Quote:
Originally Posted by drobertbaker
I respect you Meo, and I respect your opinions.
I hear what you're saying. The director is definitely trying to make a point and I think you expressed it very well.
But I think his final point was puerile, or inspiringly naive, if you prefer.
I was impressed when Takizawa pooled all the NEET's input and used it to solve the problem of the incoming cruise missiles.
I was impressed when Takizawa mustered the NEETs to evacuate the target area and save all those lives.
These were real demonstrations of not only the potential of these written-off people, but of actually harnessing them for useful ends by applying some creativity and faith (and coercion and lots of money).
But his final solution was essentially: - giving a national pep talk - "C'mon everybody, let's all just try to be a little nicer to each other." In America, this is known as "Yes, we can!" It's not working.
- encouraging the NEETs to sell their used video games to each other
- an economic stimulus package of 1 yen to everybody in the country. Japan has been trying this for decades on a much larger scale with little result.
He was trying to create awareness of the problem. Well, everybody seems to know there's a problem. What's needed is some real solutions.
There is no simple magic bullet that one man can pull out a hat. But a basket of real actions, no matter how large the basket need be, is infinitely more effective than a collection of good vibes.
Things are changing in places the naked eye cannot see. Imperceptible change sounds a lot like no change. What would be your approach to a patient who was improving in ways that couldn't be detected?
Symbolic challenges are indeed how miracles are worked by great leaders, but they're few and far between. And they're always accompanied by strong concrete actions that are enabled by the spread of the new inspirational mind-set articulated by the leader. And they usually end up creating a new range of problems.
What he's trying to do is create grass-roots support for a concept, an attitude, an outlook. Which is hard-core political work requiring the dedication and hard work of vast amounts of people over a long period of time. A whole lot of talking.
Once he's done what he needs to do, he may have an old lady waiting for him.
P.S. Maybe the bottom line is that the director got to make HIS "phone call to the whole country". |
But the thing with Akira is that, while the action is pretty much perfectly in line with his personality, to me one of the reasons why he decides not to impose his will and his proposed solutions on the country and its people is two-fold.
1. He's attempting to put into focus that, again, strict adherence to specific methods and ideologies is one of the reasons why there is much stagnation in not just the economy of Japan but in the minds and will of its people, specifically the younger generations alienated by the older generations and truned into NEETs. It's an attempt to let the minds and the ideas of the alienated generation to "flow freely" so to speak. He can't propose concrete and working solutions because he is in fact part of this generation, and his beliefs are still mere hypotheses and abstract ideals that have never been tested. This in turn currently what their generation is only capable of because they haven't been able actually put their beliefs into practice because the older generations attempt to stick with old-school methods and traditions forbade them from changing the paradigm of the social structure, to an extent the economic systems, and much less the political landscape.
The NEET generation of which he is a part of cannot propose truly effective solutions because none of their ideas have been tested and implemented. Remember of course that this is precisely the method in which truly effective solutions and conclusions are made, as the scientific method states to test and experiment with the best-made ideas you have until you find the best one you can use. Hypotheses work in the ideal conditions but reality is far from ideal, and to do that you have to give new ideas and new beliefs a chance to be tested and to be used.
So in Akira's case, it's not he can't present solutions, but it's because he and his generation have none. What he then asks for is the benefit of the doubt: that today's generation be given the chance to break out of the stagnating mold and have their time in the spotlight to try and work their own brand of magic to see if the new things they bring to the table will work when the old ways no longer do.
This is itself ironic because previous generations likely did the same thing, that is to break out of the mold and to find a new way to revitalize the nation from a system that is no longer working, only now these very same generations are stagnating by refusing the change themselves. Think of the Meiji Restoration and post-WW2 Japan. It's a vicious cycle that is repeating itself.
2. From that, he's also attempting to find a way out of the vicious cycle by specifically not imposing a singular and unifying will. Instead, the lack of instruction and the dissemination of the money to everyone is Japan is a challenge for the expression of individuality in terms of activities, ideas, plans etc. He indirectly tells everyone to do something with their own lives and the lives of their fellow Japanese in their own way, in the way they think is best. Rather than have everyone adhere to a specific hive mentality, everyone is to strive to find their own way out of this mess and create better lives for themselves and each other.
This is specifically why I think Ato ended the game and pretty much declared Akira the winner. In fact you could say that Mononobe and Akira are like the two opposing sides to the old Ato Saizo. He saw himself in Mononobe, and by his own admission he says that somewhere along the way he lost faith in himself and his fellow man. Akira on the other hand was the side that refused to lose faith in the citizenry and to continue pressing on the ideals of open-mindedness and tolerance to a society hell bent on tradition and strict adherence.
To break that vicious cycle is to give everyone, specifically the NEETs, the freedom to choose their own path and their own beliefs rather than becoming a mindless drone in the collective ant colony. By not insisting on a specific solution he had in mind, he rekindles in people the light of public discourse and experimentation to find better ways and better solutions to society's problems.
Perhaps it's more due to my leanings towards grassroots activism, but I had always believed that everything starts on the bottom while a lot of people think everything can be solved from the top down. To me it's precisely this mindset that you need immediate and sweeping solutions to issues that you realize how faulty your plans are. You start everything so broad and generalized that you miss out on the minute details that may seem small but end up being gargantuan problems in the end.
And in the end it's these small things that affect the people the most. The little people, the average Joes, are the ones who get caught up in the small details the higher ups fail to see in the attempt to change everything in one fell sweep.