four nos" have also become popular among young people: not falling in love, not getting married, not buying a house, and not having children.
But China will not become a low-desire society like Japan in a short period of time.
On the one hand, my country's population is huge, the per capita wage is not high, and the individual deposits of residents are not large, so there is no basis for lying flat. Therefore, hard work is the only controllable element in our realization of desire.Although there are a small number of people in society who announce to the public that they "don't do it" or "don't work hard anymore", it is only limited to verbal trouble. And it has to be admitted that more young people are still eager to realize their high desires through their own efforts.
On the other hand, the essential difference between our young people and Japanese young people is that many of our young people are still fantasizing and pursuing a life of "having a house and a car". To put it bluntly, utilitarianism and desire are very strong.
These Japanese have enjoyed it as early as the 1970s and 1980s. Young people born in the Heisei era even saw the tragic situation in which their parents lived in extremely painful life for most of their lives in order to pay their mortgages. They did not want to follow their parents' footsteps and wanted to change their lifestyle.
More importantly, young Japanese people have the capital to lie flat. Japan is one of the most average wealth distribution countries in the world, so the gap between the rich and the poor in Japanese society is very small - taxes are collected for the rich and subsidies are high for middle- and low-income people. This creates a state where efforts may not necessarily result in high returns, and salted fish will never starve to death, so the Japanese desires gradually decrease.
