Upload: 30 March 2019, Last update: 9 April 2019

The definition of Dentou is not completely same as tradition although in the previous article “How a tradition survive, develop, and decline — Japan as an example“, I used tradition as a word of Dentou. Particularly, Japanese society has been putting values on Dentou. I do think that we should respect dentou, but just continuing something cannot keep dentou alive in the future.

Some Japanese people may misunderstand what “Dentou” is. “Dentou” doesn’t mean just persisting in old styles. It has essential values unchanged from the emergence of its custom. “Kanshu” includes more cases of continuity without respects as it sometimes expressed as “ashiki-kanshu” in Japanese meaning impractical custom[1]. Importantly, the values remain in modern days.

When I look at the Japanese society, people continue to do in the same way even if it is not efficient or some people are noticing that it doesn’t work.

The traditional or conventional way is not effective or not valuable in contemporary society, we don’t have to continue. Indeed, this is not dentou. We should change it to more practical style. There’s cases that traditional ways prevents progress and it often can be seen in Japanese society.

“Dentou” has a long history, but it doesn’t mean that everything old they continue is “dentou”. If it doesn’t have values evaluated in modern society, it becomes a piece of history and it has historical value.

The conservative charactaristic of Japanese society puts more emphasis on conventional ways, but it hinders progress and development. It’s sure that there’s many dentou in Japanese society they should preserve, but it should be preserved if it is valuable and evaluated in a society.

Upload: 23 March 2019, Last update: 26 March 2019

At present, diversity is a keyword. In many cases, people use this word when they gain different notions from exterior. However, I recently think that in education or in a society in larger scale, we need to increase diversity internally and it can help develop a society.

In general, diversity can be enhanced when different ideas comes into a society from outside the framework of a society. It can help people to encounter new ideas which stimulates their intelligence and facilitate the development.

In education, it’s basically the same as above. More concretely, universities receiving exchange students are trying to accept more diversities.

Indeed, diversity from outside of a framework is needed and works well, but in the same time, we should encourage the internal diversification.

The current educational system should be changed to the model that encourages personalities and characteristics of each student. Students don’t have to become similar with others. They should notice that difference is more important than similarity in development of a framework. If education can strengthen the strongpoints of each student without imposing limits on their potential, it would enhance diversity in a framework.

This model of education has positive impact on development of a society.

Not just in education, but the internal diversification in a society increases the possibility that a society develops as well.

Some might think that it would be too chaotic, but people develop a society are those who can steadily organize and bring development out of the chaos.

The traditional way of education is now time to change. When it comes to the future development, the current model of education is an obstacle for future development.

Now, Japan has developed enough to change the style of education in order to develop further.

The current way of educating students is preventing certain students who have potential to bring developments and innovations. The current circumstance is forcing everyone to be in the same page and putting more emphasis on obedience. Being obedient in this context is that students are evaluated in a way that they have to follow what teacher explained in class, although what teacher explained in class is not necessarily true or it will be renewed by others as time passed. Most of the cases teachers just following what the mainstream theories of the field of the course without having critical analysis except the teachers, especially a handful of professors, who has insightful analysis and can criticize theories. Future will be renewed by the younger and there’s no need to push the current theories to them although learning the existing ideas is important. What I want to say is that teachers should not push and force students to follow the existing theories. It hinders students from bringing new perspectives to the world.

Students are almost all the cases living in a certain framework, but it cannot bring changes (When I talk about framework, there’s some cases that people inside of the framework can expand it, but in education where teachers limit the range of learning it doesn’t happen since students basically do not get out of the framework teacher decides in the current education system).

What is important is that how we can develop the existing framework meaning that just being obedient to the existing framework doesn’t develop anything. We don’t have to agree with what teacher said and we don’t study for teacher. Also, It doesn’t necessarily mean that getting better evaluation from teacher is the purpose of studying at school. Though we should learn what has been talked historically in the field, values cannot be generated if we just follow it.

Particularly, students who can bring new ideas by themselves or bring ideas from other fields should be evaluated more. They don’t have to agree with the existing theories and even I would say that they should oppose to the idea if they can explain logically and critically based on their solid explanation.

In other words, education should more evaluate students who doubt and opposes the existing theories. This will turn out that more students can critically analyze and propose suggestions for improving the existing theories than just following the mainstream theories. And It would contribute to develop the current established ones.

Right now, Japan where a society has developed and now they are facing the question how they can advance their country, they need to have more flexibility in its education. Encouraging different values, different opinions, and different other things can be a important factor for developments.

If the education forces students to follow the established theories and to lose their personalities which are strongpoints for them, they don’t need to follow it. Having different and unique opinion is more valuable than having the same opinion with others. Having different opinions should be evaluated more than being just obedient in education.

Think of the current educational system, students are evaluated to what extent they follows what teacher explained in class, but we should more focus on different values to expand and develop. Just following the existing ideas within the framework doesn’t make any changes.

Think of the current situation in education and stagnation of Japan’s development, different values should be evaluated more and I wrote this article above.

Upload: 9 March 2019, Last update: 15 March 2019

In the 21st century, discrimination and racism still exist. Recently anti-Semitism is one of the problems in Europe. This article basically focuses on the recent cases in France. (I tried to be careful of choosing words, but let me know if there are careless words.)

I often watched news of anti-Semitism on media in these days. According to the press release of Ministry of Interior in France[1], the anti-Semitism actions in France in 2018 was 541 cases increased from 311 in 2017.

There are many anti-Semite actions covered by media. Take a look at some of those cases, one is that the window of restaurant Bagelstein was sprayed the word of Juden meaning Jews in Germain.

Also, the mail boxes with the face of Simone Veil were graffitied the hakenkreuz. Simone Veil is a historical person who came back from Nazi concentration camps in 1945 and took many political positions including Minister of Health — famously she dedicated to the legislation of abortion — and the President of European parliament[2]. As of right now, those letter boxes were already recovered[3], but the immoral action is not acceptable.

As another case, Alain Finkielkraut, a French philosopher, was insulted on street on 16 February 2019[4]. The video the participants of the Yellow vests movement insulting him were on the Internet.

Not just the cases I mentioned above, anti-Semitism actions are frequently happening. What was surprising to me was that the number of those actions has increased in 2018. It’s quite far from the world where everyone respects each other, but a society more complex than Japan has been struggling with this problem.

[1]https://www.interieur.gouv.fr/Actualites/Communiques/Lutte-contre-la-haine-la-discrimination-le-racisme-et-l-antisemitisme Accessed 18 February 2019

[2]Further details available at https://www.gouvernement.fr/1927-2017-c-etait-simone-veil Accessed 8 March 2019

[3]http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2019/02/13/97001-20190213FILWWW00096-antisemitisme-les-portraits-de-simone-veil-restaures.php Accessed 8 March 2019

[4]http://www.leparisien.fr/politique/alain-finkielkraut-insulte-il-y-a-un-sentiment-d-hostilite-tres-fort-a-l-egard-des-juifs-et-je-paie-ma-notoriete-16-02-2019-8013555.php Accessed 8 March 2019

The convenient plastic bag has been imposing huge burdens on the environment. In this article, I focused on the situation of plastic bag use in shopping in France and Japan as Japan recently discussing to start charging for plastic bag. Since the Earth is not just for us living right now nor for just human being, making decisions and taking actions less harmful to environment is fundamental. In my view, the consciousness towards environmental issues is not so high in Japan compared with Europe, but everyone needs to care this matter.

According to the article of Nikkei[1] which is one of the newspapers in Japan, Ministry of the Environment is aiming at reducing disposable plastic by making plastic bags chargeable in supermarkets and convenience stores. Some of supermarkets are already requiring extra cost for plastic bags, but it wasn’t mandatory for all of them. Especially, convenience stores in Japan are very popular, but it causes huge consumption of plastic bag.

In France, based on the website of Ministère de la Transition écologique et solidaire[2], France doesn’t allow disposable plastic bag since the beginning of July 2016. Plastic bag which can be reused (more than 50 microns) are allowed. And compared with Japan, people in France use more paper bag that is charged in supermarkets like carrefour, auchan, monoprix or their own one.

In the beginning, people in Japan may need some time to get used to it, but it would be better to introduce the custom into the society. In order to live in a sustainable society, paying attention and reduce the environmental burdens are necessary. We must not use ressources wastefully, and destructing ecosystems.

[1]https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO36683740Z11C18A0EA2000/ Accessed 3 March 2019

[2]https://www.ecologique-solidaire.gouv.fr/fin-des-sacs-plastique Accessed 3 March 2019